Regarding Syndicate Allegiances

[Arctilius]

I just found out about The Other Side as I was exploring the Malifaux website (I'm getting into Neverborn for Third Edition) and wanted some clarifications on Syndicate Allegiances. Based on what I can tell from the artwork, I am really excited about the backstory behind the Court of Two and the doppleganger Anton De Wils. However, I would like clarification on whether or not Syndicate Allegiances will have future releases that make them enough to become standalone factions (or just simply mercenary factions to support the big four).

 

Also, how does the Malifaux/Earth Syndicate Envoy rule work? Does this mean that the Court of Two can only be hired by Cult of the Burning Man and Gibbering Hordes, while Guild can only be hired by Abyssinia and King's Empire? I personally would like to wait, if I know for a fact that the Court of Two will have a standalone factional release, otherwise I may settle for Abyssinia or Cult of the Burning Man (if Abyssinia cannot take Court of Two mercenaries)...

[solkan]

39 minutes ago, Arctilius said:

Also, how does the Malifaux/Earth Syndicate Envoy rule work? Does this mean that the Court of Two can only be hired by Cult of the Burning Man and Gibbering Hordes, while Guild can only be hired by Abyssinia and King's Empire?

Basically, yeah.  At the moment there is exactly one model for each of those factions, and the Envoy card lets you hire it.

The existing Guild Envoy allows an Earth side allegiance (Abyssinia and King's Empire are two existing Earth Side Allegiances) to hire Guild units.  The Court Envoy card allows Malifaux side allegiances (Gibbering Hordes and Cult of the Burning Man) to hire Court units.   

39 minutes ago, Arctilius said:

I personally would like to wait, if I know for a fact that the Court of Two will have a standalone factional release, otherwise I may settle for Abyssinia or Cult of the Burning Man (if Abyssinia cannot take Court of Two mercenaries)...

We have seen pictures of the box art for the two player starter set of Court of Two vs. Guild.  And there's the nice teaser pictures on the last pages of the rulebook.

That two player box will have to include Allegiance cards for Guild and Court of Two, and cards for the units in the box.  The contents of those cards is matter of speculation at this point.

It would be inconsistent with what we know at the moment to plan on Abyssinia being able to take Court of Two models.  Many things are possible, if you're willing to consider sufficiently small probability levels approaching zero, but it is improbable that the Earth side and Malifaux side lines will be crossed.

As far as "Will these syndicates have enough future releases that make them enough to become standalone factions?"  Give Nathan Caroland a million dollars (or even just a few hundred thousand) and you can have any faction you want.    Otherwise, promises and plans have to be subject to change based on sales.  (You would, of course, be obligated to pester them about Puppet Wars if you were strong arming them into funding factions.    )

[retnab]

Way back when during the Kickstarter Aaron said that the Syndicates were meant to be mini-Allegiances, but due to popular demand they'd be given rules to be playable on their own and get more stuff eventually.  Don't know if that's still the current plan, but it's the last we've heard on it.

As far as future buys, currently we only know about the Binh/Thrace standard sculpts and the 2 player starter box which is Court vs Guild.  If there's anything else coming up for them we haven't seen it yet.  However we do have the current Envoy cards for both the Court and Guild in the big rulebook, so we know the Court is hireable into any Malifaux Allegiance and the Guild is hireable into any Earth Allegiance.  We also know that some time in the future there's going to be a "universal" syndicate in The Sandmen since they're the ones who won the Homefront event.