* EnsembleDarkhorse: The Federation of Sol. It's a [[HumansAreAverage so-so faction with so-so bonuses]], but it's made by humans from Earth, which is enough to make it the 2nd most played faction. Even more notably, despite being pretty average, the Federation has a ''very'' high win ratio, making it to the top 5 of every possible data aggregator (and excluding one of them, being 3rd highest winning faction).
* GameBreaker: From the 4th edition we've got:
** Naalu ''always'' move first in the initiative order, no matter what. They also come with a [[SurprisinglyEliteCannonFodder faction-specific Fighter]], which has the same combat capacity as a god-damn Cruiser, while costing close to nothing and can be ''also'' used as ground forces during planet invasions.
** Hacan special trade mechanics give them an immense edge, even in the hands of a middling player. And the only way to counter it is for the entire table to not engage in trade, which just won't happen - there will always be a player willing to trade with Hacans. Hacans can trade with everyone, and using things that normally can't even be traded away. On top of that, they can use bribery during voting, spending their enormous pile of trade goods as extra votes.
** True to their name, the Universities of Jol-Nar abuse the living hell out of technology and research. Their abilities can't be countered in any way other than the player simply running out of command tokens, and nobody picking the Technology strategic card means the Jol-Nar players can simply pick it for themselves. Even their supposed weakness of -1 to combat rolls is meaningless, when they can out-tech everyone and their Commander allows them to re-roll unit abilities (all of which make their Destroyers extremely powerful). Oh, and their flagship scores additional hits whenever rolling 9 or 10, being able to take down up to 4 units all by itself. Their major weakness is their predictability; everyone knows they want to tech their way to victory and are likely to commit resources to keeping the nerds down, which in its own way just goes to show how strong they are around players who can't or don't know any better.
** Both the Emirates and the Universities can go a step further should their players strike an alliance (even a short-lived and informal one). By trading with each other and continuously exchanging the Universities promissory note, both of them can out-tech and out-trade everyone else in the game, effectively dividing the galaxy in half, since by the end of ''second turn'' both will be so much ahead of everyone else that it will be practically impossible to catch up. Games where this happens are usually resolved by everyone else simply folding, to save themselves the next 2-4 hours spent on a match they have no chance of winning anyway, even if ganging against both factions. And God forbid if they are actual neighbours, since they can then make a ''formal'' alliance and push back whoever tries to attack them.
* HighTierScrappy:
** Heroes are advanced, powerful Leaders that offer just as powerful bonuses. So powerful, they are single-use and get purged, rather than exhausted... except not all of them. Naturally, it generates a whole lot of scorn across the table when one or more players have a non-purgeable Hero.
** Some factions are just flat-out better than others, either due to powerful bonuses or the level of synergy for their special features. To the point where it's a PopularGameVariant to simply do a blind pick of your faction or at least pick from a pool of three randomly picked ones.
* LowTierLetdown: Despite looking like a prime warmonger due to its bonuses and special unit, Sardakk N'orr is completely underwhelming to play. To the point it's the faction with the lowest win-rate and by a large margin. Not only the combat-centric bonus isn't really all that hot, but people simply tend to further gang on Sardakk players on the principle of how strong they can potentially get if they start amassing CannonFodder.
* ThatOneRule: Short for a tiny handful of exceptions, any encounter in space of units of two factions means instant hostilities. This can make it a real nightmare to simply ''move around the board'', especially when allied with someone.
----