Next Fantasy Faction for Community Development...put ideas here

[Niko White]

Yeah I'd forgotten about that.  My only concern is that the faction would be a touch too comical.  There was a bit of tongue in cheek when I wrote it up.  Also, when talking to Niko he said that Chad was against putting gunpowder weapons into a fantasy setting (or maybe that was just the YMG consensus and not just Chad, I don't remember exactly).

I can't remember who exactly said it, but I certainly agree - renaissance fantasy is "in" these days, between Warhammer and Warcraft both featuring gunpowder, so I kind of like that Battleground is more solidly dark-ages.  Obviously there's no mechanical problem with early guns (we'll have them in Aztecs vs. Spain after all) but I do like that we don't have them in Fantasy.

I like terra-cotta quite a bit, personally; I think we could go good places with that.  It might also be that this is a good time to do something based on Japanese history and myth, which I get asked about a lot - samurai and so forth.  Not sure what the "fantasy" angle to use there would be, though.

[BubblePig]

Insects would be cool, but I doubt it would work well as a community charlie foxtrot. I'd prefer to see that as a single-developer project.

I agree with Jaime. A community development faction with so many directions to take the flavor seems like a mess in the making. Plus I think a steampunk faction has more potential for attracting new blood.
#1 Steampunk
#2 Terracotta
#3 Viking

[Hannibal]

Looking at the Chi'in Empire again, I have to say I really really like the idea.  I think it'd be a great faction and very unique.  I'm already kicking ideas around in my head and am feverishly trying not to post them up here.

Chad...poll?

[ZiNOS]

There already is an Ogre kingdom faction:  Monsters & Mercenaries.  

And please no Bear Cavalry.  It was cool and innovative 15 years ago, before the Golden Compass and Warmachine.  Now its just cliche.  Heck, bears are a punchline for Stephen Colbert.

Actually the Ogres in the M&M factions are stupid. I am not talking about Ogres but another race that is brute like and quite large. Since there would be lesser actual soldiers depicted on the cards, they will look like (concerning unit density) the Ogre kingdoms of WHFB.

And I am not talking about normal bears and human sized riders here. I am talking about dire bears and Large humanoids riding on top of them.

[elgin_j]

I like terra-cotta quite a bit, personally; I think we could go good places with that.  It might also be that this is a good time to do something based on Japanese history and myth, which I get asked about a lot - samurai and so forth.  Not sure what the "fantasy" angle to use there would be, though.

Terracotta sounds good but a Japanese-themed army doesn't strike me as an obvious choice for a high toughness faction.  They were still using bamboo/scale-mail armour at the start of the 19th Century because firearms hadn't been wholesale introduced to the country.  Besides, strikes me as a better option for a historical set.  Chinese themed terracotta army does sound awesome, though.  Lots of mythology to work with...

[Kevin]

Terracotta sounds good but a Japanese-themed army doesn't strike me as an obvious choice for a high toughness faction.  They were still using bamboo/scale-mail armour at the start of the 19th Century because firearms hadn't been wholesale introduced to the country.

Very good point.

[RushAss]

Brook started work on a faction called Deep Dwarves a while ago and he had some pretty sharp ideas.  They are a 1/3 and 2/3 base defense faction.  He didn't have the full faction fleshed out, but the units he had seemed to be pretty cool.  They had something like 2-3 green, 6 yellow, and 2-3 red boxes with a base courage of 13.  So they would have to face an initial route check early, but would hang in there for a while if they succeeded.   We did some brief play testing using these units in 1 on 1 fights.

Aside from that, I think insects would be great.  I'd love to see something similar to what the Lizardmen have got going where there is 1 primary insect race that includes units based upon how far along the insects are in their life cycle.  Then we could augment that with a few specialized units.  Otherwise we could wind up with a mishmash faction like the Undead where it's basically a ton of near-random ideas tossed together to make a faction.

What I wouldn't want to see:
A bunch of random insects like Giant ants, beetles, mantises, flies, etc... slopped together into a faction

What I'd like to see:
We either create a fictional insect race or use something cool like giant Army Ants or Mantises.  There's a young version, a middle version, and an old version.  Or whatever.  Their defensive stats could vary as they get older.  For example, the young guys could be a 2/2, representing greater quickness but their exoskeletons have not completely hardened.  As they get older their exoskeletons harden, but they are no longer as small or swift so they become a 1/3.  Give them shields and the real warrior dudes can become a 2/3.  Then we can supplement them with things like giant War Beatles, Bee swarms (a cheap flying unit?) and other fun stuff.  What's nice about an idea like this is that a different insect faction could be released further down the road using a different race or whatever.  We just need to be careful that we don't create something too similar to the Lizardmen.

[Hannibal]

Actually the Ogres in the M&M factions are stupid.

Stupid in terms of the rules or stupid as in terms of "a boring/lame/dumb faction?"  Cause I agree on ythe first and not so much on the second.  

I am not talking about Ogres but another race that is brute like and quite large.

So...Ogres with a different name and different art.  

And I am not talking about normal bears and human sized riders here. I am talking about dire bears and Large humanoids riding on top of them.

Supersizing a McDonald's Quarter Pounder doesn't make the meal any more appetizing...


But even if the "Faux Ogre" Kingdom wasn't a copy, I still think the terracotta army is just awesome, and probably the way to go.  It's something nobody's done before and we're not reduced to the "(insert adjective here)" Dwarf/Ogre/Insect/etc faction.

[gornhorror]

Sorry if this was already talked about but......I have some units made for my proposed army(9 units) and I want to start giving them point costs.  Was the formula for assigning point costs ever divulged to the masses? and...if so, where is it?  The reason why I ask, is because I want to be in the right ballpark on this.     Thanks for any help you can provide.

[lazyj]

I never saw the calculations revealed. There were probably enough responses to other fan-made units to get you in the ballpark, if you were willing to dig a bit.

I'd say forget the point cost, post what you have and let the YMG guys tell you if you're way off.

[Kevin]

Only a few people know "The Formula."  I'm not one of them.

Generally, when people post their factions, people just post what they have without the formula.

That said, if you want point costs for your home games, and you want to have formluas, you can usually come up with a pretty accurate estimate of point costs if you look at what similar units cost, and what similar surcharges cost.  And remember that things are multiplicative rather than addititive.

For example, Umenzi Warriors cost 153; Javelineers cost 184, or pretty much exactly 20% more.  So any unit with javelins should cost 20% more than the baseline unit.

------
In other news, reading what others have said has convinced me that Terra Cotta will work a lot better than insects, and gets more coolness points.  Terra Cotta is my top choice by a considerable margin.

[Hannibal]

My understanding is that Chad is reluctant to put the formula out there for a couple of reasons.  The first is that there's other people who've delved into the "fantasy game with cards as units" genre and making the formula public is just begging them to 'borrow' it.  The formula is very complex and a lot of work went into it, so I don't blame YMG for considering it proprietary.  It also is a very good starting point for unit design.  You could plug in most unit's stats and be 90% of the way to having a balanced unit.  So I think this sort of thing would be in demand enough that it could be 'borrowed.'

Second, the formula is not very user friendly.  I've had it for awhile and there's vast sections of it that might as well say "here be dragons."  There's a lot of mechanics in the formula and its not very hard to mess up an entire string of equations by hitting the wrong key.

If Chad is okay, I'd be happy to post up costs for things as they come up.  I haven't really been forthcoming because I consider myself bound by an NDA for things like that.

[gornhorror]

Thanks guys....understood.  I'll just finish the units in the faction and then post.  You guys can tell my what their worth.

[Dave-SWA]

I apologize ahead of time for this post being mostly critical of other people's ideas.

I love Marcus, so I hate to say that his vision of an Insect faction is diametrically opposed to mine.  I think that with bugs, perhaps more than any other faction, you could justify having every unit be a customized specialist for its purpose.  I don't necessarily think Insects are a good/ideal candidate for the design goal of "good vs attack power 6", but they could be if you designed them that way.  But I would save Insects for a different design concept, like "anything goes".  Maybe there should be 12-15 types of insects, as a design concept(?).

I love Brook, but I do not like the idea of Deep Dwarves, or Gnomes, or whatever.  I'm just not excited by a reminds-me-of-dwarves faction.  I think it is a flaw in the product line that three of the ten fantasy factions are Elves of various flavors.  I'm less opposed to numerous human factions, because lets face it, most fantasy worlds seem to be based on the premise of "humans of various flavors are numerous, compared to the non-human races, and that is why they tend to dominate the landscape."

I'm half Chinese, so I say with a twinge of guilt that I'm not excited by the idea of the Terracotta army.  I want to be; maybe if I saw the cards?

I'm also half Viking (believe it or not), so I say with absolutely no bias that I still like my idea of tough fantasy Norsemen.  I don't know if it's the best idea for the faction concept that the community can come up with, but I still like it.

The Ogre army has some appeal to me.  It fits the concept very well, and it's different enough to not remind me of other factions.  Yes, the M&M pack has ogres, but those are mercenary ogres who wandered away from their homeland!  Maybe the M&M ogres were the ones who couldn't get wives back home, so they have to wander the world, looking to kidnap Amazon women in their chainmail bikinis...

Beastmen?  I like the faction idea, but it's probably not a great fit for the toughness 3 concept.

If I had to vote today:
1) Something we haven't thought of yet
2) Vikings/Norsemen
3) Ogres

-DC

[gornhorror]

Dave,

Your opinion is your opinion, and I respect it.  However, I just want to be clear on one point.  I've been thinking about this Deep Dwarves faction for quite some time now but it is not my intention to make it the next */3 toughness faction.  I just posted my ideas on this topic because I thought it was the appropriate topic to do so.  I don't expect my ideas to turn into the next faction, but it's fun thinking things up and seeing what people say.  Also, when I post the army, I think you may change your mind.  It has some flare.