I must say that i am a little perplexed about the diffrent races abilities.

Lazax - gets all the influence that the other players spend on the Strategy cards which is won by a bidding round, which all thay will do is get the bidding as high as possible to get as much influence as possible, not caring wether thay get the cards or not.

Sol- Only need the influence to buy back killed unit tokens and strategy cards, as they deploy units for free anywhere, whether or not there is an enemy token on the board space.

jol-nar - Gets to secretly see the influencecard during movement, Can see 1 of the enemies fleetstrength, leader, or strategy card beeing used, gets to secretly see the strategy cards during the bidding round.

Hacan - Gets all the influence used by other players deployed units, redeployment, deploys units at half cost.

Letnev - Gets a free strategycard every time they buy a strategycard during biddingface, don't remember what else they get to do

Xxcha - Gets a free unit token on board every time another player deploys units on the board, can name a card that another player can not play during combat, (mostlly defence cards).

Influence is very important in this game since they will get you good powerful cards, buying back destroyed units and deploying them.

Strategy cards is a very powerful tool to get your hands on, and if you can't get the cards you most certently will lose every battle and therefor losing the game.

Now my issue is that the only race that has a sucky "benfitial" race ability is the Jol-nar, as they will be beaten at everything. I mean the get to see the influence card, Whoohoo great you think, think again. Sure you may get to see where the influence might be placed next round, But everyone knows this and will therefore see to it that getting that influence will be extremly hard for Jol-nar, since the others will go where that player goes. Right, what about the strategy card ability? They get to see the cards afront to be bid on, great! Not so great as the others will wait and see which cards jol-nar bids on, and then overbidd him.

What about the battle ability? See what cards the opponent will use? what use is that when you don't have any cards to counter the attack cards in the first place or to not being alowed to play that particular card! See how many units the opponent will use on the dial? doesnt help you either if you can't get to kill their leader or your numbers is to small to counter. See the leader being used? come on this is only if you have the right traitorcard for that particular race or to see the leaders strength(which is unusable against the Xxcha since htey all are 5 in strength).

I see these so called "benfits" as a major disadvantage as the Jol-nar can and will never get enough influence to either buy cards or units.

And the rules about the loser loses everything in battle is just too unfair wether or not the units were used in the dial. The loser should therefor be able to flee to next system with the remaining units that were not used during battle instead of losing it all and so must spend inluence to get them back and your limited to 5 units each round including the free recruitment.

I find this game incredibly boring with the jol-nar's "spesial ability" which is lame compared to the others.

The Hacan and Lazax should never be aloud to form an alliance since they will get all the influence and can share them freely between themselves. (Lazax alliance ability).

I disagree very much. Jol-Nar, while maybe not the strongest, are my favorite race to play and in fact have a decently powerful ability.

First, to fix a few things you've said.

Lazax can bid high, but they care whether or not they get cards. If they bid high and get the card, they're losing a lot of influence and that's how players drain the lazax of influence. Once their hand is full, they can't bid anymore. Other players overbidding cards is a way to make the Lazax broke if they employ this strategy.

Sol doesn't need much influence, which is great, but aside from the high revival rate and cheap deployment, I feel they are one of the weakest races as their other abilities aren't that great and maneuverability on the board is limited because they CAN'T deploy anywhere for free, they can only deploy to a limited selection of spaces. It takes them a long time to reach the right half of the board.

Letnev also get to keep all 4 traitor cards during setup, which is awesome. They're another faction I love to play as, but they have just as much trouble getting influence as Jol-Nar does. If that's the entire reason the Jol-Nar suck, that they can't get influence to afford anything, than by your logic Letnev should suck just as bad because they're just as poor.

Now you can win without strategy cards, but it is very difficult. Getting good strategy cards is key. This is why Jol-Nar have such a great advantage, they know what all the strategy cards are. You argue that whenever they bid on anything, everybody else will just overbid it, but if Jol-Nar bids on everything, then every card will be overbid by all of the other players, rendering them too broke to deploy. Jol-Nar just has to know how to bid, and how and when to bluff. In addition to when they get the cards they're interested in, when they get into battle, since they've seen what cards that race has picked up during the bidding phase, they should have a really good idea of what cards will be played. So Jol-Nar can request for either number of units or the leader to be revealed instead, and if the player playing Jol-Nar is good enough, they'll know all or 3/4 of his opponent's battle plans. So he'll know what attack/defense cards to use, or lack of such cards. He'll know when to use a good leader, or to sacrifice a weak leader. The only serious disadvantage Jol-Nar has in battle is against the Letnev because they get bonus cards that Jol-Nar doesn't see. But overall, I think Jol-Nar is an amazing race. In my games, because of how well I've played them and their abilities, people wrongly believe that they may be overpowered even.

Sotherlands Gamingclub (SØrlandet spillklubb) said:

As the saying goes, it's not the size that counts, it's how you use it. The faction abilities in this game are highly asymmetrical. As such, how well you can perform with a given faction depends more on how well you can manipulate your enemies (and your allies) to accomplish your goals. Bearing that in mind, here are some responses to your observations. Not criticisms, mind you. I'm not saying you're wrong about anything you said, I'm just offering you a different perspective on how to play the game:

Sotherlands Gamingclub (SØrlandet spillklubb) said:

You are correct that Lazax will want to get the bidding up as high as he can. His allies will probably be willing to help with that, knowing that the money they spend will go to him and he can send it right back to them. However, his enemies will also know that this rather obvious strategy is in his favour. So, if Lazax tries to start bidding up a card, you can always back off before the price gets too high. Buy your cards after Lazax and his cronies are full up and unable to continue bidding.

Or, you can try to outbluff him by engaging in the bidding war and (hopefully) bailing out before he does. When Lazax wins a card personally, he must pay the bank, so goading him into paying too much for a card can be a great way to syphon off his funds ( if you can goad him into it.)

Generally speaking, however, it's true that Lazax will be rolling in influence. Everybody needs strategy cards, after all.

Sotherlands Gamingclub (SØrlandet spillklubb) said:

Indeed, but Jol-Nar also knows that everyone else knows what he knows, so Jol-Nar can bluff by moving to a space where influence will NOT appear to force everyone else into fighting over a space that is ultimately worthless. Or he can move to two different spaces (with the right strategy cards) and force people to guess which one is valueable. An experienced Jol-Nar player might even move to TWO USELESS spaces, just to screw over an enemy alliance that decides to split their forces.) Bluff and counter-bluff, that's what makes this game great.

In the olden days of Dune, when secret conversations were allowed, Atreides (Jol-Nar) could also offer to sell the information about when the spice blow would occur to gain influence. Technically, he still can, if you want to house rule that such conversations be allowed again.

Sotherlands Gamingclub (SØrlandet spillklubb) said:

Once again, bluffing is what makes this game great. If Jol-Nar bids high on a worthless card, he might fool other players into bidding higher. If he does this often enough, people might even begin to second-guess the pragmatism in following Jol-Nar's lead.

And again, if secret conversations were allowed, Jol-Nar could sell the information.

Sotherlands Gamingclub (SØrlandet spillklubb) said:

You seem to be assuming Jol-Nar will have no strategy cards, which is foolishness. Even if everyone outbids him on cards because he's too direct to bluff on the bidding, sooner or later they'll run out of hand space and then they won't be allowed to bid. Jol-Nar can still get cards, and he can use his battle ability to make sure those cards he has don't get wasted.

And looking at the dialed number and leader is hardly worthless either. If you know how much your opponent is dialing, then you know how much YOU need to dial to beat him. If you think you can reasonably guess how many he will dial, peeking at his leader lets you see how much else will get added. Traitor card or not, that's useful information (except against the Xxcha, admittedly.)

Sotherlands Gamingclub (SØrlandet spillklubb) said:

I think you're inexperienced in the game. No offense. Jol-Nar is generally one of the more powerful factions in the game due his good starting position. He's one of two factions who can reliably go for a first-turn win if he plays his cards right, so to speak. As for his faction abilities, they are admitedly more subtle than some of the other factions, but once you get the hang of them, they're not as shabby as they might appear.

Sotherlands Gamingclub (SØrlandet spillklubb) said:

The harsh consequences of losing a battle are an important part of the game. They are the primary reason why one does not enter into battle lightly. This game is mostly political in nature. It's about forging alliances, manipulating opponents, and out-guessing the other players. If you approach this game like a war game and engage in battle every turn, it's no wonder you find yourself out of cards and losing. As a rule of thumb, you should only be fighting when you KNOW the fight will gain you something valuable. Otherwise you play for position and try to make your opponents do things for you whenever possible.

Sotherlands Gamingclub (SØrlandet spillklubb) said:

Hacan-Lazax will indeed be a rich alliance, and that is undeniably powerful. It doesn't help matters that Hacan and Lazax are two of the easiest factions for newbies to figure out, but there are ways of dealing with them, which you will discover, if you have the patience to continue playing this game.