Runewars Miniatures Game end of Battlelore?

By magicrealm, in BattleLore

On a side note, who actually says the Undead are bad guys? Or for that matter the Uthuk Yllan? Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't the Daquan Lords killing the Undead and Uthuk Yllan, to the point of hoping to exterminate all of them once and for all? Are the Undead and Uthuk Yllan not doing the same thing that the Daquan Lords are doing, albeit in there own way?

I always laugh when I see this conversation of good guys vs bad guys... if your on one side, don't you always believe your a good guy? Do you think the Uruk hai in Lord of the Rings knew they were evil? Or did they think they were fighting human monsters according to the orders of their boss and to survive? Just like Human and Elven knights fought Uruk hai according to their orders and desire for survival and to be the dominate races.

The Undead are bad because the Runewars boardgame had 2 good factions and two evil factions. The Undead and Uthuk were evil while the Latari Elves and Daqan Lords were good. It's not opinion; it's symbolized right on the faction sheets. There isn't any ambiguity as the world is currently constructed. In other fantasy realms, sure, the elves can be evil. In fact, there are evil elves in Descent (same world). But I don't think those evil elves are allied with the Latari. So the named factions are split cleanly into good and evil.

Dunwarr Dwarves and Orcs of the Broken Plains appear to be neutral, but they sided with elves and humans during the 2nd Darkness.

The orcs are indeed neutral, and they only allied with the humans in the second darkness to save their own skins. And many orcs worked for the dragons anyway. Dwarves lean toward the good side, so long as they aren't expected to do anything for anyone.

I understand that the game has claimed them to be evil/bad and other races good, but being the bad guys or good guys is all a matter of perspective. You might relate to the Humans and Elves so you view them as good because you are closer to their likeness then the undead and Uthuk, but in the prespective of a necromancer, he doesn't inherently believe himself to be evil, just following orders from some higher commander, to carry out whatever tactical strategy to claim the world for the undead he has too.

The book may read that the undead are the bad guys, but only in the perspective that the book is not written by the undead.

I understand that the game has claimed them to be evil/bad and other races good, but being the bad guys or good guys is all a matter of perspective. You might relate to the Humans and Elves so you view them as good because you are closer to their likeness then the undead and Uthuk, but in the prespective of a necromancer, he doesn't inherently believe himself to be evil, just following orders from some higher commander, to carry out whatever tactical strategy to claim the world for the undead he has too.

The book may read that the undead are the bad guys, but only in the perspective that the book is not written by the undead.

My primary faction in all Terrinoth games is the Uthuk Y'llan. They are my favorite and I always hope they will win. But that doesn't mean they are good . They are pillaging, plundering, and destroying. They are seeking to conquer. The Daqan Lords, as far as I'm aware, do not send their armies into the Ruu Steppes to conquer and eradicate the Uthuk Y'llan. Rather, they guard their people and their lands from imminent invasion. They are defensive.

I get what you're trying to say, but I feel strongly that not every IP needs to devolve into questions of moral ambiguity. They did that for the last of the Star Wars EU books (Fate of the Jedi series) and I found it infuriating. Sometimes, you just want a good story that plainly tells you who is good and who is bad and you cheer for the good guys to win. There is nothing wrong with that. I see Terrinoth as such a world. True, the foot soldiers serving the Uthuk Y'llan or Waiqar the Betrayer are just "doing their jobs." They aren't necessarily evil or malicious. But then, we're not talking about individuals at the moment; we are talking about factions. That means we consider the overarching goal of each faction to determine whether the faction -- as a whole -- is good or evil.

Daqan Lords -- Goal is to preserve their lands and their people. As long as the Uthuk stay in their own territory, the Daqan Lords appear to be fine.

Latari Elves -- Their main goal is to make it back to their ancient homeworld, the Emperyean. In the mean time, they try to support and protect their temporary home of Mennara.

Uthuk Y'llan -- They have made compacts with demons in exchange for power that will let them conquer and destroy. They want to kill or enslave all who they come across.

(Waiqar's) Undead -- His lust for power was so intense that he cursed himself and his own men to an undying existence. His one goal is to reassemble the Orb of the Sky by gathering all of the Shards of Timorran (many of which are now dragon runes) so that he can have ultimate power and be the one to rule all of Terrinoth/Mennara.

You can see how the "good" factions emphasize protection while the "bad" ones emphasize conquest.

Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't the Daquan Lords killing the Undead ...

:huh:

I see what your saying, and hope that you are not getting offended from some healthy discussion :)

I guess the "good" factions obtained the land and assets they are protecting by asking nicely and not by Conquest at some point. As you point out the "bad" factions emphasize Conquest...

All concepts of good and evil are prespective based, which is my only point. Waiqar believes himself the most powerful, and wants to conquer those he can, not necessarily any different then a king ruling over his people, except Waiqars thirst cannot be quenched until he conquers everyone who would oppose him. Sounds like a good leadership quality to me. If he wipes out Daquan Lords all together he'll never have to worry about his enemy rising up again to challenge his rule.

Maybe if the Daquan Lords conquered more and defended less they would be able to destroy their enemies for good as well?

All perspective.

Books are written by the winning side, and they'll always make themselves sound like the good guys.

Edited by Mordliss

All concepts of good and evil are prespective based, which is my only point.

And I guess my point is that I believe in an absolute system of good and evil. People may think that perspective matters -- indeed they will say that my belief system is only my perspective -- but I believe that in the end, we'll all see that there is absolute goodness and the rest is evil. I reject moral relativism. It is a plague upon our society.

And no offense taken for having a discussion.

All concepts of good and evil are prespective based, which is my only point. Waiqar believes himself the most powerful, and wants to conquer those he can, not necessarily any different then a king ruling over his people, except Waiqars thirst cannot be quenched until he conquers everyone who would oppose him. Sounds like a good leadership quality to me. If he wipes out Daquan Lords all together he'll never have to worry about his enemy rising up again to challenge his rule.

by this logic you could say that Hitler was actually not so bad - a good leader, wished best for his own people and " believed himself the most powerful, and wanted to conquer those he could" and "(his) thirst could not be quenched until he would have conquered everyone who would oppose him" - sounds like quite a maniac to me.

So yeah, say what you will, but in the end there IS absolute good and bad, and, like the character from K-PAX said, "Every living being in the universe knows the difference between good and bad."

Wow, Godwin law in a BattleLore thread.

Still, your question should be different: were all nazis bad people? Don't think so (we had a pope that belonged to the Hitlerjugend). And second question: did all nazis see themselves as being bad people? Don't think so either, thus I don't see why a Uthuk should see himself as being "evil"

Suggested reading: "Eichmann in Jerusalem: a report on the banality of evil", by jewish authress Hannah Arendt

Sorry for further derailing; possibly we could return on topic?

Returning to the topic... more than 260 people signed the petition!
Long life Battlelore!

The necromancer included in the Waiqar infantry command unit upgrade expansion for Runewars miniatures is an exact copy of the necromancer of undead army in Battlelore. https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/1/30/command-and-control/
It's good or not? If both games share miniatures, maybe the elves are coming in the end (I hope!)

I think the units look very similar, but I doubt they are exactly the same mold. For one thing, the RW base is round while the BL base is square. There could be other differences that aren't so easily discerned.

Then again, you could be right. Even if they made small adjustments to ghe model, I could imagine that changing an old model takes less development time than making a brand new one.

But as another counter point, even the slightest change (such as the base) requires a brand new mold, which I'm told is the expensive part. I just don't see it happening.

Now that we have a lot more information on Runewars, I can't help feeling like it's BattleLore Second Edition 2.0. I feel it is as much a spiritual descendant of BL2e as Runewars boardgame was a spiritual successor of Battlemist.

On 11/28/2016 at 4:16 PM, Mordliss said:

I see what your saying, and hope that you are not getting offended from some healthy discussion :)

I guess the "good" factions obtained the land and assets they are protecting by asking nicely and not by Conquest at some point. As you point out the "bad" factions emphasize Conquest...

All concepts of good and evil are prespective based, which is my only point. Waiqar believes himself the most powerful, and wants to conquer those he can, not necessarily any different then a king ruling over his people, except Waiqars thirst cannot be quenched until he conquers everyone who would oppose him. Sounds like a good leadership quality to me. If he wipes out Daquan Lords all together he'll never have to worry about his enemy rising up again to challenge his rule.

Maybe if the Daquan Lords conquered more and defended less they would be able to destroy their enemies for good as well?

All perspective.

Books are written by the winning side, and they'll always make themselves sound like the good guys.

LoL, not to get too deep but good and evil in this world seem to have to do with how much F'ed up sht you're willing to do. Summon extra dimensional powers which give everyone cancer and demand blood sacrifice? You're totes evil, Uthuk, totes evil. The more screwing over everyone around you and less viscous you are about enforcing your political aims, the more good you are. Good and evils are terms that, while we can discuss with moral relativism, are actually concrete in the setting. Elves and Daqan, and their people are Good, by definition, Uthuk and Undying are Evil. Depending on who's philosophies are more in line with your way of thinking/behaving, you are assigned a label (looking at you Mad Karthos...)

BTW in the second darkness (Diskwars), the orcs and dwarves were neutral factions.

I think that savings on not remodeling the whole thing are significant. Yes, you need to do some adjustments dues to scale change, but this is a quite mechanical work.

You are saving on:

-concept art

-2D art

-3D modeling

Good artists do not cost cheap nowadays, in video game industry they are easily making 6 figures or about it. Modeling one of the sport cars in a recent game actually costed more than buying the actual car (though it would involve more than making a sculpt: animation, texturing etc).

Therefore, I wouldn't be surprised if mold costs are cheaper than actual development costs, for some high-quality (as FFG models are) sculpts.

Hi everybody! Greetings from Spain!

There is any official news about BattleLore is over for FFG? Here in Spain we want Latari Elves faction at least too! And, of course, long life to BattleLore.

Regards

Nothing official at the moment

9 hours ago, Geralto said:

Here in Spain we want Latari Elves faction at least too!

Me too!

I've been chomping at the bit to get my hands on Runewars, but I'm getting cold feet again. I pulled out BattleLore again over the weekend and got a game in. It is such a good system! Sure, it's got its flaws, but so does every game. Runewars' flaws will be how expensive it is and how long list-building is going to take after a year or two of expansions. BattleLore's streamlined nature is a huge selling point. And despite being streamlined, it's very tactical and has some strategic depth to it.

I shouldn't say this out loud, but if I found out today that the Latari Elves were coming to BattleLore, I would hold off on Runewars (miniatures). The thing that has me the most excited about Runewars (miniatures) is that all four factions have basically been promised by the poster that comes in the release kits. But if I could get all four factions with BattleLore, I'd be content with that and Runewars (boardgame).

It would be a disappointment if they don't edit, at least, the Latari. The game is playable but incomplete.

In Italy we want the latari elves too!

I am sure that FFG want to launch runewars and after the first waves there will be elves for battlelore (maybe together with elves in runewars).

FFG please don't give up with Battlelore because it s a masterpiece.

At least two elves' army packs..

On 2/21/2017 at 11:03 AM, Budgernaut said:

Me too!

I've been chomping at the bit to get my hands on Runewars, but I'm getting cold feet again. I pulled out BattleLore again over the weekend and got a game in. It is such a good system! Sure, it's got its flaws, but so does every game. Runewars' flaws will be how expensive it is and how long list-building is going to take after a year or two of expansions. BattleLore's streamlined nature is a huge selling point. And despite being streamlined, it's very tactical and has some strategic depth to it.

I shouldn't say this out loud, but if I found out today that the Latari Elves were coming to BattleLore, I would hold off on Runewars (miniatures). The thing that has me the most excited about Runewars (miniatures) is that all four factions have basically been promised by the poster that comes in the release kits. But if I could get all four factions with BattleLore, I'd be content with that and Runewars (boardgame).

Actually, if the Latari were released for Battle Lore, I would buy them in both games. I think the reason we haven't seen them is because of the sales of the rest of the expansions for the game, and the limited bandwidth to do projects (both in terms of game designers and artists); not that any of those numbers are public but if the game was selling like hot cakes we would definitely see more for it.

I just pulled out my box as well, and I've got to say I really appreciate a lot of the mechanics in it also, and I'm hoping many of them make it to RWM, but the reason I never super got into it is that it lives in the uncanny valley between board game and miniatures game. Usually I want to play one or the other, and if it's a mini's game I want, there isn't enough detail and command and control. If it's a board game I want to play in this style, I prefer rune wars board game because of the 4X style and deeper game play there. While I really like Battle Lore, the miniatures in it are also a weird scale and can't be used in any of their other games (I would have bought 2 copies of the damned game if they were descent sized and I could use them as extra pieces, and new monster groups). That point is how GW hooked me btw, in their early games of Heroquest, and space crusade, and space hulk, those models were the right scale and type to play with in their other games, so it was only natural for me to want to play those too. If Battle lore, and Rune wars miniature game had/have some overlap and playability with descent or rune bound it would increase my desire to buy everything and mix and match, and I'm sure others would too.

Latari elves are already announced for Runewars...
Is this good or our last hope is vanishing??
:_(

Arkham stopped getting new content a long time before EH was announced, the last AH expansion was an expansion to all the previous expansions... the game was essentially complete before it's replacement came out.

Battlelore feels incomplete because of the missing faction and the last releases were not that long ago, the comparison with the arkham games just doesn't fit.

The investigators of arkham horror book came out this year and the last few miniatures for the arkham horror premium range were released after mansions of madness 2nd edition. It may not be more gameplay content but it does show that FFG cares about completing their games, they just need to do the same for Battlelore.

Runebound getting an expansion gives me hope. But the Runebound expansion also kind of seems like a "here, take this it's all you'll get" sort of dealio with them not waiting until gencon in order to hype, so I'm not crossing my fingers.

10 hours ago, Supertoe said:

Runebound getting an expansion gives me hope. But the Runebound expansion also kind of seems like a "here, take this it's all you'll get" sort of dealio with them not waiting until gencon in order to hype, so I'm not crossing my fingers.

I got the same feeling.

When the first 4 expansions came out quickly I assumed FFG were going for a similar approach to 2nd edition with lots and lots of expansions being quickly released.

But then there was a huge gap where nothing was released and I thought they'd changed to the 1st edition model (released a single card pack then realised the game had problems).

I think this expansion is either designed to complete runebound and end development or fix it by making it solo friendly and give an adventure party (things that were stripped out of this edition). Guess it's sink or swim time for runebound.

I hope it's to complete the game, as that gives me hope that Battlelore will also be completed one day.

Well. I Played Battlelore again yesterday and it still struck me how great game it is.

I must admit in current state game is practically infinetly replayable - combination of scenarios, lore cards and units gives limitless possibilities.
Yet I still "feel" that in order to have "final" product we should get two final expansions with Lathari Army - this way this game would be absolutely complete and provide years of fun.

Dear FFG, I still hope for a miracle...

Anyone noticed that in the Runebound product page, they've removed sections on old games such as Runeage? And yet Battlelore remains...

2 hours ago, jonboyjon1990 said:

Anyone noticed that in the Runebound product page, they've removed sections on old games such as Runeage? And yet Battlelore remains...

Yeah, the first documentation of Rune Age being removed was in January of this year. But Rune Age received its last expansion in 2012 while BattleLore received its last expansion in 2015. My gut feeling is that FFG doesn't immediately remove product from their site after it's out of print because they want players to be able to find information about the game and look for these games at their local retailers. My LGS still has a book case full of BattleLore product* and I think if FFG took BattleLore off of their website, it would make it just that much harder for my LGS to sell the stock that they have.

*and every time I go into my LGS, I want to buy all the BattleLore product, even though I already have 1 of each expansion. It just looks so beautiful!