My Thought on the Factions after playing for the first few days
Factions:
ArmaTek: The Tank + Vehicle Faction - Class infantry units utilize a lot of engineers which will boost vehicles stats as well.
Class Officer Legendary: Steel boosts all vehicles damage by +2. Best used in conjunction with Van Vehicles.
Second Class legendary is a 10/10 for 5 with a movement restriction. All protect one strats work well and you can score a possible game over by as early as turn 5.
Strategies: Either Slow roll and play your big tanks while slowly chipping away at their units, or control the board with your vans and jeeps, zooming around with speeded vehicles (good damage and mobility). Tank Ammo + Vehicle equipment is generally low costed and boosts efficiency. Mounted Machine Gun makes Vans/Jeeps absolute monsters.
Cyborgen: Enforcers and DronesThis class can be summarized with 3 specialties:
1) Super high stat to cost ratio infantry (Tiny Enforcers) with the trade off of self supression or summon sickness.
2) AOE attacks where their class infantry (Big Enforcers) will hit all targets in any adjacent hex.
3) Drones: all of them have speed to zip around, providing boosts to enforcers from stats to abilities.
Class Officer Legendary:Nemisis will heal your base for 2 hp every round, great for sustaining.
Class Enforcer Legendary: Leviathan is a monster with AOE attack and Ammo Supply allowing for multiple aoe attacks. Be very careful not to cluster, he can dish out 6+ area damage every turn easily.
I Agree, they are similar to ArmaTek in playstyle. Instead of Engineers to boost the vehicles they use drones which also have speed and can boost enforcers. Don't hesitate to use your drones to pick off low hitpoint enemies, they can deal 1-2 damage and zoom around the battlefield. You can trade very efficiently with AOE enforcers, or out value your opponents with unbalanced stats. The mercenary card Killer can be used to boost AOE enforcers as it is considered a "Special" card + 3 attack.
Airborne: The Paratroopers: Airborne focus on lower attack infantry, but have the ability to deploy either anywhere on the field or adjacent to friendly units. Most of the time these units have enter the battlefield effects that can automatically pick off your lower toughness units, or give them boosts.
The Officer class legendary Eagle deals 2 damage to the enemy building at the end of every round. Good for incremental damage, unfortunately not much synergy here.
The Paratrooper legendary is Phoenix a 2/2 for 5 that will go back to your hand when killed. Amazing when you need to kill low toughness high value enemy units anywhere on the map and can build up card advantage like crazy. If the enemy swarms with lots of units 3+ toughness you may be in trouble though.
Strategies: You can't really hope to out swarm your opponents, or out value with stats. However, this faction focuses mostly on tempo plays to win. Almost every unit has the ability to drop down, suppress or even outright kill an opponents unit without using their attack. Combine with enter the battlefield merc's that provide discard and damage, and you can find yourself easily with insurmountable board advantage.
Spec Ops: Snipers + Sneaks These guys benefit from the special abilities Evade (First damage taken is negated) and Disrupt (immunity to direct target cards) as well as having many sniper based units for 2 hex + away attacks. Secondary effects is lowering the damage of enemy units through unit abilities or board effects.
Class Officer Legendary: Dragoon reduces all enemy unit attack by -2. This is amazing as it allows your snipers to survive longer, and sustainability to go through the roof. One of the stronger cards of the game.
No Class unit legendary which is unusual, but is replaced by Misdirect which is an opposing board suppression. Strategically used it can basically give you x2 turns of free attacks on the enemy HQ.
Strategies: Outvalue your opponent with ranged snipers, picking off units before they can get near you. Some units boost the snipers stats even further allowing you to kill even high toughness targets with ease. The ability to evade and suppress allow your snipers and infantry to survive longer or get value by at least 2 for 1ing your opponents.
Marines: The few, the proud, the Balanced Faction Another infantry focused faction that specializes in stat boosting and return firing. The units have higher than average stats and synergize well with most mercenaries. A well rounded faction that wins off good trades and straight forward beat down. Class Officer Legendary: Heracles Boost ALL FRIENDLY infantry by +2 attack. Holy **** this guy is a monster, snipers, morters, speedy units, you name it this guy pumps it.
Class Unit Legendary: Zeus is a high value mortar unit that grows as other mortar units die. Note that this DOES include opposing team mortars... he can grow very fast if left unchecked.
Strategies: Synergize your infantry by taking well costed mercs and beating the opponent down with good trades. Return fire + evasion (granted through card effect or mercenaries) or boosting toughness to obscene levels will trading can easily leave your opponents in the dust. Mortars, Riflemen, and Gunners seem to be the best to bring to the battlefield.
Rebels: Hit hard, hit fast, no mercy These guys have cheap costed units (0 mana 3/2 with upside? sign me up) with powerful effects. Some are overcosted units but have both speed, bleed, suppress, or any combination of the abilities which can lock opponents down. The issue is that many of the cards also inflict damage to themselves, teammates, or both randomly. Stat distribution can also be random on certain cards leading to non-consistency.
Tend to favor suicide assaults due to the low cost of deploying infantry, boosting with equipment and ammo supply can have you swinging for 12+ damage easily in one turn to the enemy HQ. Speed and the ability to take units they attack out with one shot, or bleeding for a guaranteed kill make them trade efficiently. Unfortunately all toughness is very low and can lead to you losing board/card advantage in an instant if you're not careful.
Class Officer Legendary: Machete an average costed officer with an outrageous ability. Suppress + 2 damage every turn to a random enemy is absolutely insane. This guy can single handedly deal with a board that's favored against you with good stats.
Legendary Spell Card: another unusual faction with no class legendary unit, but instead a card that deals 5 damage to the opposing HQ and bolstering your own by +5. a 10 points life swing is nothing to scoff at and can turn the tide of battle pretty quickly.
Mercenaries: Factions are your bread, these guys are your butter: Units that go into any deck, however you don't want to just blindly include the best stats or tradeoff, you want to pick the ones that synergize best with factions. This is also where most of your direct removal will come from. I will go over the key legendaries that you can acquire, eventually we'll go into the other cards in another post.
Legendary Removal:
Airstrike this massive AOE air attack deals 5 damage to the central target and 2 to all surrounding units. Talk about a wipe, a well timed/placed airstrike can 3 for 1 or more in your favor easily turning the tides. Costs a massive 8 energy to use.
Fallen Soldier so simple, so strong. Automatically kills any unit no questions asked, high costed at 6 energy though.
Decimate is a card that automatically killed 1 RANDOM enemy unit, no questions asked. Powerful if you can single out a high priority target. Costs only 3.
*Legendary Equipment: *These are the ones you want to take note of, only two I want to bring up, the others are more or less average.
Recoiless Rifle and .50 Cal Custom - the rifle gives any infantry the ability to 1 shot any unit. If given to a unit with range or speed, it can make it increasingly difficult for the opponent to win. Let that unit live and freely pick off whatever you want. The .50 Cal has the same effect, but only for snipers. The added bonus is that instead of killing instantly, it suppresses then kills the following turn end. Use this to your advantage by locking enemy units in key locations block a spawn zone, or stop an enemy from advancing to your HQ
Legendary Officers - Theses offers give +1/+1 stat boosts for each of their respective infantry class: Gunner, Riflemen, Mortar, Sniper, Grenadier. Its easy to tell which ones slot into which factions and give the best synergy boosts. Must haves if you can get them asap.