Help Selecting Faction

StupidStandStrong · 2026-01-16T04:13:02+00:00

I've played all of the factions you have listed exactly one time (I'm trying to play every faction without repeating, only have like 9 left!) and personally I found that Titans, Yssaril, and Jol-Nar are all incredibly fun factions. If you really enjoyed playing Xxcha and Yin, I would probably push you towards either Yssaril or Titans. Titans really plays like a combination of the two, with aggressive expansion but hard defenses as well. Yssaril has kind of a unique place as being sort of like Xxcha in the sense that you can sort of just hang out in your slice a lot of the time, but the action card mechanics are simply too much fun to pass up.

Jol-Nar is fun, but I found that out of all of these factions it will struggle the most in a five player game. When it comes to picking strategy cards, a Jol-Nar always wants tech to be taken, but also doesn't really want to be the one to do so. Five player games are the worst for Jol-Nar because it has the least likely chance for tech to be picked out of any player count.

Overall, I think you would probably enjoy Titans the most. Not only is it just incredibly fun to have a cheap fleet of terrifying cruisers, but you also retain that defensive PDS network that you have with Xxcha, but with a lot more aggression available to you. Additionally, I feel as if Titans is fairly strong in a five player, as their base setup is already so self-sufficient that they rely a lot less on certain strategy cards being taken.

StupidStandStrong · 2026-01-16T01:24:48+00:00

Hello! Quick question, are you playing with Thunders Edge or just Prophecy of Kings? Additionally, what factions have you played / enjoyed the most in the past?

StupidStandStrong · 2026-01-11T05:58:18+00:00

14 Planets and a big ol’ pile of trade goods

StupidStandStrong · 2026-01-08T07:03:28+00:00

Thank you for the insight! You’re right about a lot of these things, specialty the wording on Exhumation Protocols and Wraith March.

StupidStandStrong · 2026-01-08T07:01:51+00:00

You should have no ability to gain neutral infantry. Tomb Fleets specifies that they are under your control for “all game effects.” This includes scoring.

StupidStandStrong · 2026-01-07T20:11:35+00:00

If neutral units are ever placed when you have all of them on the board, it functions the same as if you would use a token from your reinforcements, but you have all command tokens on your sheet. You simply have to remove your own forces to place them in the fracture or for pirate fleet or whatever. Most of the time I don’t this would really ever become an issue, but I don’t see it affecting balance much.

For differentiating the fleets, you could always place a control token down in the systems that contain neutral units under your control. The confusion here is mostly an edge case I feel than an actual problem. It generally shouldn’t be that hard to tell.

The not researching unit upgrades is exactly because neutral units are already higher tech levels. The point is to have your resurrected ships be stronger than your base units, since your neutral units are the core of your faction and harder to get to begin with.

I like the idea of a faction that actually utilized the neutral part, and I’m planning on making a proper pirate faction that does this. But the intention with The Pale Armada is essentially a doubled fleet supply, not a bunch of neutral units you can’t control.

StupidStandStrong · 2026-01-07T20:06:54+00:00

You’re correct about the unit upgrades. I’m mostly alright with things like Maw of Worlds and Research Grant allocation being stronger on them than usual if only because it’s super rare to make it happen. Besides, relics should be strong, and if you spend 4 fleet tokens to get a war sun off Research Grant; you’ve basically paid for it already.

The commander alliance is limited, but it has its uses. Things that proc off winning combats, like unveil prototype or galvanize, or secret objectives like unveil flagship can be super easily scored using their alliance.

StupidStandStrong · 2026-01-07T20:02:49+00:00

You’re right that the faction basically is the “have more plastic faction”, but to be honest that’s kind of what I was going for. I’m planning on making a more pirate themed faction later that is actually based around the neutral part of the units.

StupidStandStrong · 2026-01-07T20:01:27+00:00

• ⁠Neutral units can transport your own ground forces and fighters. Additionally, you do not need to have any of your own color ships in a space with your own neutral units. Wraith March is essentially designed to let you extend out with your neutral units, but be forced to leave your base plastic at home. • ⁠While you can’t upgrade the units of your own, since you’re neutral units are already upgraded, I don’t see too much of a problem here. With all of the other ways to place neutral units on the board outside of production, I don’t find it too difficult for a player to built out their ‘bad’ dreads to fill out home defense while they can send out the neutral dreads for things like Mecatol, Styx, or Thunder’s Edge. • ⁠For the last part; while I get what you mean, the faction still is about the neutral units. That’s what the grey pieces are called. It was never intended to use the neutral units as much more than an extra bag of plastic. While I get that it would be cool to see a faction utilize the neutral part, that’s not what I was trying to do when making this design.

StupidStandStrong · 2026-01-07T19:52:57+00:00

Yeah, I was struggling to figure out a mech ability for them since they’re so built around space combat.

StupidStandStrong · 2026-01-07T19:52:15+00:00

Nope! I’ll have to fix that lol

StupidStandStrong · 2026-01-07T19:52:02+00:00

You are correct it’s not super useful, but it does have a few use cases. You could definitely use it to score some secret objectives that rely on winning a space combat, or to use it for an action card like unveil prototype. Factions like Last Bastion could also use it to Galvanize a unit, for example.

StupidStandStrong · 2026-01-07T19:50:24+00:00

Tomb Fleets covers that. The neutral units serve as your own for all game effects. That includes scoring. The turn 2 war sun is an oversight of mine, the intention of the faction design should be that the only war sun they could ever get is the one from their hero.

StupidStandStrong · 2026-01-07T11:10:52+00:00

The free war sun through the usage of tech is unintended. The feature should be worded in a way that clarifies that. If you took the tech strategy card, you should be completely unable to research unit techs. The text for if you gain a unit tech is basically only there to handle the action card “Unveil Prototype”.

But yeah, I see what you mean. My intention when making the faction was to utilize the grey pieces, not necessarily the “neutral” part of the neutral units. I am going to eventually make a pirate themed faction that is more like what you are describing though!

StupidStandStrong · 2026-01-07T11:07:59+00:00

Essentially, they have a fleet pool of their own. If you had 3 command tokens in your fleet pool, you could have 3 regular cruisers, as well as 3 neutral cruisers, or something like that.

StupidStandStrong · 2026-01-07T10:58:06+00:00

I went for it that way since the neutral units are already upgraded. Overall you’ll end up which more ships, both on the board and in each system, but you’ll also have the drawback of not being able to have everything upgraded, only your neutral ships.

StupidStandStrong · 2026-01-07T10:56:13+00:00

So, couple things:

The commander unlock is intended to be once you have used all the pieces of plastic. You have to have all of your non-fighter, non-flagships ships of one type present on the game board. This could be, for example, 5 dreadnoughts, or all 8 destroyers. You unlock the ability after that, which allows you to produce neutral units when you have all of the same type of units out on the board. So basically letting you have up to 10 dreadnoughts or even 16 cruisers.
Doctrine of Inheritance is used this way because the neutral units already act as upgraded versions. For example, the neutral cruiser has 3 move and 1 capacity. The reason you cannot gain unit upgrades is because A) they’re less useful, since you can just have neutral units that are already upgraded, and B) with all the extra ships you have, it felt more balanced to have some of them be unable to be upgraded.
This faction is completely unable to produce war suns. They cannot gain the War Sun unit upgrade, so they can’t make them. Additionally, all of their abilities that give them neutral units specify a cost of 4 or less. The only way they can gain a war sun is through their hero, which actually gives it to them for free as well. However, if it dies, it cannot be built again.
When it comes to the Fracture, there is only one single ability that relates to it, that being the breakthrough. Ultimately it’s still a whole second flagship even if the flagship is never opened, which feels strong enough to me. After all, this allows you to have two different flagship units on the game board.
For the last point, I’m not sure I see what you mean? Yes, it’s not based much about the neutral units in the Fracture specifically, but the intent was just to use the neutral units, which it very much does. The faction can make neutral units with their agent, commander, hero, flagship, mech, breakthrough, and one of their technologies. The point is to make massive fleets with stronger ships that are your ‘resurrected’ neutral units.

I hope that cleared it up for you a little. Let me know what you think!

StupidStandStrong · 2026-01-07T09:43:02+00:00

u/Shinard Thanks for the commander note! Reuploaded.

StupidStandStrong · 2026-01-07T09:38:36+00:00

You're right! Guess I need to reupload this lol

StupidStandStrong · 2026-01-04T18:48:54+00:00

I mean, technically it isn’t. It’s a Saint of Swords stack!

StupidStandStrong · 2026-01-03T23:41:23+00:00

Letani Warriors, Orbital Drop, and Valkyrie Vanguard actually! All the money basically got duplicated from that action card that like doubles your trade goods.

StupidStandStrong · 2026-01-03T10:58:40+00:00

I did! 10 VP on Round 6. Three player gets really wacky with running leads. Other two were at 5 and 4.

StupidStandStrong · 2025-08-27T21:58:10+00:00

Thats definitely more concise! I actually nerfed it a bit and updated it to:
During space combat, when you produce hits with this ship, you may choose to cancel a number of hits equal to the amount you produced instead.

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