Today’s blog topic might be considered a little niche, but it’s something that comes up when working on a game like Combat Cards, so I thought it might be interesting.

 

Bands

As mentioned in a few posts now, work is underway to add clans to the game, allowing players to band together and chat, challenge each other and so on (then later on, donate cards to each other and battle other clans). We’ll be posting more details on how clans will work in a later blog.

But what should we call these ‘bands of players’ in the game? I’ve referred to them as clans until now as that’s the general term for this across a lot of games. But while there’s definitely value in not forcing players to learn a new term for an existing feature, it’s possible there’s a better, more Warhammer 40,000 name we could be using.

 

Layer

Standing shoulder to shoulder has always been an important part of Warhammer 40,000 lore.

This is important to us, because as discussed before we feel it’s important that Combat Cards is a 40K game, not a card game with a layer of 40K on top. We show this in large ways (such as using the ‘Eavy Metal painted miniatures for our cards), but also in a lot of small ways (using names from old White Dwarfs for our characters, for example).

 

Troupes?

Therefore it makes sense (to us at least) to see if we can think of a better name than clans. Some possibilities:

  • Guilds – The other general name for clans, but A) it doesn’t feel much more 40K than clans, and B) it sounds a little too ‘fantasy’ and not particularly grimdark.
  • Warrior Lodges – Definitely cool for fans of the lore, but maybe better suited to a Horus Heresy (30K), game than our 40K setting. Also, it’s quite long, which is a pain when trying to fit text into the game. Don’t forget that Combat Cards is localised into multiple other languages, and long English text can get even longer in some languages (German, for example).
  • Warbands – Now this is cool, and very appropriate. It might sound a little too Chaos or Ork specific, but is the favourite choice so far.
  • Units / Squads / Detachments – While appropriately military sounding, these may not catch the feel of being part of a clan, and may sound a little ‘dry’.
  • Brotherhoods – Feels very 40K and sets a cool, ‘warrior’ tone, but could it discourage female players? This may not sound important to you, but with its casual gameplay we want Combat Cards to be open and inclusive to all players.
  • Septs / Cults / Temples / Gangs – too specific to their particular faction.
  • Orders – This could work, and may encourage players to name their clan ‘Order of something’, which would be fun when you see multiple clans together (such as in clan versus clan battles).

 

Conclusion

So yes, as mentioned earlier, this is quite a niche topic for a blog post, but it does demonstrate how much we think about this sort of thing and try to find the most Warhammer 40,000 answer possible.

We genuinely haven’t finalised what we call clans yet, so feel free to let us know if you have an opinion or idea. You can get in touch via our Facebook page, leaving a comment here, or mailing [email protected].

Thanks,
Stu