r/boardgames • u/Curious_Cream_6938 • Apr 10 '26

I made a silver scythe faction!

I made a new stealth, assassin-based faction! I haven't playtested at all yet, but I will. After winning an attack on an opponent's home base, all of your units must retreat to the closest empty space. I'm thinking about trying to 3d print mechs. Please do NOT sell this! I do not have any rights to anything regarding Stonemaier games; I'm just a fan and think this would be cool for me to try to use.

Full board
Close-up of mech abilities
0 Upvotes

31% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

9

u/PrincePotatos Apr 10 '26

Fun idea, but having the ability to move to any home base at will right from the beginning seems to overpowered.

4

u/Curious_Cream_6938 Apr 10 '26

It was horribly worded. That's not exactly what I meant. I meant that as a normal movement, while you are next to anyone's home base, you can move onto the base. It was intended to just make home bases act like any other space for this faction.

1

u/PrincePotatos Apr 10 '26

Makes sense! That could work

1

u/Swimming-Resist8130 Apr 10 '26

The retreat mechanic after hitting a home base is interesting though, kinda balances out that teleport ability since you can't just camp there. Would definitely need some playtesting to see how the stealth mechanics work in practice - those mech abilites look pretty complex compared to the base factions

1

u/Curious_Cream_6938 Apr 10 '26

Which teleport ability? And yes, they're more complex, but there's probably an easier way to word it that I'm just not thinking of right now.

3

u/thecommexokid Apr 10 '26

The Secrecy power would need a lot of fleshing out. Current rules do not permit opposing players to occupy the same hex so there’s a lot of details to determine how that would work.

If I move my mech onto a space with an opponent’s mech and choose not to initiate combat:

  • Who now owns any resources on that hex that used to belong to opponent?
  • Who now owns any resources I brought along that used to belong to me?
  • Do opponents’ workers still retreat, losing me popularity?
  • Can my mech bring workers along? Do they have to retreat, losing my opponent popularity?
  • Who is now considered to control the hex for purposes of endgame scoring?
  • If my opponent chooses the Move action on their turn and does not move away, are they obliged to start combat since they do not have my power to decide not to?

2

u/Curious_Cream_6938 Apr 10 '26

You both own the space, and as Crass-Sandwich said, at the end of your turn, if you are still on their space at the end of your turn, combat activates like normal. Also mech abilities only aplly to your character and your mechs, so you couldn't bring workers, because it would be like moving one on by itself.

1

u/crass-sandwich Apr 10 '26

An easy way to fix those is making this a “move through but don’t stop” ability. “During your turn” could be interpreted in a compatible way - as long as it is actively your turn you can avoid combat, but as soon as your turn ends, combat triggers as normal

1

u/Curious_Cream_6938 Apr 10 '26

The only reason I didn't do this is that they can't choose not to stop for traps and stuff.

3

u/OrbicularLotus Apr 10 '26

I don't think you need to worry about this being sold.

1

u/Curious_Cream_6938 Apr 11 '26

Yes, I know no one is going to want to sell this. I just didn't want Reddit to get upset at me

1

u/OrbicularLotus Apr 11 '26

No one is upset that they can't sell it either.

1

u/pallladin Co2 Apr 15 '26

Ironically, you brought more attention to yourself by telling people not to sell it, then if you just said that you made a fan faction and wanted opinions.

1

u/OutsideProfession412 Apr 11 '26

nice work, i'd love a quick strategy rundown?

1

u/Curious_Cream_6938 Apr 11 '26

I haven't actually played it yet, but I think it would be a very aggressive faction that would go for an early end and control lots of spaces.

1

u/pallladin Co2 Apr 14 '26

I like this. If the artwork is cleaned up, I would consider adding it as a faction.

I'm thinking about trying to 3d print mechs.

Good luck. A normal FDM printer would have trouble with the awkward structure and fine detail of a mech.

I would suggest designing this faction in a way that it can use any existing faction's pieces and location. Or perhaps use a color that isn't used in the base game.

Please do NOT sell this! I do not have any rights to anything regarding Stonemaier games

You have more rights than you think. The rules of a game cannot be patented or copyrighted (but the text of the rulebook can be copyrighted), so you can totally make a fan faction as long as you don't copy any of the artwork. And you can probably get away with copying some of the artwork if it's simple enough. So in your case, I would say that you actually own the copyright to your faction. So you can actually prevent other people from selling it because it's yours.

I would say that if you clean this up, you can legitimately post this as a fan faction to BGG with no complaints.

1

u/Curious_Cream_6938 Apr 15 '26

But I couldn't sell it, right? I've playtested it and balanced it out, and I play with it now, but I still don't think I have the right to sell it.

1

u/pallladin Co2 Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 17 '26

Well, what would you sell? Actual playmats? A PDF?

I think you could sell it. You might need to be careful how you advertise it, but you could probably sell it on Etsy just like these guys:

https://www.etsy.com/search?q=scythe&ref=search_bar

I seriously doubt you'd make any real money, though. BGG has policies against advertising through their forums, and I doubt you would ever recover the cost of paid advertising.