cleardave said:

At least with the demo decks/rules, the only thing is that at least 1 of the resources you pay for a card has to come from a card with a matching faction icon (except for neutral cards, which don't need any match). So if it stays that way, combining shouldn't be too hard as long as you don't go past 2 factions plus some neutrals. Beyond that, you might have real trouble getting up at least one objective to pay for your matching stuff.

I wonder if there's any rules to picking your faction card though, since that also provides 1 resource. I could see mixing 2 factions and taking the faction card of the more minor faction, and then mostly objectives of the more predominant faction, or some other variation, if that's possible.

 And even if you do find yourself without a resource for one of your factions, at least those cards can be used in edge battles. I'm starting to like edge battles more and more. Wasn't a fan at first, but the idea of never being "stuck" with a card is really great.

Further on mixing factions; if you were running, at max, 4 factions for your side (ex: Jedi, Rebels, Scoundrels, Neutral), you would need to have a roughly even mix of faction objectives in your pile.  From there, as best I can recall, you're drawing 3 off the top at random at the start of the game.  Statistically, that could mean an average of one of each, but you're more likely to get a skew going that doesn't cover one of the 3 factions, so like mentioned, that faction becomes fodder for the Edge Battle.

It will be interesting to see if any of the block synergies become too diluted if you try and go all-in and mix everything, or if it sort of corrects itself mechanically.  Being able to use your characters for Edge Battles when you can't pay for them certainly helps with dead hands, but that could also choke you out, deployment wise, as well.

So many possibilities…

I like the mechanic for the edge battles. But I still wish they were called something else. It's just that I don't recall the word "edge" ever being used in the Star Wars films, OT or PT.

cleardave said:

I've heard a few people say that to start the game it's: draw 4 objectives, pick 3.

So going with 4/3/3 objective split between 3 factions, you *could* have an ok shot of getting one of each, but you could also get screwed. But also, depending on how much stuff you run for each faction, you'll most likely still want/need to be able to play more than 1 card for certain factions each turn, so that might not even help.

2 factions plus some neutral (if needed) seems much more doable. But it will be neat to see the total possibilities and/or try to bend what isn't as efficient.

Games with a faction system generally fall into one of two types. The first type, seen in games like A Game of Thrones and Legend of the Five Rings, presents a strong economic incentive to play almost, if not entirely so, out of a single house/clan. The second type, which most of the LCGs embrace, encourages players to mix and match various factions to create an innovative blend of their diverse strengths. In most of the latter type I tend to stick to a single faction/color, as it gives me one less factor to keep track of while playing, allowing me to focus purely on winning. This kind of style won't be very fun to do right out of the box, since it looks like each side will have exactly ten objectives in the Core Set, but as monthly packs start to come out this should be less of an issue.

This is all assuming, of course, that they implement a rule that prevents Characters and Creatures from engaging Fighters and Capital Ships. I won't be playing if this does not turn out to be the case.