Emperor has really snuck up on me lately as a faction I really enjoy. They have 2 abilities and they're very strong. That's always seemed a bit boring to me, but now I see that it offers a lot of options of how to play. You can save up your money, or bankrupt yourself early. That sardaukar are great for contesting some discovery tokens since it's basically 5 extra forces you can put on the board in terms of strength.
My brother stopped the Fremen and Emperor from winning on turn two as the Guild all on his own. He got some decent Treachery cards and a Nexus card that threw Emperors sardaukars under the bus. The only real loss for him was the troop numbers, otherwise his slaying of leaders and shipping payments had him fully recovered by turn 4.
"My daughter likes the Fremen because she likes to be poor." XD Top 5 factions: 5. Harkonnen - Pretty close between Richese and Harkonnen as both mess with Treachery, but the free extra cards are really good as a way around the Atreides and Ixians. 4. Bene Tleilaxu - The threat of the Face Dancers is a very fun twist on the traitor mechanic, and a nice silver bullet to have against the Kwisatz Haderach 3. Ixians - Card info is one of my favorite mechanics in Dune. 2. Bene Gesseret - The Voice is so fun, as well as the mind games of flipping Advisors to scare off a win attempt because of the prediction. 1. Atreides - I love the information game they can play (and sometimes like to challenge myself to not take notes), especially when I can bid an Emperor or Spacing Guild player up on a worthless card! Bottom 5 factions: 5. Moritani - They're a really cool faction, but don't really grab me like any of the others (really Fremen, Ecaz, and Moritani can swap around these low middle 3 spots) 4. Ecaz - The ambassadors add a nice way to have some flavor based on other factions, but the randomness of the tokens makes me a little less interested in them. 3. CHOAM - Some neat abilities, but I don't really love playing with the big money factions. 2. Emperor - Having a lot of money is fine, but I prefer a more complex or difficult faction to play. Plus this is usually reserved for one of the new players in my games. 1. Spacing Guild - Same as Emperor, except I don't want to win through an end of game auto-win condition.
No surprised here for me. Ixians I think we’ve played at the table once maybe twice, but like you say they’re quite powerful early on. My own personal bottom has Richese in, and that’s mostly because I haven’t yet figured out how to play them well I think. Or maybe it’s the group dynamic? I found nobody really wanted to bid high on the Richese deck so I was hurting a lot for spice. Do love the no-fields though!
It would be extensive but I’d love to hear your top and bottom 5 alliances (those you like playing and that really seem to synergize well and those that don’t really seem to click).
Would you recommend ecaz and moritani as a first expansion. My play group are well seasoned advanced dune players and we would like to pick up an expansion but not sure which one to begin with. Thank you
If you want to spice up your treachery deck, go for Ixians and tleilaxu, especially if your table loses lots of forces and leaders, tleilaxu would be welcome in that case. If you want lots new variants to try, go for ecaz and moritani. All the new factions are really great and since you're an experienced group, you can't go wrong with which you pick.
Get them ALL 🥵 Tleilaxu are a nice faction to add in but yeah Ecaz and Moritani is a good expansion with plenty modularity to it too; don’t have to add in everything it comes with and the two factions are really fun to play.
Might be too late to add to this, but the variants added by E&M are the most fun, and the factions themselves are easier to grasp in some ways compared to the other expansions
3. Guild I used to really like the Guild and I think they're cool but every time I've played with or against them the game has resolved in a painful 7 hour stallout victory and is slowed down due to choosing when to move. They don't have many interesting lines of play except for doomstacks as you mentioned. 2. Ixians To me Ixians are just too damn complicated. They have like 7 advantages that mess with almost every aspect of the game. When I last played with them we were constantly having to ask the Ixian player wtf they were doing at any given time because it seemed like they were just constantly gaining new abilities. 1. Fremen I hate being poor. I'm bougie and I like playing economic factions. Every damn time I go for a spice blow someone contests it and I get wiped out (or, invariably, the worm appears and mercs my guys). I'm not very good at Fremen. My copy of Ecaz and Moritani comes on Friday, and I'm going to try and get it to the table ASAP! :)
Bottom five for me (excluding the newest ones b/c I've not played them yet), counting down: 10. Richese (Weak starting position/leaders, and I'm terrible at tactical selling for uncertain future gains) 9. Fremen (Are often DOA because of lack of spice, makes it harder to get weapons you need to win combats in order to get spice, etc) 8. Emperor (No board presence at start; I find as the game goes along you get less and less money from Treachery cards and their alliance value is questionable) 7. Bene Gesserit (Very fun overall but definitely a late-game faction, I find it hard to get a strong position without very careful planning in advance) 6. Harkonnen (Also fun, but they correctly get a lot of table hate for being the most dangerous at start; it behooves most tables to dogpile them early) In the playtesting process, did you ever test out a version of the Tleilaxu closer to their original General Magazine version? I found them to be extremely interesting but I could also see them being a lot of people's least favorite faction in the modern version of the game!
There is huge pressure on the Ixian faction, last time I played the game I carried the entire game on my own shoulders, as in blocking 2 other factions from winning the game early. I enjoyed great success for the half of the game but then it became increasingly difficult to come back as it's very costly to revive cyborgs.
Emperor has really snuck up on me lately as a faction I really enjoy. They have 2 abilities and they're very strong. That's always seemed a bit boring to me, but now I see that it offers a lot of options of how to play. You can save up your money, or bankrupt yourself early. That sardaukar are great for contesting some discovery tokens since it's basically 5 extra forces you can put on the board in terms of strength.
My brother stopped the Fremen and Emperor from winning on turn two as the Guild all on his own. He got some decent Treachery cards and a Nexus card that threw Emperors sardaukars under the bus. The only real loss for him was the troop numbers, otherwise his slaying of leaders and shipping payments had him fully recovered by turn 4.
"My daughter likes the Fremen because she likes to be poor." XD
Top 5 factions:
5. Harkonnen - Pretty close between Richese and Harkonnen as both mess with Treachery, but the free extra cards are really good as a way around the Atreides and Ixians.
4. Bene Tleilaxu - The threat of the Face Dancers is a very fun twist on the traitor mechanic, and a nice silver bullet to have against the Kwisatz Haderach
3. Ixians - Card info is one of my favorite mechanics in Dune.
2. Bene Gesseret - The Voice is so fun, as well as the mind games of flipping Advisors to scare off a win attempt because of the prediction.
1. Atreides - I love the information game they can play (and sometimes like to challenge myself to not take notes), especially when I can bid an Emperor or Spacing Guild player up on a worthless card!
Bottom 5 factions:
5. Moritani - They're a really cool faction, but don't really grab me like any of the others (really Fremen, Ecaz, and Moritani can swap around these low middle 3 spots)
4. Ecaz - The ambassadors add a nice way to have some flavor based on other factions, but the randomness of the tokens makes me a little less interested in them.
3. CHOAM - Some neat abilities, but I don't really love playing with the big money factions.
2. Emperor - Having a lot of money is fine, but I prefer a more complex or difficult faction to play. Plus this is usually reserved for one of the new players in my games.
1. Spacing Guild - Same as Emperor, except I don't want to win through an end of game auto-win condition.
I did my top 5 favorites on Facebook and love how your least favorite is my most favorite!
Love your videos!
Fremen....controversial
I like the fremen, the remove the bonus of other special units.
Use worm to move around.
No surprised here for me. Ixians I think we’ve played at the table once maybe twice, but like you say they’re quite powerful early on. My own personal bottom has Richese in, and that’s mostly because I haven’t yet figured out how to play them well I think. Or maybe it’s the group dynamic? I found nobody really wanted to bid high on the Richese deck so I was hurting a lot for spice. Do love the no-fields though!
It would be extensive but I’d love to hear your top and bottom 5 alliances (those you like playing and that really seem to synergize well and those that don’t really seem to click).
I will definitely get into that, after a few more Power Alliance videos.
@@jackredathewarp can’t wait!
this is interesting fremen are usually a powerhouse in our games
Would you recommend ecaz and moritani as a first expansion. My play group are well seasoned advanced dune players and we would like to pick up an expansion but not sure which one to begin with. Thank you
If you want to spice up your treachery deck, go for Ixians and tleilaxu, especially if your table loses lots of forces and leaders, tleilaxu would be welcome in that case.
If you want lots new variants to try, go for ecaz and moritani.
All the new factions are really great and since you're an experienced group, you can't go wrong with which you pick.
Get them ALL 🥵 Tleilaxu are a nice faction to add in but yeah Ecaz and Moritani is a good expansion with plenty modularity to it too; don’t have to add in everything it comes with and the two factions are really fun to play.
Might be too late to add to this, but the variants added by E&M are the most fun, and the factions themselves are easier to grasp in some ways compared to the other expansions
3. Guild
I used to really like the Guild and I think they're cool but every time I've played with or against them the game has resolved in a painful 7 hour stallout victory and is slowed down due to choosing when to move. They don't have many interesting lines of play except for doomstacks as you mentioned.
2. Ixians
To me Ixians are just too damn complicated. They have like 7 advantages that mess with almost every aspect of the game. When I last played with them we were constantly having to ask the Ixian player wtf they were doing at any given time because it seemed like they were just constantly gaining new abilities.
1. Fremen
I hate being poor. I'm bougie and I like playing economic factions. Every damn time I go for a spice blow someone contests it and I get wiped out (or, invariably, the worm appears and mercs my guys). I'm not very good at Fremen.
My copy of Ecaz and Moritani comes on Friday, and I'm going to try and get it to the table ASAP! :)
The worm mercs your guys as the fremen?
As Fremen you shouldn’t be losing any guys to the worm and you get to ride it!
Bottom five for me (excluding the newest ones b/c I've not played them yet), counting down:
10. Richese (Weak starting position/leaders, and I'm terrible at tactical selling for uncertain future gains)
9. Fremen (Are often DOA because of lack of spice, makes it harder to get weapons you need to win combats in order to get spice, etc)
8. Emperor (No board presence at start; I find as the game goes along you get less and less money from Treachery cards and their alliance value is questionable)
7. Bene Gesserit (Very fun overall but definitely a late-game faction, I find it hard to get a strong position without very careful planning in advance)
6. Harkonnen (Also fun, but they correctly get a lot of table hate for being the most dangerous at start; it behooves most tables to dogpile them early)
In the playtesting process, did you ever test out a version of the Tleilaxu closer to their original General Magazine version? I found them to be extremely interesting but I could also see them being a lot of people's least favorite faction in the modern version of the game!
We found the version in the General to be utterly unplayable. It was never going to resemble it.
There is huge pressure on the Ixian faction, last time I played the game I carried the entire game on my own shoulders, as in blocking 2 other factions from winning the game early. I enjoyed great success for the half of the game but then it became increasingly difficult to come back as it's very costly to revive cyborgs.
Early game strong, and then weaker as it goes on
The new expansion really makes it worth it to throw some extra suboids in fights, getting 2 free suboids per cyborg bought is really good.
My top bottom factions:
1. Spacing Guild
2. Emperor
3. Fremen
4. Harkonnen
5. Tleilaxu/Atreides