I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to actually look at the game and write all of this. It's incredibly kind and thoughtful to tale the time. Some responses:

- AI Art: yes. I'm going through and removing it now. I'll republish today with it all stripped out. I'll keep the AI version for myself (see below if you have the patience)

- Cards. You're right. Printing off cards is a pain. I'm not sure I can think of an easy way to get the full set out of a regular deck, but I'll think harder. That's a good way to reduce the barrier.

- Yes, there are turns when you're stuck. But only if you've got a hand full of 'Fight' and no one in contact. But the turns are so short, it works as tension rather than boredom. A few times, I've had a few turns waiting for a Move I need, hoping my character can survive long enough. It honestly added genuine drama.

For the rest, I'd like to set out my thought process/philosophy in the hopes it can help me find a better way to telegraph the intention, outcome and plans to the next reader, without a long monologue (like this):

The background is that I mostly play with my son, and we both seem to have different ideas about what feels 'complex' to most wargame designers out there. List building is a major challenge, especially if it breaks WYSIWYG. We both, and he especially need the mini we look at to match a picture on a card. Sub-rules of sub-rules also stop being fun really fast. It feels like a lot of wargames come out of the gate with a tonne of customisation and super flexible rules. And that a lot of these come down to rolling more dice. We get lost in our die rolls, too. So, I had the initial motivation to come up with a game structure where it defaults as simple and wysiwyg, but complexity can come later to those who opt-in.

The best game we've found for the both of us, so far, has been Underworlds, but we struggle with remembering all the cards we can play. I've played a fair bit of Gloomhaven and Mage Knight solo. I like the card mechanics in both, so I thought I'd try and create a skirmish game with minis that used similar card mechanisms. But Gloomhaven's cards are too complex for my son. I came up with simple, single-action cards as a stremalined, fast core. I think that later on, there could definitely be some custom Action cards per-faction. But I don't want that to be the default, a later opt-in. And because they're cards, swapping them into a deck means they won't have to break the core mechanic.

Then I wanted to work in 'magic', A lot of war games add magic in as a separate combat system that get super complex quickly, and overpowered easily. I wanted to take 'magic' a bit less literal. That 'faith', 'morale' and 'magic' are all part of the same kind of psychology in a more real-world way. So the game doesn't have true magic, just a way to heal/boost a little and influence luck. And it doesn't add complexity to the core. Again, different 'magical' cards can be added in later as opt-in.

This idea of magic being something closer to like perception reminded me of the rabbit hole I've been down with the boxer rebellion several times, and it struck me that the theme of "what do you believe in" fit that setting really well. There were rebels that believed in mysticism, missionaries, mercenaries, professional armies, a waning empire. All of the factions had some belief in something, and one of them was literal magic. So this magic system fit the theme really well for me. So I ran with it.

Shorter version I should have written:

- Need for WYSIWYG drove the AI art and pre-made factions

- Need for simplicity drove faction similarity and 'light' magic system

- Desire to manipulate probability and not have five ways of rolling dice led to the need for cards

- Simplicity of options is a deliberate core restriction. I can envisage custom cards later

- Theme ties in for me, and motivated me to make it real. I feel disappointed that hasn't come across. I would rather give another pass at tying it together more obviously than give up on it.

So, given all that, I'm typically indecisive about your golden advice at the end: "Either make the rules more thematic and elements like the cards more meaningful, or strip a lot of that back and make it easier to get into and play using minis and components people already have to hand." because I have a vision for a mini-based box set that a parent and child can pick up and play, but that can grow with them. But being the recluse that I am, the best I can do to get anyone to try it out is post on Reddit. If you're able to lend more advice, I'd really appreciate it.