I find it funny that so many people fault Starcraft's card combat. For my group it was the game of the year. The expansion further enhanced it. I also believe that the Starcraft Board Game won game of the year as Origins. Just because you guys may not like the combat with cards system, doesn't mean the system can't work.

My opinion is that cards suffer from wear and tear, but if FFG goes with the higher grade cards like WoW The Adventure Game and Starcraft uses, it will be fine. If not, they still have all of those brand new card sleeves for all of their games to sell me now. So no worries here.

Johncraven said:

...too late.

For boardgames i am all for cards, Dices are too random for games like these.

Now that I have read the rules for Runewars, I hope they use similar mechanics in Horus Heresy. Much better than what they used in StarCraft.

As much as I enjoy StarCraft, it's combat system is its weakest factor IMO. The best card only combat system is Middle Earth Quest. I absolutely love the combat system that game uses. I also like combat systems that mix dice and cards like War of the Ring and Age of Conan.

Marcin Przybyłek said:

To be fair, card driven combat is still random as well since you have to draw cards, Starcraft is a good example.
With dice you can still do alot of things, expecially as an developer, you can customize the dices as you wish for your current game.

The thing i do not like about card driven combat is that it just feels like a TCG, it feels like i would play magic, yugioh in space (starcraft example).
Also, very soon you pretty much know all cards, you can expect what cards your opponent is laying down on the table, you can predict that you will win skirmish A, B, and probably lose skirmish C (in terms of starcraft). There are indeed almost no more random things left in an battle/skirmish besides drawing cards.

It's also weird that in an card driven combat system the units obviously always hit the enemy, like they have 100% accuracy and never fail. It only depends wether the health is equal or lower to the attack/damage you are doing (starcraft again).

I'm glad that Tide of Iron uses dice, imagine TOI with cards.... no thanks.

Of course, Tide of Iron uses both, i meant to say "imagine TOI with just cards".

Stinger said:

This is the most important point IMO. If it plays well they can use whatever they want to drive the game.

I sometimes get the impressions that FFG is trying to find a balance between "eurogamers" and "american gamers." The big difference between these two is randomness/dice. The so-called trend in eurogames is the lack of dice or a randomness factor; all of the actions/reactions are player driven. Look at Agricola, where the only things that are going to screw are the other players. Now, take Battlestar Galactica. Most of this game is player driven, with dice used for combat, or risk taking, but there is the element of randomness to it.

Using card-based combat eliminates randomness, as you know exactly what you are adding to the check but that doesn't mean that you will succeed. It works in the Game of Thrones board game, and I look forward to playing Runewars to try that system out. And I intend to pick this game up as well when my budget allows for it.

As long as the mechanics are sound, I'll not dismiss a game over which path they choose to take. But if the game isn't any fun, then I just won't play it.

I am not missing dice in Runewars at all. The card draw mechanic works very well there.

If Horus Heresey is as good as Runewars, it is going to be a great game!