As Zaltyre was pointing out, there are news online which discuss the new hybrid classes.

Chaoticus, you were saying?

Now we know how the mages will be able to use runes and warrior "melee" weapon skills. The runes will be melee weapons. I like the look of these hybrid classes a lot.

Personally, I like them a LOT and a whole lot of new ideas come to my mid.

The new classes are:

Monk: Scout-to-Healer.
Battlemage: Mage-to-Warrior.

Steelcaster: Warrior-to-Mage.

A number of questions arise now:

1) Which will be the forth one? Edit: Its called Watchman.

Healer-to-Scout?

2) I take it that this means that we will see hybrids of other variations in future expansions? That'll mean that Descent will live on. Great!

And of course:

3) What new playstyles come to mid?

I mean, looking at Planar Weapon (knowing that runes can become melee weapons) I'm now really excited to try Dezra as a battlemage. She can get up into the thick of battle and use her hero ability to recover.

I'm also interested to try Orkell (sorry, I really like the character) as a Steelcaster. He's one of the few warriors with 5 speed natively, so he could take the hit from "Iron Blooded". I don't know what mage he would be, though.

He would also love the "add a shield when you roll a blank" because of his native brown.

The more I see the hybrids class, the less I want them to be played of

Well, it´s not like anybody is forcing you to use them or even buy this expansion. I think it´s nice to have more options, it keeps the game fresh by letting you experience new things.

I´m happy that they try something new.

I had completely missed that the last one (which we know nothing about) was called Watchman. I'd be incredibly surprised if that's not a Healer-to-Scout, although it's hard to tell with a name such as that, I can't imagine what else could be construed as appropriate.

As for playstyles, saving the discussion for what feels appropriate to me for the other topic , I must say that the idea of Dezra the Vile as a Battlemage Skirmisher or Champion appeals to me a lot. Lyssa as a Battlemage Skirmisher or Berserker also strikes me as a potentially very powerful combination that is thematically appropriate to boot.

The same (both powerful and thematic) goes for Challara as a Battlemage Beastmaster. Two offensive treated-as-figure familiars? Yes please! To me, this would involve ignoring things like Planar Weapon, and actually go for a ranged Beastmaster, which could be all kinds of crazy fun, depending on your two Familiars. As an OL, I'm sad that I'll probably never get to try things like this, but I'm equally horrified at the prospect of meeting one.

When it comes to the Steelcaster, I feel like they've almost mixed Steelcaster and Battlemage up, whatwith it essentially turning a Warrior into an Extra-Warrior with Iron Blooded , but anyway, the idea of turning Steelhorns into a monstrous behemoth occurred to me. He's got a movement of 4, which can acceptably be reduced to 3, a health of 14 to be bumped up to 16, and a Stamina of 3, which would be bumped up to 4. I think he could make a surprisingly good Steelcaster Hexer or Steelcaster Runemaster, although he might be a late bloomer, since you still want to get into adjacency, but may not have the abilities to deal with it properly. Plus, Rune Grafting could be crazy useful in keeping you alive in melee, even if you use ranged weapons to do it.

I also think that Sir Valadir would make a great Steelcaster Conjurer or Necromancer, as utterly weird as that sounds. He's got high Stamina, Iron Blooded would make it better, Rune Grafting would help keep it up, and as a Conjurer or Necromancer, you could burn through that Stamina like mad, with great effect. The fact that you can take advantage of Shield Mage to basically survive a thunderstorm doesn't make things worse, either. Stand there with your multiple shields and just grin like a mofo as your Reanimate is ripping things apart, and then go punch things ( with your free Surge ) to recover Stamina (using the aforementioned Rune Grafting).

A bit sad they didn't go for a 'circle' as in: scout to healer, healer to warrior, warrior to mage, mage to scout for the hybrid classes.

A bit sad they didn't go for a 'circle' as in: scout to healer, healer to warrior, warrior to mage, mage to scout for the hybrid classes.

Yeah, I think that'd feel a bit more balanced, rather than the dichotomous/reciprocative approach that they're using. Maybe would've seen a nice Paladin (Healer-to-Warrior) or Arcane Archer (Scout-to-Mage).

A bit sad they didn't go for a 'circle' as in: scout to healer, healer to warrior, warrior to mage, mage to scout for the hybrid classes.

For a long term perspective, its fine. They can bring very specific combinations in the future expansions. Example: one expansion can with more 4 hybrid classes like: warrior <-> healer / scout <-> mage and a second expansion with warrior <-> scout / healer <-> mage combinations.

Another cool combination I thought of is Mordrog as a Steelcaster Necromancer. Mordrog has amazing health (14), good Stamina for a Warrior (4), and a movement of 4. This means that he can suck up the negative of Iron Blooded, while elevating his Health to 18 and his Stamina to 5. This is important, because combined with Deahtly Haste , he could spend that Stamina to move both himself and the Reanimate, and with Dark Pact , he can make his Reanimate incredibly hard to kill. But more than that, since he'll be soaking up damage for his Reanimate, he'll be recovering his Stamina , since each time he suffers damage, he recovers 1 Stamina.

He'd be a one-man tag-team and every time the OL would hurt him or (try to) hurt the reanimate, it'd happen at a trade-off that might come back to haunt you, both because both could move quickly or position easily, but also because that Stamina could be spent on important Skills.

A bit sad they didn't go for a 'circle' as in: scout to healer, healer to warrior, warrior to mage, mage to scout for the hybrid classes.

For a long term perspective, its fine. They can bring very specific combinations in the future expansions. Example: one expansion can with more 4 hybrid classes like: warrior <-> healer / scout <-> mage and a second expansion with warrior <-> scout / healer <-> mage combinations.

In the long-term perspective, either approach wouldn't matter, though. It's only an issue if you care about the single expansions in their own right, which I think is a fair issue, albeit a minor annoyance at best.

Another cool combination I thought of is Mordrog as a Steelcaster Necromancer. Mordrog has amazing health (14), good Stamina for a Warrior (4), and a movement of 4. This means that he can suck up the negative of Iron Blooded, while elevating his Health to 18 and his Stamina to 5. This is important, because combined with Deahtly Haste , he could spend that Stamina to move both himself and the Reanimate, and with Dark Pact , he can make his Reanimate incredibly hard to kill. But more than that, since he'll be soaking up damage for his Reanimate, he'll be recovering his Stamina , since each time he suffers damage, he recovers 1 Stamina.

He'd be a one-man tag-team and every time the OL would hurt him or (try to) hurt the reanimate, it'd happen at a trade-off that might come back to haunt you, both because both could move quickly or position easily, but also because that Stamina could be spent on important Skills.

A bit sad they didn't go for a 'circle' as in: scout to healer, healer to warrior, warrior to mage, mage to scout for the hybrid classes.

For a long term perspective, its fine. They can bring very specific combinations in the future expansions. Example: one expansion can with more 4 hybrid classes like: warrior <-> healer / scout <-> mage and a second expansion with warrior <-> scout / healer <-> mage combinations.

In the long-term perspective, either approach wouldn't matter, though. It's only an issue if you care about the single expansions in their own right, which I think is a fair issue, albeit a minor annoyance at best.

I know this ; So, in the short-term perspective . For me, dont matter, I probably buy every expansion anyway.

I bet a different model for hybrid classes, without the parallelism, but the preview surprised me positively with the new combinations.

On a side note, I really like the drawbridge tile used to demonstrate the Shield Mage skill card. That's definitely going to be my go-to transition piece for moving from exterior to interior tile sets on custom maps from now on.

On a side note, I really like the drawbridge tile used to demonstrate the Shield Mage skill card. That's definitely going to be my go-to transition piece for moving from exterior to interior tile sets on custom maps from now on.

Nice catch .

Looks interesting, though Battlemage and Steelcaster feel kind of similar. I would have really hoped for a Warrior/Healer combination just so I could make some of my melee fighters into Paladins.

On a different note: As per FFG's usual M.O. this is the third News article on Chains. Which means it's probably going to be released within the next week or so.

On a different note: As per FFG's usual M.O. this is the third News article on Chains. Which means it's probably going to be released within the next week or so.

" come join us at Gen Con Indy 2016 on August 4th-7th to get your advance copies! "

On a different note: As per FFG's usual M.O. this is the third News article on Chains. Which means it's probably going to be released within the next week or so.

" come join us at Gen Con Indy 2016 on August 4th-7th to get your advance copies! "

For those who will get their copy directly from them, please ask them the following:

-Why did they decide to split MoB and CtR instead of leaving it as a Big Boxed expansion?

-Will the last Healer and Mage be realesed?

-Is the Quest Vault going to ever be released of out its Beta phase?

-Why do the new minis are monstrously huge?

-What are the new plans for RtL and its campaigns?

-Are the last D1 heroes going to be released in the traditional H&M Collection packs? If so, Could we have more Ice and fantasy-like monsters?

-Are we ever going to have a decent FAQ/Errata document?

-Will Baron Zachareth ever share his Shadow Rune with another Lieutenant?

-What will happen with the Shadow Rune campaign?

-Will there ever be a Campaign book that will integrate all (if not, some) expansions? Or at least, Could we have a lore book of Runebound Universe?

Hahahahaha so many things to ask

-What are the new plans for RtL and its campaigns?

If I were a betting man, I'd put money on this being addressed in the FFG InFlight report which they have at every GenCon.

Going back to the topic.

Wow, those new classes seem interesting. I just had a headache for just thinking in all the possibilities.

I think now that Jaes the Exile will be THE Battle Mage. I see him as a Skrimisher going crazy with those double rune weapons. It will be very very interesting to see him on action.

Another thing is that I will finally another hero to be the Marshal. Tired for Alys to be the only (good) one.

As for the Steelcaster, well, maybe it's because I don't use Warriors much but besides the ones already mentioned I don't see any other good match.

I hope the new Healer-Scout class will be interesting as these two, can't wait to have this expansion.

Hi,

i like the hybrid classes and i am eager to play them. especialy the steelcaster seems to bo cool. i imagine him not to wear a physical shield but to cast a energy barriere (similar to the guy on the RtL main picture who blocks the dragon).

Greetings H

I just thought of another good one:

Zyla , Battlemage Berserker .

Zyla has three amazing things going for her. She's got a Movement of 5, she's got 5 Stamina, and she's practically got Fly as her Hero Ability. What's terrible about her? She's got a Health of 8.

Battlemage has Runic Weave , which adds +2 Health for each Rune. While this can be hard to pull off during Act 1, by the time Act 2 starts, you should have gotten at least two Rune items, maybe even three. Possibly much earlier than that. Granted, this is partly up to the luck of the draw and how much money the heroes have. On top of that, Berserker has a 1xp card called Brute , which straight-up adds +4. That's a fairly dependable +8 health as a Battlemage Berserker, on top of her admittably terrible health of 8, for a pretty OK health of 16, which is suddenly not so bad.

What sets her apart is still her Movement of 5, Stamina of 5 and her Hero Ability, though. Provided she doesn't die, which her Heroic Feat can no doubt help her enormously with in a pinch, she's an incredibly fast hero that can push up to 15 squares forward in a single turn, provided she's fully rested, uninhibited by water, sludge, lava or obstacles. I can imagine many quests where this would be incredibly helpful to the heroes, able to carry special items or other things long distances in a reliable manner, and as oppose to Zyla as a regular Mage of any kind, she's doubled her health.

On top of that, the previously mentioned Runic Weave would allow her to use either a Cloak or a Shield one extra time per turn, which is potentially major when it comes to someone running straight though enemy land.

She'd be both fast and very durable, with high survivability.

Her being a chaotic fae, with her background, just happens to also lend itself incredibly well both to those aspects of the Battlemage class (being in tune with magic, runic weave, etc) as well as the berserker (chaotic, sudden, violent, reckless, etc). It's potentially powerful and thematic.

I cannot describe how much more I like the Steelcaster and Battlemage hybrids than the originally presented Monk. The theorycrafting and possibilities alone have pretty much saved the hybrid class concept to me. I'll probably always hate the monk, though.

I cannot describe how much more I like the Steelcaster and Battlemage hybrids than the originally presented Monk. The theorycrafting and possibilities alone have pretty much saved the hybrid class concept to me.

I could not agree more ... I don't have problems with the Monk myself, but dang these other hybrids are AMAZING!

(Oh and I hope you get your Arcane Archer wish at some point too - that's one I'd love to see!)

I cannot describe how much more I like the Steelcaster and Battlemage hybrids than the originally presented Monk. The theorycrafting and possibilities alone have pretty much saved the hybrid class concept to me.

I could not agree more ... I don't have problems with the Monk myself, but dang these other hybrids are AMAZING!

(Oh and I hope you get your Arcane Archer wish at some point too - that's one I'd love to see!)

Monks are a fun class, belive me (pre tested some just for fun) . Still waiting for a blade dancer class yet (mage / scout or scout / mage hybrid).

Still waiting for a blade dancer class yet (mage / scout or scout / mage hybrid).

Sounds interesting! What sort of abilities would you expect to see on it's hybrid cards?

I'm assuming a super nimble fencer/swordsman (scout base) mixed with the Mage class (Conjurer seems like a good fit)

Still waiting for a blade dancer class yet (mage / scout or scout / mage hybrid).

Sounds interesting! What sort of abilities would you expect to see on it's hybrid cards?

I'm assuming a super nimble fencer/swordsman (scout base) mixed with the Mage class (Conjurer seems like a good fit)

I think more like a mesmer archtype (debuffing specialist / action control) or a elusive assassin with some anti magic skills / or mind control tricks.

I think more like a mesmer archtype (debuffing specialist / action control) or a elusive assassin with some anti magic skills / or mind control tricks.

Nice!