So, what do people think of the Latari Elves?

I think the design of the race sheet is interesting. Particularly how they manage unit production. The number of resources (ie: wood) increases a pointer along a static track and when you produce units you get everything at or below the pointer level (ie: two archers at the elves' starting position of 3 wood.) It's a unique at potentially very fast way of producing lots of units over the course of a few turns. I think it has potential.

Other details presented are also intriguing. The fact that 4 influence tokens is considered a lot at game start would indicate to me that influence in this game will be much more powerful (on a per-unit basis) than the influence in TI3, for example. 1 Influence might buy you a lot of ground.

It looks like the elves only get 4 different units, which is not many to my mind, but then again the scale of the game would demand certain limits I suppose. These figures are probably bigger than TI's units physcially, so they probably can't fit as many different types in the box either, considering the numbe rof each unit they're likely planning to include will be "a lot." The expansionist in me also notes that there appears to be free space below those four which could conveniently be covered by a tile from an expansion providing more unit types though. =)

Way cool! In the original game "Battlemist" their were only 3 types of units. Archers,cavalry and foot soldiers.You could also recruit monsters. Their were dragons, giants and firegaunts. You also had heroes but I don't think they could be in battles. They were used for quests,but could attack other heroes. They did come out with one expansion but it was mostly naval I believe. I just dug out my Battlemist game from the cellar just to review what it had and now I'm rereading the rules. I have high hopes for Rune Wars.

Steve-O said:

I don't think the free spaces indicate that there are expansion figures on the horizon.

There simply seem to be 5 different levels of Initiative and the Elves have a unit in each of the first four initiative levels.

Take a look at the picture of the back of the box ( gamegeek ) there you can see the Human ( I guess ) and Undead race sheets.

The Humans have a unit in the Initiative 1,2,3 and 5 slot and the Undead seem to have a unit in the 1,2,4 and 5 slots.

It's a great mechanic IMO which can lead to all kinds of different battle results depending on who battles who and who gets to strike first.

and each faction have 3 heroes

More previews I want. Play the game I want. Stop talking like Yoda I want.

zero80 said:

the heroes are neutrals

zero80 said:

I think maybe what was meant is that each faction has 3 heroes that are more "aligned" to them (though I think it's rather that the heroes are "good" or "evil", and are aligned to either good/evil faction); anyone can recruit them, but the elves preview indicates that they are more likely to stay loyal to same-alignment factions.

the free space might be for an "invented unit" - something you gain during the game: mercenary, monster, elemental or whatever - that each player would be able to get.

Or perhaps a dragon

I wonder why FFG opted for 2 human race/kingdom types. Or an i the only one wondering this? Why not use dwarf or ocr/greenskin like in batttlemist? Well in any case that just gives FFG fuel for a small box 2 new race expanion will new neutral units, new cards............... you get the idea. So I am 100% sure that an expanion with new races will come out maybe with rules for 5-6 players... only time will tell.

Steve-O said:

Having one more or one less unit of wood/ore/etc. than your enemy will have a great impact in the game. A difference of only a few units will allow you to produce a much greater (or lesser) amount of troups than your opponent, especially in a 2-player-game. I'm very curious how the game balance will be - and if a majority in ressources can be counterbalanced in alternative winning-strategies.

PBnJ said:

I'm with you! I can see new races coming out as expansions with drawf and greenskin being two potentially great first choices!

PBnJ said:

I agree it's an odd choice. My guess is that they wanted to pick the two "most evil" and the two "most good" races from battlemist to really illustrate that whole aspect of hero management. I have little doubt that the other Battlemist races will be making an appearance in expansions, so this decision doesn't really chafe me too much. Personally I'll be interested to see if any of the other races will be Neutral (since there appears to be a Neutral flag floating around on some cards) and how that might influence game mechanics. We shall see.

Steve-O said:

The best option I could see for a neutral race would be .... Forgot the name.. Draconian? (Drangon hyprid race that was in disk wars and your fight against in Runebound. That would be a great addion to the Neutral or even an extra Race choise.