Progress continues to be made on the Soviet Union, our fourth faction, and in that spirit we’ve got some units to share with you. Please keep in mind that these are first drafts and, like all first drafts, they can see a lot of tweaking between now and being published! We haven’t started testing the balance yet and that is when the changes happen.
The Union Transit Officer is an early game Union unit, combining support and free unit features. For 1 MP, you place the Transit Officer who has 1 HP and an ability to move allied units above or below him 1 tile forwards. At the same time, he has Charge and you draw two Conscripts when you place him. This means if you play him on the first turn, you can then play one or both of the Conscripts, which cost 0 MP, and then use his ability to shift one of them forwards. He can then either remain in the first column, speeding the movement of new units to the front, or he can advance with other units to quickly get them into Domination Damage tiles.
The Battery Commander is a 4 MP range 2 unit who has 2 HP and 1 Attack by default. He also doesn't retaliate. However, he has a special ability where he gains +1 Attack for 1 turn every time another allied unit is deployed. For other factions, this might not be the best ability, but in the right Union deck you can be deploying a lot of cheap or free units, and it should be easy to buff him up to 3 or more damage as needed.
The Union also have a few cards which cause their opponents to draw cards - if played right, and in numbers, you can put serious pressure on your opponent's hand, keeping them near their limit and potentially discarding as they draw. The Komdiv Adjutant is a 3 HP 1 Attack vertical attack only unit, with diagonal movement, for 5 MP - but the real value is in their ability which causes both you and your opponent to draw an extra card while they are in play. Obviously there is a risk that making your opponent draw more cards could backfire, but given that you have the power to decide when your opponent will be drawing and you can build your deck to handle double card draws, it could give you the advantage.
Do you like the idea of forcing your opponent to draw so that they might have to discard at the end of their turn? Fatigue Damage might make an appearance more often in that case. For the players who have never encountered Fatigue Damage it’s what happens when you start your turn and your deck is empty. If you cannot draw a card you receive one damage for the first turn, two damage for the second, and the damage continues to rise until the game is won or lost. Exciting!
Also, we’ve been populating our Pinterest Link with card art, concept art, and all of the art that we can get our hands on. It’s worth a look through to see some of the card art up close, the ideas before they became units, etc! See you on the battlefield!