I've been playing 8-player Dune with the first eight factions & Basic rules and it's honestly a blast. There's a wonderful elegance and gameplay tightness of having the Spacing Guild, Emperor, and Tleilaxu in the game on basic since the ways that extra spice enters or leaves the economy are quite limited without the double blows and spice dialing. Everything typically goes to one of those three factions and circulates back and forth between them. The Ixians have really grown on me too to round out the set of eight factions. I personally don't play with the tech tokens variant since I feel the extra income they provide clashes with the spirit of basic Dune. So having their mobile stronghold as that extra stronghold that is up for grabs towards the victory really shines in eight-player Dune. It also rounds out the factions that move around the planet and go after spice very well. It's no secret that historically a lot of the board actually goes unused. But the Ixians share the enhanced movement of the Fremen and the freedom to play on that southern part of the planet. It's quite a good experience and one that I would recommend.

I usually organize the factions in order of how simple they are to play. From there it's first come first serve, no restrictions on factions or number of players due to my groups size. Biggest game we've had was 9 players and it was a blast, we really do just like to see what kind of plays pan out. Still trying to get a 10 player game rolling..

Oooo! ty for this video - would you think of publishing a table with how each of the factions are defined and how to select a good group? Maybe similar to what the Root guys did in their faction selection? You could have Board Prescence and Economic Factions, and then maybe a special consideration, so the Emperor would have Sardukar and the Fremen would have two move etc. Would be very helpful as now there are so many factions to choose! Ty

Hey Jack! If I wanted to show mt friend Dune at 3 players just to give him a tutorial of the rules qnd a preview of the game (I can mention it plays better at 5-6 players etc.) what factions would you recommend including, and what if any expansion content? Would you use Nexus Cards? are there any faction combos fun at 3 besides the rulebook recommendations of Harks, Atreides, Fremen?

Always remove Harkonnen. Too random compared to others. If you draw the best leader of everyone at the table nad buy bid different weapon / defenses, GGez. If you draw all 1s and get worthless treachery cards, GG. If you get a decent mix which will often be the case it's ok, but there's a high change to waste your time OR everyone else's which is the worst because of RNG. Might as well flip a coin. Tleilaxu play a similar role in forcing aggressively so I always make sure they're in.

Played a game recently, my alliance of Harkonen and the Spacing Guild won, however Harkonen ran out of money fast. CHOAM, the Emperor, and the Spacing Guild had all the spice, CHOAM had stoopid spice.

Hey Jack, I was wondering what you think about what ive been seeing online about people at their tables changing the freman alliance ability. I see people make a few suggestions, mainly being that their allies dont pay spice for fighting. Ive only played myself but the freman seem strong to me. What are your thoughts? Thank you :)

Atreides is a absolute must. You COULD play without them but the game just feels like rng at that point because people don't know what treachery cards to bid on which is like over 50% of this game. Get good treachery cards -> go for the win. That's how you play this game and without the Atreides the bidding phase is ruined. Emporer and Harkonnen are factions that add a lot to the game imo. Fremen are weird you can leave them out but they add conflict to the game which is good. Spacing could be replaced with Choam or Tleilaxu. I don't like having more than 2 income factions in the game that being -> Emperor, Spacing, Choam, Tleilaxu. Bene Gesserit are the most replaceable for a few reasons. 1. They are the best faction in the game, not balanced so replacing them with a weaker faction could "balance the game" 2. They are reactionary, they don't do alot but when they come out of their shell they hurt. Ixians and Richese could replace Bene Gesserit well. So in short this is how I like to play -> MUST HAVES: (Atreides, Harkonnen, Fremen, Emporer) CHOOSE 1: (Spacing, Choam, Tleilaxu) CHOOSE 1: (Bene Gesserit, Ixian, Richese)

can you design Automa for Dune gf9 for Solo play?