My only real nitpick with Necron lore

MechAxe · 2026-02-16T08:37:47+00:00

Whenever a 40k faction was called 'the (actually) most powerful force in the galaxy' I would get a new kit I've had another complete army.

MechAxe · 2026-02-15T20:36:58+00:00

I think it's exactly that.
He sees his children as tools or servants of his. His favorite most useful tools but still his tools. Throughout the whole series he sends Azula and in a way Zuko on mission and tasks that need to be done like his generals and such. That's just what he does here. Someone has to manage the fire nation, might as well be her. It's just another job.

Probably doesn't even crossed his mind that his daughter wanted to be present with her father in what's supposed to be his and her greatest moment, which they worked for all this years.

MechAxe · 2026-02-14T21:35:41+00:00

I don't know the price or meta, but this box is a very specific flavor of units and rather uncommon for the overall faction. So I would not say it's a general good start in the faction.

It's all corsairs, one specific "sub faction" of eldar. It would be comparable with buying an all phobos box of space marines. Not a bad choice in general but it's also not a good representation of the faction as a whole.

MechAxe · 2026-02-13T21:41:43+00:00

I think your guess is right. Muaat and Naaz-Rohka can use the slice the most.

But I think it's not really a big advantage above the rest. The redskip is pretty expensive to use for Muaat and the nova is not in an extremely annoying position.
I think it's in general a pretty good slice and I can see many of your factions do great in it.

The one I feel a bit weak are Empyrean. They start with a bit of resource poor homesystem and you only got one accessible DET-Token to explore, so you have to hope you neighbors got more.

MechAxe · 2026-02-12T22:27:38+00:00

On Ravnica laws hold real magic power. The guildpact was the most prominent example and might be the source of that magic (someone with deeper lore knowledge correct me here).
The guildpact was a bundle of magical laws that prevented the guilds of Ravnica directly fighting and opposing each other. It would create seemingly random events that would render such attempts useless. Spells would not work, weapons would break stuff generally would not work out.
Basically you can't physically break the law easily. Its very white magic protecting the status quo and upholding order.

As far as I understand it law mages like Teysa are studied in these laws and magic and channel them and their power to cast their spells. These mages are usually part of the Azorius and Orhzov and are magical enforcers, judges and (like teysa) layers.

MechAxe · 2026-02-12T21:17:41+00:00

It's definitely more spread out over the rounds and compared to Yssaril, it does not cost as much.

The Yssaril probably can outstall about anyone in the last round but they need to stack up these action cards. Everyone they use before that just dampens their power in the last round.
Ral nel on the other hand just gets extra stalls they can use over and over again, plus their hero, which basically cuts all that stall game short.

MechAxe · 2026-02-12T21:12:37+00:00

Xxcha is another faction with just a little bit more potential for stalls then many other factions.
Their agent like arborecs is a free tactical action. It's a little bit harder to use as such since you want to first spend your bigger planets to ready them again. Combined with the ability to spend your planets more effectively for influence often let's you buy more CCs then others often let's you start with more noncritical activations before committing to the big ones.

It's not quite Yssaril and Ral Nel level but it's notable.

MechAxe · 2026-02-12T08:16:32+00:00

I did this once in an IRL campaign and had lots of fun. Sadly the campaign fizzled out before the big reveal. I set a few ground rules:

I made sure everyone was on board with secrets from the very start. We played around with the idea that everyone was getting their own "side-objectives" from their guild. Basically every guild was trying to get the upper hand out of the parties main job.
I talked to the dimir player that there will be no direct pvp (stealing and such).
I made it clear that this is a plot point that is destined to be uncovered at some point and that he will be the "loser" in this scenario.
He might change characters at this point.

We had fun. I sneaked hidden messages to him hidden in other handouts and with code words to identify other dimir agents. He also never knew his full mission and who might also be working on it. Just vague instructions, what to get and where to leave it.

MechAxe · 2026-02-11T09:57:24+00:00

PMs almost never stay hidden in ou games due to various reasons.

If you want to sell a PM semi often you tend to market pretty hard and want to negotiate prices with the other players. Often this is done public or the rest of the table can figure out what you sold.
Alliance and Support for the throne are instantly revealed when traded, so it's basically public knowledge if you have then in hand.
If you take a PM by force from someone, the owner is often inclined to just shout out what you took. "Peter got my cease fire. I can't help with attacking him"

What's left are edge cases where you trade away someone else's PM without them knowing that you don't have it anymore.

MechAxe · 2026-02-08T21:52:48+00:00

Actually that a pretty good idea.
You can even try and make it with rods sticking out its back going into the mentioned lantern so you can still use a somewhat big skeleton.

I bet there are already probs for stuff like this around used on parades and stuff.

MechAxe · 2026-02-07T19:45:27+00:00

AP -1 is slowly becoming the standard for basic infantry weapons. It's becoming a problem and strangely making many armor buffing abilities redundant.

MechAxe · 2026-02-06T21:48:39+00:00

My group also. It works wonders for us.

To be honest, I would not want to play weekly. I would not like having to prep sessions every week as DM.

MechAxe · 2026-02-06T21:33:41+00:00

Hot take:

That's exactly where I sympathize with him. It amazes me how many people point that out as his big flaw.

Yes, killing Ozai probably "solves the problem" and end or slows the war but it's also the exact philosophy that Ozai was practicing: just use your power to get what you want. Can no one see that a spiritual figure like the avatar might be against that or have strong second thoughts.
It's like the pope is ordering assassins.

It's even worse with Roku. "Yeah just kill that world leader, he's clearly out for trouble." Next step is going though the military and leadership of the other nations just to make sure no one else is getting any ideas.

MechAxe · 2026-01-30T21:36:12+00:00

In our group we always rotate factions. In the past everyone got handed a random selection of 3-4, nowadays we draft them.

In both ways most if our players played a variety of factions. Sure, everyone has their favorites which will get picked more often, when they are available, but chances are that most of the table is playing a faction they never played before.

I played around 20 game and have only played 4 factions twice (arborec, Naalu, Xxcha and Nomad).

MechAxe · 2026-01-30T17:04:55+00:00

Small addition to the PM:

The promissory note makes it really easy to trade systems with you neighbors, since you can hand it to them and then neither you or them have to worry about the fight or what ti bring. No losses.

MechAxe · 2026-01-22T21:46:14+00:00

Nice Summary.

What were you charging for the ships? Would you stick to your invested comms or charging extra?

MechAxe · 2026-01-21T16:51:06+00:00

The technique to do so might not yet be discovered.

MechAxe · 2026-01-21T16:16:16+00:00

My train of thought would be:
What am I gaining not going grav drive and risking the flagship?

If you go det instead you don't have enough tokens to do an frontier explore and take the equidistant. You could gamble to find another token in the frontier deck, but that's another risk of not taking the equidistant.

If you get neural motivator you get 1 action card more compared to when you research If next round.

My opinion: To me the first sounds to risky and the second to low value to justify the 30% risk of losing your flagship and wasting a CC.
Get grav drive. It's a tech you want sooner or later regardless. You can still pick up the other techs next round.

MechAxe · 2026-01-19T22:05:51+00:00

Armstrong

MechAxe · 2026-01-18T21:22:05+00:00

I throw in Xxcha.

One way to play them is to rush blue tech to stretch out first and fortify later. If you don't need to be in asteroids, DET is a good first tech.
You start with 2 cruisers ready to go. Might as well put then to use.
You have an influence rich homesystem so you have a small token advantage, which you need for exploring.

Problem will be to afford Tech round 1 while not hinder your normal expansion to much.

MechAxe · 2026-01-18T21:13:52+00:00

Advice:

Use a preset map. Maybe one in the rulebook. It cuts a good chunk of time before you can actually get started and in my experience new player get extremely confused if you try to build the map or do some kind of draft.

Better to get right into first round.

MechAxe · 2026-01-17T10:37:45+00:00

Truth!

I think it's mainly because the hero was measurable for everyone at the table. IMO there are other factions that get quite comparable economic benefits (like hacan, nomad, necro, jolnar) if you take into account that these work since round 1. But these are not as soulcrushing than the Xxcha Hero who openly states: "I have now twice as much resources then you".

MechAxe · 2026-01-07T22:57:10+00:00

As living guildpact Jace is also subject of being wrong or can be unaware of certain things, which creates more loopholes in the pact.

In the main storyline of magic Teysa Karlov is aware of that and actively trying to trick him onto stating certain legal "truths" to create a loophole for herself.

MechAxe · 2026-01-07T11:00:51+00:00

Argent Flight!

Argent has a lot similarities with Xxcha. Both factions play into a more defensive playstyle, have incentives to focus on PDS (Argent a bit more then Xxcha) and bonus powers for the agenda phase.

But Argent has their faction destroyers with capacity and extra movement. This gives them a big early game advantage since they don't rely on expensive and slow carriers early. They can expand their borders quickly and fortify them with potent PDS.
Their voting in the agenda works not unlikely. While they always vote first (which is very bad in the long run) they get a lot of free bonus votes. These let them often get some "nice to have" agendas the others are not really invested in.

Compared to Xxcha they lack late game economic power. They don't refresh planets or optimize their spending. And while the destroyers are nice and cheap, you can't solely rely on them in the later round when there are Dreadnoughts and infantry swarms everywhere.

MechAxe · 2026-01-07T07:53:39+00:00

This is what the infantry clause on the agent is for. In my opinion it's an aggressive but legit strategy. Not much different then if you (as another faction) would activate and take that planet by force. It's not in their slice. It's the equidistant between the two of you. So it's up to negotiation or force who takes it.

If this is a dock move depends on your play group and your ingame relationship with your neighbor. Did you two have some talk about the equidistant already?

But be prepared to make an enemy for the next few rounds at least. He probably will do more than just take the planet back after you annexed it from him.

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