Critical Mass

The fact that AT-43, as a game system, has two factions got me thinking about how many factions you need for an ultimately successful brand. The number must be larger than two because most new miniature lines have around four. Rezolution has the CSO, APAC, Dravani, and Ronin. Dark Age has the Forsaken, Dragyri, Skard, and the Brood. Mongoose’s Starship troopers has three factions and Urban War has six. It would appear, however, that the longer lived game systems have 10 or more factions: Reaper’s Warlord has 10 factions, Warhammer 40K has 11 factions and Warhammer Fantasy has 14! AT-43 is a new game system and time will tell if more than two factions will be released. The state of the market, however, would seem to suggest that the more factions you have, the more successful the game will be.

An interesting thing that Rackham has done with the release of AT-43 is to build the story line as the game is released. The first game: Operation Damocles, sets the story and missions around the first human invasion of the machine factory planet. The troops found in the game represent the recon forces and leading edge of the larger invasion to come. Seems like a nice way to build more troop types and larger battles as the product comes to market.