Great game!

My only previous FFG game is TI3 and while I saw some similarities the games are quite different in how they function. FFG has (again) produced a game which has high quality components and a beautifully painted land hexes. But two things bothered me a bit.

1) we played 1,5 games, first a half game followed by the real thing. I played the humans in both and I found them to be quite lame when it comes to fighting battles. I played humans in both games and felt that the other factions, primaraly the two evil ones as I almost ever fought them, are significantly stronger in combat. What is your experience when it comes to balance of power? Things which might have influenced my experience are: I don't usually play aggressively, I never owned any city (they were razed by the bloody bid season event in both games) for more than two rounds and lastly, I'm not sure what the best ratio of different unit types is. 

2) Battles are ,despite me losing most, still pretty fun. BUT, it seems to be almost impossible to make any kind of decisive breakthrough. I take a hex from my opponent and then he takes it back, and so on for most of the game. In TI3 you can't, most of the time, move units you just produced since the system is activated when producing. In RW you build and then happily march off to battle. This mechanism seems to favour grinding wars with little progress. 

Overall a nice game and I look forward to playing it again in about a weeks time. But I'm sure as hell not going to touch the human faction again. I think. I do like to be humans…purge the filthy xenos and all that ;)

 I think the power of the factions may come down to group playstyle.  In the games I've been involved in, the Daqan Lords have won more games by far than any other faction, in 2-, 3-, and 4-player games.

It's hard to say what we may be doing differently, but for us, they certainly aren't the weakest race by any means :)

 But what makes them a top faction in your games then? Why do they win most of the time? I must have done something wrong when playing, a common thing when playing a new game I guess ;)

Panzerkanzler said:

I'm not really sure I can say for sure.  I think their military units are pretty solid except the Seige Towers (and even they are OK as damage absorbers); the Knights especially en masse, being fast and allowing for Tactics Cards.  Perhaps the latter is really what helps - using lots of Knights eventually leads to a decent hand of Tactics cards being drawn, and while individual cards can be hit or miss, having a lot of Tactics cards tends to start leading to more power.  Plus, with their defensive bonus development token, it can be easier to maintain their strongholds on the frontier.

Again, not really sure I could pinpoint what exactly it is for us; all I can go on is their win record in our games :)

 Well, then I guess I'll be continuing to tough it out with the Dlords. I usually like playing with the humans in any game, like in TI. But what is the best way to use forts? In my first game I tried to build three forts in three connected hexes so as to turn those three hexes into a long solid wall to protect all of my lands behind them. Are forts best used as actual defensive positions, able to withstand enemy attacks, or as recruiting stations a bit behind the frontlines?

Panzerkanzler said:

I think a little of both; the key to fortresses on the frontier is that you need to keep them manned if you don't want to lose them.  One thing I like doing if I can is using a Fortify action in an area I have a lot of units already, or when I have a Reinforcement card in hand; in the latter case, I will build the stronghold, then immediately populate it with some reinforcements.  They don't need to be powerful units, just try to make them full, and if possible recruit soon afterwards.  It's hard to take down a stronghold with 8 units in it, even with a Conquer order.  The ones on the edges are the best ones to do the +2 developments on, too, but only if you keep them reasonably manned.

 The game became way more balanced with the expansion, however FFG needs to release a new expansion with more factions to choose from.