From what I've read in the previews so far their seem to be 4 possible results in combat.

Either you Hit for Damage, you Miss, you make one or more opposing units Rout or you may use your unit's Special Ability ( Orb)

I was wondering how ever what the odds would be of each of those results happening.

This is my guess so far.

Triangle Units Miss 40% of the time ( confirmed in the previews) which leaves 60% for the other three results

which will break down IMO like : Rout 10% - Orb 20% - Hit 30% ( for 1 confirmed damage, no more )

Circle units are described as being as fragile as Triangle Units - meaning they'll usually have just 1 HP as well

but " their special abilities are triggered twice as often".

Circle units also seem to be more of the wizard - priest - hero type units, so my guess is they'll break down like this

Rout 10% - Hit 20% - Miss 30% - Orb 40%

"Rectangle Units successfully attack more often than Triangle Units" which leads me to

Rout 10% - Miss 20% - Orb 30% - Hit 40%

There are quite a few Routing effects among different units' special abilities that's why I figure the "base" routing percentage will be low.

" Hexagon units succesfully attack more often than rectangle units " leads to

Miss 10% - Orb 20% - Rout 30% - Hit 40%

All of this is just wild speculation of course and just goes to prove how much I'm looking forward to this promising game

PS I think that a figure that is "routed" remains in the same area as the battle but is put "on its back" ( flat ) indicating it cannot participate in the battle anymore. This would make some of the wording about " standing units" meaningful.

Hi there,

I totaly agree with dark elf. The statistics make sense.

If every stand take one fate card this will be a great combat solution.

If FFG really get the point to make this game less luck based then other games I will love that game.

Anyone know about the initiative when both attacker and defender have the same number?

Do they strike simultaneously or does the attacker get the chance to kill the enemy ini 1 creatures?!

I really hope that tactic cards where less powerful then in Twilight Imperium. I hate that action cards.

I think your numbers favour the special ability a bit too much. I wouldn't be surprised if a triangle unit had 10% or even 5% odds on an Orb, giving circles 10-20%. At the least I would expect an Orb draw to be less likely than a regular Hit.

Steve-O said:

Circle units are supposed to be the wizard/sorcerer/necromancer/hero types.

They should have the best Orb percentages in the game IMO. They are the "specialists" of the "special abilities" I would reckon.

If they would trigger an Orb only 10-20% of the time they would be near worthless and other unit's Special Abilities would trigger even less ?

I honestly don't think so.

Steve-O said:

Circle units are not "hitter" types, but "magic" types, so I doubt very much that their damage percentage will be higher than their orb percentage.

Steve-O said:

I would expect them to use round numbers, and since you can't get 5% of a 30 card deck, they probably have at least a 10% chance to do anything.

Fate card #2

Fate card #16

Fate card #30

Sorry for the triple post, after a certain amount of time you can't edit previous posts for whatever reason.

Judging from those three fate cards and jumping to the conclusion that each fate card has one of each of the four different outcomes on it, my guesses would be:

Triangle: 40% miss, 20% orb, 20% rout, 20% hit

Circle: 30% miss, 40% orb, 20% rout, 10% hit

Rectangle: 20% miss, 20% orb, 30% rout, 30% hit

Hexagon: 10% miss, 20% orb, 30% rout 40% hit

There isn't any real sound logic behind it, besides the hints on the combat guide chart and some deductive reasoning, but if it does turn out to be the case that each fate card can only have one of each outcome on it, those seem like pretty reasonable values to me.

Fate card #1 is actually shown on the Runewars mainpage in the flash animation at the top. It also has one of each result on it, though the number of routs for the rectangle area is covered up.

Edit: You can actually see it as it is going past; it is a 2 on the rout flag.

I'm obviously wrong, as seen here: 4 , 5 .

I'm guessing both of you are pretty close to the correct percentages. And remember the bigger units can do more damage and multiple routs.

My question is whether or not inflicted damage will stay on a unit after combat. If not, a Rout result would be much more powerful than inflicting 1 or 2 damage, which can easily be absorbed by a large unit (and the owner most of the time decides who gets hit).

From the quest cards, it's obvious the heroes keep their damage every round, otherwise they cannot die from 1 or 2 wounds, as the card suggests. But if you have to keep track of all damage for all units, things could get complicated. The good side to this: it will be a tough choice to decide if you want to weaken your hard-earned hex unit, or sacrifice 1 or 2 triangle 'cannonfodder' units.

Charian said:

I've heard this game is in some ways similar to TI only in a fantasy setting (obviously not identical given what we've seen in the previews, but thematically a little bit.) In TI units with multiple wounds retain damage until the end of the game turn, but then again the only units with multiple wounds have only two.

I don't know how many hits the hexagon units will be able to take, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's only two each. Assuming this is true, then they could track damage the same way Dreads and War Suns do in TI, namely by being laid down on one side when injured and then standing up again at the end of a game turn. Heroes likely track wounds more permanently, using tokens as they do in RB and Descent. I can see this system working, although it would lead to a seemingly odd play style where heroes keep wounds and other units don't.

There are at least three units with 4 health and one with 5, so tipping them on their side will not work. My guess is that damage does not remain after the battle and the main worry when damaging units will be instant kill abilities like the Latari Elves' Warrior:

"Deal 1 damage or destroy the damaged or routed enemy unit of your choice."

Yes, that would be my guess as well. But atm, the only risk of applying damage to big units is the Elf Warrior's ability, just like you mentioned. Perhaps some Tactics cards will have simular effects, but still, it would probably be worth the risk and make bigger units quite powerful.

Oh well, we simply have to wait until the rules get published. I've got a lot of other questions, like the wording of the Elf sorceress ability: 'retreat' instead of 'rout'. Does this difference mean anything? Otherwise, she's a whole lot weaker than 2 of the other circle units.

Charian said:

"Retreat" means the unit will be taken out of the hex to an adjacent hex

A "routed" unit will remain in the battle hex but will likely be put "on its back" to signify it being routed and not being able to attack in that battle.

Charian said:

I agree that she looks weaker.

The Necromancer activates earlier ( initiative 2 ) and can bring extra bodies to the fight and the Warlock brings death and destruction.

The Sorceress however has the ability ( I think ) to break up army stacks, which may impact the opponent's movement options the next turn. Seperated units may also be easy "prey" for other army stacks.

We'll have to wait and see how this works out within the rest of the game rules.

Charian said:

If I'm reading the warrior's ability correctly (and I admit I might not be) then it sounds like he can take out any injured unit, not necessarily one injured this combat round. Even if damage is forgotten at the end of the battle, this means the warrior could nix a 5-HP unit on the third round of battle after it took 1 hit on the first round. This effectively means that all units with multiple HP only have 2 HP as long as the Latari have warriors left on the field. More than that, the Latari player gets to pick and choose which units die from among those enemy units that have already taken 1 hit (or been routed.) That's pretty powerful.

Of course, that's only if they trigger their special ability.

broken said:

... which won't happen that often with Triangle units ( as I expect them to have the lowest Orb percentage - around 20% IMO )

The elf Warriors are rectangles, but will still not trigger their ability reliably.

Actually they already posted the breakdown of the cards for purposes of diplomacy.

"18 of the 30 cards display the first icon... 8 display the second icon... and 4 display the last icon..." This seems to point to a d8 breakdown 1-5 fail 6-7 retreat 8 they become allies. I think we can assume a similar breakdown for the triangle units but in reverse 1-3 fail 4 = 1rout 5 = 2routs 6 = 1hit 7 = 2hits 8 = orb.

This would not be dissimilar to their original rules for combat in Battle mist. There they rolled d10s and missed rarely, routed often and killed about half as often. Of course they didn't have special abilities keyed to dice rolls (they were part of a factions powers or factored into their hit chances kind of like in TI) so I may be somewhat off, but I'm sure that routs will happen about twice as frequently as hits, or rout twice as many units as we ll see hits take.