The Shogun Empire
Honor the Emperor
The third faction to be released for Face Off is the Shogun Empire. Veterans of March of War most likely remember that Empire represents and controls Asia, and it is Asian themes that influence the design of Empire’s units. It’s home territories consist of Beijing, Japan and Korea. The faction has a very comprehensive past as well as a lot of interesting and diverse units in the original game. You can learn more about it on the March of War wiki:
http://marchofwar.wikia.com/wiki/Shogun_Empire
In Face Off, we wanted our third faction to be the first of a wildly ‘different’ set of cards than Republic and Alliance and also to represent a new play style for diversity. Last week, when we came out of Early Access, we decided to preview two of the many Empire cards we’re in the process of designing. On Facebook, we also issued a challenge: try to guess what those units might do. While no one guessed correctly (sorry guys), those who participated will receive a prize – just email [email protected] to claim it.
The units we previewed are the Tank Slayers and the Occultists, and today we will do an overview of them as well as two more cards you’ll see in Face Off when Empire launches (currently set to happen in early to mid August – date still pending). The italicized text below is design thoughts from Wilson.
Tank Slayers
“Quite a number of Empire units have diagonal movement compared to the other factions, making it possible to build a deck with very flexible movement. The Tank Slayers are an example of one of these cards, with Fast and diagonal movement making them able to evade and harass enemy vehicles early on without inviting retaliation since they do damage after movement rather than through a conventional attack. They only cost 1, but also only have 1 HP.”
http://i.imgur.com/jjFD9Wc.png
The Occultist
“The Occultist deals 1 damage to an ally in front of them to deal 1 damage to the next two enemies in the same row. This could be a solid power for the other factions, but a lot of Empire units have effects which trigger when they take damage. One other unit even damages all enemies in the same Row when they take damage - when combined with the Occultist, that's a lot of damage, though most of these on damage effects buff adjacent units, so the Occultist offers Empire players an easy way to trigger these effects while damaging enemies at the same time!”
http://i.imgur.com/7FROkVy.png
Fireshield & Imperial Guard
An example of some of those units are the Fireshield which gains +2 Attack when damaged and has 4HP to start with, or the Imperial Guard which give +1/+1 to allies in the same column when damaged while being solid 3/3 troops that can attack diagonally as well as forward.
Fireshield: http://i.imgur.com/DStzyd7.png
Imperial Guard: http://i.imgur.com/Oow9a5e.png
And Our First Contest!
We’ve got a lot of cards designed for Empire, but we’re curious to see what you think is missing from Face Off. Toward that end, we’re issuing our first official contest! The rules are simple: Design a command card you’d like to see in game for Empire; there's no limit to how many you can enter. You can submit your designs to [email protected] with the subject line ‘EMPIRE COMMAND CARD CONTEST.’ Entries must be submitted by 00:00 EST on the 26th of July, and the winner will receive 500 free tickets as their prize and maybe even have their idea featured in the game. You can use the March of War wiki as inspiration, as all of the original game’s Empire units are featured there. We look forward to seeing what you come up with!