Cedric has hit the proverbial nail on the head, and managed to do it in a far more eloquent way than I could.

In retrospect, I suppose a more fitting title for this threat could have been imagined, as it is more about shall we say... faction re-alignment, though consolidation plays a major role in that re-alignment.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see what comes next. =)

Well done Cedric,
Stormcrow

Thank you for the kind words, sir!

I hope the recent surveys have given WizKids a good understanding of how much we care about factions. Many of us play this game because we love the universe, not because we love the game mechanics. As new science fiction CMG's start to offer some tough competition (Star Wars Minis for example), WizKids will need to really start giving us what we want or they will lose players.

The decisions to exclude some factions completely from recent sets were made long before those survey results were in hand. I hope that now they will do some things differently. For instance, I think it's OK to leave a faction out of a set but only if you give that faction an alliance with another faction that is well-represented - to keep those players buying.

But don't assume that such alliances have to be permanent! For example, Bannson's Raiders could be allied with Liao during FP, but maybe in the next set they make a new alliance, or just go independent again.

I would also love to see more faction pure events. Glad there is a big 600 pt faction pure tournament at Gen Con Indy, hope it's well attended!

Don't be so sure. The Steel Wolves AREN'T the original warden Wolf Clan that Kerensky formed. That Clan died and got split up during the Refusal War in 3057. The Steel Wolves are directly descended from Vlad's Wolves a.ka. the Crusader Wolves, for a period of time called the JADE Wolves. The Jade Wolf Clan was allowed to form because Khan Chistu thought he could have a powerful ally in the crusader remenants of the former Wolf Clan (at wars end, most of them were p.o.w.s of the Jade Falcons). Chistu could have annihilated all of them after he "won" the Refusal War, but he didn't (which was a fatal mistake because Vlad ended up killing Chistu, whereupon Vlad renamed the Jade Wolf Clan so it was once again just called the "Wolf Clan"). But nevertheless, the Jade Falcons and Wolves continued to be semi-allies, because Vlad and the new JF Khan, Marthe Pryde, were very close (they even slept together, for heavens sake)! And some of the fluff talks about how highly the Steel Wolves revere Vlad, so therefore it's not too much of a stretch that the SW might also remember the days when they were relatively friendly with the Jade Falcons.

If you pair up factions, they aren't necessarily "combined" for fluff reasons, but rather just fighting against common enemies (enemy of my enemy is my friend). They can still be considered separate houses and Clans, it's just that they're fighting together (e.g. Britain, America, Canada etc. against Germany and Japan in World War 2 - each was still a separate country, but they were fighting under a unified command against common enemies).

There's plenty of instances in CBT where houses and Clans fought side-by-side. Davion and Steiner fought Kurita, Liao and Marik together. Marik and Liao invaded the Fedcom in 3057 together. All the houses fought Clans Jade Falcon and Smoke Jaguar and the Word of Blake together. All the (invading) Crusader Clans fought Comstar on Tukayyid and the Star League on Strana mechty.

Besides, the great houses and Clans themselves would not be uniting, but just the splinter factions of each house/Clan in the RoTS (or, in the case of Liao and Jade Falcon, their invasion forces would unite with one of the splinter factions to achieve their common objectives).