There are 6 playable factions in Battle Lads. They are the Beasts, Knights, Mad, Ronin, Slashers, and Synths
Armies consist of leaders, champions, and peons. You play as the leader of your faction and throughout each campaign you will recruit and train champions and peons. Any time you enter battle you will fight against another leader and any number of their champions and peons.
Each faction has 5 types of unique champions with their own set of stats and abilities. They are strong, singular units, but should fall to a leader in 1 on 1 combat. Champions have their own special attacks that charge up over time.
In the future: Special attacks will be unique to each champion. For now they mostly share from a small pool of special attacks.
Each faction has 5 types of unique peons. These are far weaker versions of their faction's champions, but what they lack in strength, they make up for in numbers. Peons are the fodder of your army. They are easy to take down, but if left unattended they can quickly wreak havoc.
When recruiting champions and peons, you'll notice they each come loaded with a random trait. These traits should majorly change up the units and play a big role in who you decide to recruit. They usually have immediate and lasting consequences and can almost serve as mini-quests for those units. Some examples include:
Cursed - Start frail with low health and damage. On level up gain a bunch of health and damage.
Cultist - Gain 10% health and damage for each other Cultist in your army.
Frenzied - Gain +5 damage permanently for each kill
Some traits will only show up on either champions or peons. For example:
(Peons only) Horde - After each battle add one peon to this unit (max 10)
(Champions only) Medic - After using special attack, heal nearby allies for 10% of this unit's max health
In the future: Factions will have some of their own specialized traits to push their builds and playstyles. Right now they all pull from the same global pool and don't have any of their own.
Champions and peons earn experience from getting kills, participating in battle, and other sources. By leveling up they earn the right to be branded, first at Level 5 and again at Level 10, their max level. Brands help them specialize, almost like a sub-class, and provide a significant power boost. Some examples include:
Blazing - 25% chance to ignite on hit
Coin Operated - +1% damage per Gold
In the future: There will be traits for specific unit types, such as giving any ranged unit Multi-shot: fire two more projectiles at a time, or melee units Cleaving - pierce +5. If time permits, factions could have their own set of brands. If even more time permits, some brands could be made for specific units (ie: Beast Rock Lobber champion now throws a Cadillac on his special attack instead of a boulder).
In the future: This whole section isn't in the game yet :)
Factions should also try to conquer the islands in unique ways. Some of this will be purely with behavior differences (think Ghandi having an itchy trigger finger in Civ), but also with some stat and mechanic differences.
For some stat changes let's look at the Mad faction who are crazy, quick and reckless. Your war wagon is fast, your buildings get constructed quickly but cap out on max power early, and your garages spit out tons of wagons lightning fast.
Some factions can also have some unique mechanics. The Slashers for example could save up to Haunt enemy territories, driving away their people and making it easy to run in and take over.
5 Champions
5 Peons
7 Player Skills (with 5 upgrades each)
In the future:
Unit Traits
Unit Brands
Artifacts
Map Mode Stat Differences
Map Mode Mechanics