Muaat est plus puissant qu'il n'y paraît. Ils peuvent avoir deux soleils de guerre en tout cas c'est fun (trop?) mais cela nécessite un gros travail de développement. Anyway ... two warsun is powerfull and very spectacular !!!
Only win in 11 games was with Ghosts. Put 2 plasma scoring PDS2 on the wormhole nexus (hecka trolly fun when you are stalling in the final round shooting at random systems). If you control Hope's End you have a supply of mechs for defense to open up that PDS to fire as well as dimensional splicer you can assign the hit E.G. taking out lone carriers so the infantry can't land. The hero saved me from getting winslayed. Minister of industry putting 2 war suns next to the Creuss gate? Screw you, I'm moving the gate to the other side of the board. Edit: Creuss has good early game mobility E.G. you can get to Hope's End first and lock it up before other players due to having gravity drive / commander to access anywhere. However when picking this faction you need to consider if the board has a good wormhole setup.
Just played my first game against the space turtles today. _Holy space-jesus_ ! They are both waaay more powerful and annoying than I anticipated. The guy who piloted them had never played the TI4 before, and was even quite new to board gaming in general, and I _still_ absolutely could not break him. That flagship with x3 space cannons _to freaking adjacent tiles_ is just nuts.
Barony definitely deserves B. Their ground game got a major op power up in kings. Mahact is one of my favorite factions and I haven’t had a game where I didn’t spend a round stomping all my enemies (most of the table) until I get beat back. Their commander is nuts. They’re highly dependent on the factions picked by the table but they win by getting a minor early lead followed by a mid game domination and their infantry boosts their end game survival as they automatically respawn at your home system and provide needed end game cash. Definitely B as well but it really depends on the other factions being played. They take the strengths of other factions and make OP combinations with their own faction abilities. Peace Turtles make you the strongest agenda player. Ground combat commanders with the crimson legion is very strong. Fleet strength/economy commanders interact with their ability to warfare themselves making them capable of using your super fleets better than anyone else can. You have to be focused on getting your early game victory points and fight bargain or buy other faction tokens as quickly as possible. Turn 2
The only thing I disagree with is Cabal (should be higher), Creuss (should be higher), Council (should be higher), Yssaril (should be higher), Mahact (should be higher), Mentak (should be lower), and Sol (should be lower) .... but this is what makes this game so great!
Excellent tier list!! You helped me reevaluate my perceptions concerning a few of the factions. I do think Nekro could be low to mid A-tier considering their unit flexibility with the mechs, I also think Vuil'raith is not as fragile as you make them out to be and are not instant targets for getting mobbed up on. Also, Keleris as a lower C tier was a bit of a surprise for me. I haven't played with them yet, but just from looking at their abilities and seeing other people's reviews of them, I'd have to imagine that they would be a low B tier at worst and probably a low to mid A tier at best.
What about the combo of the Sardakk N'orr Particle Weave, and the Mahact Gene Sorcerer Crimson Legionnaire so you get hard hitting infantry that are also immortal, and combo that with Transit Diodes maybe, and you can move them anywhere in the game.
Thank you for the comprehensive guide. I do have one lingering question: After my wife and I have enjoyed a few rounds using the suggested decks and acquired two core sets (second edition), what's the next step towards constructing our own decks? Should we each take one core set and start building independently, or is it more effective to mix all the cards of both sets and have one person craft a deck followed by the other? If that's the case, how do you ensure the first player doesnt take, for example, all the "Milk of the poppy" cards, blocking the second player from picking any.
In my last game, I lost a lot of momentum because the table ruled that I as the active player could not shoot my 6 space cannons located in adjacent zones plus flagship. Unless I'm misunderstanding the space cannon offense ruling it seems like with pds 2 I should get a preemptive space cannon volley before combat starts where they also get to fire theirs. Can I get any clarification on whether or not I was right or wrong
I've always found the three commodities odd for the Nekro virus. The Barony and L1Z1X only have two because they're so unpopular and aggressive, yet probably the most aggressive faction in the game - who steal technology through combat and have a racial ability named Galactic Threat - are more valuable traders? I don't get it.
I kinda hate the Jol-Nar for how OP they are. If they removed one of their tech abilities it would make them much more balanced, especially since technology is one of the most useful cards for everyone, but the Jol-Nar get a double advantage. Though it doesn’t help my friend plays them literally every time, while the rest of us like to try out different races and strategies, yet he usually wins by using the same faction and technology spamming strategy. I’m not a very good player yet I think even I could have an easier time as this one, which is a shame for a game so praised for its tactical depth.
Also: hate Xxcha, they're in pretty much all my games and they're annoying as hell, but I also think they're thematically cool and I want to play them XD
Whoa, this tierlist is one of the most missmatched I've seen online :D I disagree with most of the placings: S - Clan Sarr, Ardent Flight, Mentak, Vuil'rath, Titans of Ul A - Jol Nar, Sol Fed, Mahact, Nomad, Yssaril, Xxcha, Naaz Rokha B - Naalu, Empyrean, L1z1x, Hakan, Necrovirus C - Creuss, Muatt, Sardakk, Barony, Yin D - Keleres, Winnu, Arborec
Surprised by the Muatt rating. They were like a C for me in base game, but a few extra tools in PoK made them really shine. They're one of my favorite factions and while I am no tournament player or anything, I am still undefeated with Muatt since TI4 came out. The hero ability is also crazy satisfying. Also surprised by Naz rokha(however its spelled), they're a powerhouse and A tier easily in all the games I've seen them.
Muatt are one of my favourites from a thematic perspective. They just never seem to win in my group. They're actually pretty distant losers a lot of the time, sadly. They actually haven't won since I made this video either.
@@RulebreakerBoardgames I played Muatt again once since making that comment and won again but it was very close. Still undefeated lol. Although now people seem to have caught on that they can easily be bullied basically out of the entire game early on if needed. I did have to bribe someone with faction promissory to be left alone which was a good trade off for me
Great tierlist! Gotta say I disagree with the Naalu ranking though, I’d say they are solidly S tier. Suprising you didnt mention their agent who breaks the fundamental rules of the game! (Tactical action without using a token) but otherwise great video
Mentak is too high, they have the same problem, like Cabals or Mahact if you insist on that agro aspect so high... Mahact is too low, they can brake the rule of tactic tokens on board, it is sooo powerfull.
I don't know that I disagree with the Creuss placement, because I think they're more fun / interesting than actually good. The playstyle is mischief and sowing chaos, IMO - basically, using wormholes to give other players on the board easy opportunities to attack each other, while you're safe in your very inaccessible home system. Which is a difficult thing to pull off, IMO. That said, I think the flagship is worth noting. If you can get PDSII and place a couple of them on your home system, because the flagship contains a delta wormhole, it is adjacent to your home system. Therefore, any PDSII in your home system will fire during the space cannon offense in any combat with your flagship - each PDS is an additional die that hits on 5s. Also, and this is VERY specific but something I want to try to pull off sometime - Have 2 PDS II on home system. In a game with Quann, capture it and put a couple PDS II on it. Use Wormhole Generator or Icarus Drive to place the Beta wormhole token on Mecatol. Fly through from Quann, capture Mecatol using a fleet containing the flagship. You now have 4 PDS IIs firing at Mecatol through two separate wormholes.
The thing that is missed in Nekro is a discussion of the way the Flagship combines with the mechs. If you can assimilate your neighbours' racial tech, you can have a fleet that is your flagship plus three mechs, each of which hits on 4 during space combat and has sustain damage and can also then invade. In effect, they become easily the most powerful dreadnoughts in the game... And, of course, they only cost 2 resources to replace. This is a huge disincentive for two players at the table to attack you. Even without the +2 bonus, that flagship / mech combination is still lethal. It gets even worse if they're able to assimilate an infantry unit upgrade, like Spec Ops 2 - at that point a fleet with the flagship, 4 mechs, 2 carriers and a bunch of infantry is basically completely unstoppable.
Also if your opponent is stupid and forgets to have a defensive fleet in there home system you can use the hero to just take it as dreadnoughts and the flagship can carry ground troops with them
New player here. Found this video very very helpful. Great content, cant wait to hit that back catalogue! But yeah my first game it helped me to be a little less aggressive at the start of the game then everyone else. I established early on that i would facilitate trades between non neighbors. So long as i moved and built carefully everyone overlooked most of my plays until it was too late. They were worried i would turn the economy off if they tried anything against me. Granted it was our first game and we have/had a lot to learn about some of the nuances. It was really fun!
The Nekro flagship + 4 mechs (+ a bit more capacity and chaff) is effectively 4 extra dreadnoughts at half price that can also invade against a player you've copied a faction tech from. If not, it's "only" 4 extra Cruiser II that can sustain damage and invade. Damn, that's good.
My first game was the other night, 3 players only as others could not make it, brother and a friend of mine. The friend was playing Winnu and had entrenched themselves deeply on Mecatol. My brother and I were temporarily working together to kick him off. But then my bro got the Stellar converter. I didn't read it closely enough, thought it let him wipe out a whole system, not just destroy a planet. All my units were clustered to prepare for the assault, adjacent to his. So I panicked, and launched a preemptive strike to drive him back before he could nuke me. My friend sat pretty on mecatol and watched the Arborek super weapons clashing with the turtle defense forces in a titanic war lol.