Primer: Creating Your Faction

PRIMER: CREATING YOUR FACTION

The signature aspect of The Genesys Project is customization and nothing shows it more than when you are creating your faction. Many playtesters spend a lot time creating different factions, just for the fun of doing it! Of course, then getting them to choose one to play can be quite the challenge on the evenings we have been playtesting for years.

You can reach the Current Kickstarter (now funded!) at this link
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thegenesysproject/the-genesys-project-the-birth-of-genesys

SELECTING YOUR DOMAIN

Select Your Domain- Humanoids, Fey, Reptilia, Biests, or Insekts. The Domain you choose will have different methods of creating your faction. For example, the Biests have Biestial Kingdoms to select from in addition to Regional Traits. Insekt are split into Classifications and Orders, and Reptilia have Lineages and Bloodlines that follow their ancestry back to the beginning of the Genesys Worlds.

THE NARRATIVE BEGINS NOW

When deciding which direction to go when creating your faction players can approach from different angles. You may already have miniatures you want to use, may know of a miniature line you want to use, go off a theme or narrative that you have read about, or even creating your faction from the rules you want to play with.

Your narrative starts now as you create your faction and start thinking of how you want your faction to be.

CREATING THE FACTION

With a starting set of Characteristics (dependent upon the chosen Domain) its time to start selecting Traits. You will most often be selecting 3-8 traits for your faction. These grant your army wide abilities that every model in your armies will have.

Things to consider when making your faction: Some traits will better as Class Traits when you are creating your classes. For example, traits with expensive point costs will likely be best as specific class traits. Think of traits that you want everyone to have and leave specific tasks to your classes.

Armory Traits are often nice here as they grant access to special equipment but only cost points when equipped, granting flexibility when making your army lists for the game.

CREATING YOUR UNIT CLASSES

Once you create your faction, its time to create your Unit Classes. Unit Classes are granted additional traits and abilities above and beyond those for your entire army. This can be access to different equipment or to fulfill a specific role on the table. You might make a standard frontline soldier, infiltrators, some hard-hitting shock troops, or even spellcasters.

Unit Classes all have levels ranging from 1 to 5 with level 1 being your standard troops all the way through level 5 which are unique or legendary type models. The higher the point level of the game, the higher the class levels you can use in the game, so that smaller games are focused on more of your base troops and possibly with an elite squad running the operation.

Higher Level Classes get more attacks, often get bonus characteristics, and are allowed to take additional traits. This is what will separate them from the rest. You can even create these classes from other already existing classes specializing them further above and beyond the rest of your army.

When creating your Unit Classes, it is important to vary your forces up, to give you the flexibility that you will want in your over-all army. You wouldn’t want to for instance create all your unit classes to be nearly identical. Different weapon options, new skills, mounts, and even magic can be essential to give your faction the tools needed to take on your opponent.

• Mounted forces are excellent for moving quickly to objectives, trampling through enemy units, and flanking already engaged soldiers
• Ranged Units really good at taking out exposed enemy units and forcing the opponent to think about how he will achieve his or her objectives
• Melee forces are there to get into the thick of it. Whether they are used for fodder or hard-hitting shock troops, your melee forces are there to make a dent in the enemy lines.

While your forces do not need to have all these elements, being able to deal with these threats in some manner is important. Do you create a giant able to wade into the battle able to shrug off most attacks, or scouts able to spot deploying troops so that you can get the jump on them as the battle starts. These are the questions that will make your faction unique and fun to play.

Things to Consider when making your Classes: This is where your factions will vary the most from other players. Some Traits require prerequisites to reach or require taking primary traits to get to the secondary ones. Use can use your faction to cover these prerequisites to get to these traits much easier. Think of your Faction/Species Traits as a base from which to build your unit classes upon.

Next Up: We take a closer look at the Domains- Creating Your Humanoid Faction.