Favorite Faction?

[Jaeger]

I've just dusted off the game with 1.0, having not seriously played since the Loth Campaign. There's been some rebalance and reworks since, so I'm curious to get everyone's perspective on the factions!

As much of a soft spot as I have for Loth lore-wise, I kind of struggle to get into them.

Barya might be my favorite because I enjoy bringing guns to a magic fight, and they have a lot of technique and synergy in their roster that's fun to play with. It can be very painful to have musketeers get sniped or otherwise nullified by spells, though.

Arleon I need to play more of, but they're a close second. Good all-around roster with with a strong defense on the human side of things, but the Fae can really shake things up with a more aggressive and melee-centric playstyle. Always fun for replayability and experimentation.

[Rasc the first rider]

My personal favorite is Rana because frogs, but looking at the conquest stats for the last week the faction popularity look like this:

Arleon: 32.1%
Loth: 26.9%
Barya: 20.9%
Rana: 20.1%

[LexGeneralis]

Barya ftw, doubleshoot everything is so satisfying

[Slowpork]

Rana. Screw stupid humies. Marsh disrespects.

[Jack Blaze]

Loth for me. There's just something extremely satisfying about porting my Legion into the enemy army and having him pop three enemy stacks

Barya are a close second though, those cannons are pure dopamine injections every time I use them

[electrodarkness]

Loth.

[Jaeger]

Originally posted by Rasc the first rider:

My personal favorite is Rana because frogs, but looking at the conquest stats for the last week the faction popularity look like this:

Arleon: 32.1%
Loth: 26.9%
Barya: 20.9%
Rana: 20.1%

Alas, I'm not a frog fanatic, and I suspect that may be part of why they're ranked low. That and maybe being one of the trickier factions to use...? Hard to say since my balance knowledge is outdated.

I expected Arleon and Loth to be at the top, though that's a larger lead than anticipated. I very much get the appeal of Arleon, though. Some straightforward but satisfying options in there with the ability to spice them up and some classically cool designs.

Still trying to get a handle on Loth, but haven't been able to get its units and magic to click quite as smoothly as Barya, alas.

Being Together for Her is all fun and games until someone brings out the double attack Hellroar ;.;

[Jack Blaze]

Originally posted by Jaeger:

Alas, I'm not a frog fanatic, and I suspect that may be part of why they're ranked low. That and maybe being one of the trickier factions to use...? Hard to say since my balance knowledge is outdated.

I expected Arleon and Loth to be at the top, though that's a larger lead than anticipated. I very much get the appeal of Arleon, though. Some straightforward but satisfying options in there with the ability to spice them up and some classically cool designs.

Still trying to get a handle on Loth, but haven't been able to get its units and magic to click quite as smoothly as Barya, alas.

Being Together for Her is all fun and games until someone brings out the double attack Hellroar ;.;

Hear me out

Porting your 2-3 legions into the heart of the enemy army and popping almost all of it before they even get a chance to go

[Pizzaspy]

This is a froggie game. How is this even a discussion?

[JellyPuff]

Frogs together strong.

Though Arleon is the one, i've played the most. Spamming Quicken on Knights/Fist of Order never gets old.

[Ancient Toaster]

Arleon. I like Knights and the typical medieval army stuff they got going on, with a mix of Faye creatures.

[Will be deleted]

They are all fun to play as, all units are fun to use. Rana is probably my favorit being the only non human faction.

Originally posted by LexGeneralis:

Barya ftw, doubleshoot everything is so satisfying

You can even get 3 shots per unit with both +1 attacks which I think they get all the esscence for.

Originally posted by Rasc the first rider:

My personal favorite is Rana because frogs, but looking at the conquest stats for the last week the faction popularity look like this:

Arleon: 32.1%
Loth: 26.9%
Barya: 20.9%
Rana: 20.1%

Arelon being that high maybe because it is the first faction in the campign?

Originally posted by JellyPuff:

Frogs together strong. :hey_qt:

Though Arleon is the one, i've played the most. Spamming Quicken on Knights/Fist of Order never gets old.

Rana have riders who also have the charge, but unfortunally no easy access to order.

[Jaeger]

Originally posted by Jack Blaze:

Originally posted by Jaeger:

Alas, I'm not a frog fanatic, and I suspect that may be part of why they're ranked low. That and maybe being one of the trickier factions to use...? Hard to say since my balance knowledge is outdated.

I expected Arleon and Loth to be at the top, though that's a larger lead than anticipated. I very much get the appeal of Arleon, though. Some straightforward but satisfying options in there with the ability to spice them up and some classically cool designs.

Still trying to get a handle on Loth, but haven't been able to get its units and magic to click quite as smoothly as Barya, alas.

Being Together for Her is all fun and games until someone brings out the double attack Hellroar ;.;

Hear me out

Porting your 2-3 legions into the heart of the enemy army and popping almost all of it before they even get a chance to go

That's a pretty fair point. I recently watched a review that helped highlight some of the very fun and creative things you can do with magic that completely went over my head before.

Well, that and my Loth games have yet to make heavy use of Legions, but I'm eager to rectify that!

[div.ide]

Reporting in for team froggers! At least so far, vs AI. Rana has that somewhat technical patient assassin mixed with battlefield control playstyle that seems to activate just the right neurons for me.

Some highlights:
- Proably the most robust triad of essences among all factions (by far the most raw burn, some good control, a few key buffs, mobility). From my experience so far, Rana were the easiest to sort of punch above while clearing neutrals with barely any army and do it with no losses sustained.
- Storm guards start unimpressive (as hunters), but scale a lot better than you'd expect.
- Riders actually feel overtuned. Highly mobile chargers with solid base damage, double dipping in tech trees (rana+beast tags on both then and tremors) AND high mana income on top of it? So much goodness early to lategame. To top it off, many of their upgrades cost glimmerweave, which Rana can produce themselves.
- Tremors might be underapreciated, but their earlygame essence/debuff cheese is just so rich in lactose. For neutrals camps, at least.
- Dragons. Although by the time dragons even enter the battlefield, map's for the most part decided. But they look cool though!
- Apparently M'Sugna (I'm sure there's more, it's the only one I've seen so far though) can learn and max out all 5 magic schools latgame (some RNG required, YMMV) and that's just too precious. So many options. Makes for some explosive combos not even essence shield can protect you from.

Arleon seemed to click at first but then it faded. On the magic side they lean a little too heavily on protective buffs with little else. Mixed feelings about Sappers and fey. Human core makes for a robust force, but maybe just a touch too straightforward for me.

Loth is partly an enigma to me as the way campaign progressed, fair amount of time was spent playing either just arleon or mass rats + banes, for quite literal lack of any other options. By the time I could even bring out legions on last scenario, the black plague consumed most of the map, and I've never even built a single Mausoleum. Plague rats oneshotting dragons with Brutal 2 were a blast. Loth has potential for second favourite but I need more time with it.

For Barya, there are some cool technical unit abilities and synergies that seem fun to play with. I see the appeal of Hellroar carnage and multiattacks, but I had some issues nailing down their essense gain balance to make the most of it. Maybe it's because I only tried campaign and last scenario grants you a total of 1 large building slot until you pry another one from cold, dead Rana claws (read: basically win already), making my most recent memory of playing the faction one with no tech available all the way through.

I should spend more time with other factions outside campaign, I'm feeling really biased right now.

[Shlomosuke]

Arleon's my least favourite. Mainly because their schools of magic suck (I think it's something like order/chaos/arcana). But they have a very strong roster of units that, given the right buffs, can completly stomp a fight.

Favourite would be Loth and their godtier mana generation. Man do I like getting over 30 destruction magic a turn.

[Cubertino]

Loth. I choose necrobois in any game that allows me to and the theme they have in SoC is great. Units are insane as well.

Then Arleon, then Rana, then Barya.