I was first introduced to tabletop gaming with Epic Space Marine and jumped in with Warhammer (which became Herohammer).

With Kings of War and other competing games (along with FFG's Star Wars "Trilogy" (XWing, Armada, IA), I'm curious... is there room for this in the gaming ecosystem. (Let's assume RuneWars will be FUN).

I'm from MD and I find it hard to get games in... how are your respective communities reacting to this?

(First world problems but I have to travel 1hr in every direction to really do any kind of league play.)

To most, Runewars is basically just "generic fantasy", not many seem to know this universe. I'm not sure it's going to take off around here but I'll keep an eye on it.

I don't really expect people to be getting that excited until a demo video goes up either, at this point we know so little about how it actually plays.

I think this may find it's niche with a new segment at the crossover point between boardgamers with interest in wargaming as a sort of gateway and older disaffected ex-wargamers that no longer want to invest the time/money/resources into the full time hobby that are most miniature wargames. Things that I think could help establish this new player base:

1. 2D terrain like the asteroids and playmats in X-wing where the more ambitious can make 3D models but the average gamer can save time modelling and storage space if he doesn't want to take that track

2. Colored themed plastic for the mini's so they aren't just formless gray hordes smashing into each other but at least identifiable by army out of the box like Battlelore

3. Make the mini's cross compatible with Descent and Runebound so that it becomes an almost no brainer for those players to try it out and create unique campaign possibilities

Regardless, I don't think this will in any way threaten the GW, Warmahordes and the like markets. For guys that want the highest detail mini's, hundreds of pages of rules from multiple books and the like this isn't going to scratch that itch. But, if FFG can cobble together a player base out of Boardgamers, time restricted ex-GW players, Heroclix and X-wing type players, they could get a fun active community.

I played wfb competitively in the masters circuit. I think, depending on how the rules play out, this could be the solution we were all looking for. Rank and file combat from a company that cares and is involved in organized play. I was sold instantaneously,

(Let's assume RuneWars will be fun)

It is. It really, really is.

I played wfb competitively in the masters circuit. I think, depending on how the rules play out, this could be the solution we were all looking for. Rank and file combat from a company that cares and is involved in organized play. I was sold instantaneously,

Just curious on your perspective as I was always much more of a thematic/narrative player than competitive one. My mind just isn't designed to notice/exploit imbalance in a game system. Does Kings of War not meet your needs from a competitive standpoint?

From my admittedly narrow view it seems about as balanced as a system with 10+ armies can be. ( I have heard the complaint that it's selection is a but generic from army to army but isn't the division of choice vs balance a sliding scale every game is on and that perfect tipping point a sort of unattainable holy grail?)

I know what I hope Runewars brings me as a thematic player brings me that GW and Mantic don't completely deliver on right now. What are your hopes as a competive focused player?

I feel like FFG has a better business model to make a successful miniatures wargame. Any company making one is in the business of selling models, there is no real way around it.

From what it sounds like there will be upgrade cards and such for units, which means competitive play will require owning units you may not field. While this may seem unfair to some players it has proven to be a good balance in XWing to what developers like GW have done in the past.

As a former WFB player I always felt (as did my hardcore friends) that the top tier armies where always the newest released, and once the whole army selection went through a cycle they would make a new edition and make your old armies unplayable.

If you look at X Wing there are still competitive lists with TIE fighters which were the first models released (with X Wings in the core set). They do often use cards from newer expansions but they do well competitively even without any upgrades.

As long as I can find people to play regularly I am definitely excited to give it a try.

As a former WFB player I always felt (as did my hardcore friends) that the top tier armies where always the newest released, and once the whole army selection went through a cycle they would make a new edition and make your old armies unplayable.

This however is more of a GW/bad rule design/financial thing than a wargame thing.

I hope we won't have to buy units we don't want to play to get certain cards, playing this only for fun i personally will only buy units i want to play regardless if they include a strong card or not.

That's been FFG's system so far, I don't see them changing it.

That's been FFG's system so far, I don't see them changing it.

I know and i dont think either the will change their system but i can still hope.

From what it sounds like there will be upgrade cards and such for units, which means competitive play will require owning units you may not field. While this may seem unfair to some players it has proven to be a good balance in XWing to what

This is the model that made me sell off X-Wing and give it a pass, and it'll be the same for this game. I want a miniatures game from this where the rules aren't packaged with models you don't want, not a board game with miniatures.

I haven't played Kings of War, but out of all the people I know who are competitive minis games players I *do* know that nobody seems to be interested in it or take it seriously. That's why I've never really bothered to spend time looking deeper into it.

I played wfb competitively in the masters circuit. I think, depending on how the rules play out, this could be the solution we were all looking for. Rank and file combat from a company that cares and is involved in organized play. I was sold instantaneously,

Just curious on your perspective as I was always much more of a thematic/narrative player than competitive one. My mind just isn't designed to notice/exploit imbalance in a game system. Does Kings of War not meet your needs from a competitive standpoint?

From my admittedly narrow view it seems about as balanced as a system with 10+ armies can be. ( I have heard the complaint that it's selection is a but generic from army to army but isn't the division of choice vs balance a sliding scale every game is on and that perfect tipping point a sort of unattainable holy grail?)

I know what I hope Runewars brings me as a thematic player brings me that GW and Mantic don't completely deliver on right now. What are your hopes as a competive focused player?

I tried KoW a couple times and I just could not get into it. In fact, the entire masters circuit voted to switch to the system after WFB and from what I understand has completely abandoned it less than a year later. the game play is balanced, but too much so (if that makes sense). games are just boring as its the same game over and over.

I did try 9th age as well. I was a Dwarf player and STEAMROLLED pretty much everyone during the beta testing. They were insanely broken, and it was not that fun to just ROFL stomp everyone without even having to switch my brain on. I hear it has gotten a lot better, which is great. The problem there is that there is no growth at all. So you will never expand your tournament scene.

So what I am hoping for is

1) diverse army selection

2) differing play styles

3) OP support

4) soft scoring ( I am a decent painter and enjoy thematic armies)

5) Good mechanics

6) large tournament fields

I am sure that this last one will take a LONG time if it happens at all.

I think, depending on how the rules play out, this could be the solution we were all looking for. Rank and file combat from a company that cares and is involved in organized play. I was sold instantaneously,

You just summrized my opinion (and hopes) perfectly :-)

I think this may find it's niche with a new segment at the crossover point between boardgamers with interest in wargaming as a sort of gateway and older disaffected ex-wargamers that no longer want to invest the time/money/resources into the full time hobby that are most miniature wargames. Things that I think could help establish this new player base:

2. Colored themed plastic for the mini's so they aren't just formless gray hordes smashing into each other but at least identifiable by army out of the box like Battlelore

All great points Nickel Eye, but number two rings resonant with me the most. I'm very surprised FFG missed this option. Players used to board game plastic would not mind at all pitting green minis against white, or whatever. That would remove the pressure about painting yet still allow gamers like me to get them done in my personal scheme over time.

I think this may find it's niche with a new segment at the crossover point between boardgamers with interest in wargaming as a sort of gateway and older disaffected ex-wargamers that no longer want to invest the time/money/resources into the full time hobby that are most miniature wargames. Things that I think could help establish this new player base:

2. Colored themed plastic for the mini's so they aren't just formless gray hordes smashing into each other but at least identifiable by army out of the box like Battlelore

All great points Nickel Eye, but number two rings resonant with me the most. I'm very surprised FFG missed this option. Players used to board game plastic would not mind at all pitting green minis against white, or whatever. That would remove the pressure about painting yet still allow gamers like me to get them done in my personal scheme over time.

Personally, I would like them to reward painting. Even if it is nothing much, just to encourage people to paint.

I don't see any way that will ever happen. FFG doesn't do art, they don't sell paints, it would alienate a lot of their core market, and frankly even among hardcore minis gamers there's a lot of division about painting prizes. The only people I've known in favor of it are GW players (who are used to it because GW does it), most others don't care about it. Many actively dislike it because competition is supposed to be about winning the game. Nobody hands out a "best haircut" or "coolest t-shirt" award at a basketball game for much the same reason, despite being artistic, it's just got nothing to do with the game itself.

Now if you want to have painting competitions that's awesome, but it's probably better to run it separately instead of mixing it into every gameplay tournament. This will also let people have much more artistic freedom because they can paint minis from any line they want to so I imagine the pro painting guys would prefer this too.

I don't see any way that will ever happen. FFG doesn't do art, they don't sell paints, it would alienate a lot of their core market, and frankly even among hardcore minis gamers there's a lot of division about painting prizes. The only people I've known in favor of it are GW players (who are used to it because GW does it), most others don't care about it. Many actively dislike it because competition is supposed to be about winning the game. Nobody hands out a "best haircut" or "coolest t-shirt" award at a basketball game for much the same reason, despite being artistic, it's just got nothing to do with the game itself.

Now if you want to have painting competitions that's awesome, but it's probably better to run it separately instead of mixing it into every gameplay tournament. This will also let people have much more artistic freedom because they can paint minis from any line they want to so I imagine the pro painting guys would prefer this too.

I have seen a lot of pushback towards painting scores contributing towards determining the overall winner at miniature wargame events. However, I don't think I've ever met anyone who was bothered by a someone going home with a "Best Appearence" trophy/reward/certificate that was judged/voted 100% independently of the overall standings.

Personally, since beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that, I'm a fan of a yes-no approach to painting at miniature events - if you have put in the effort to paint your dollies, no matter the quality/standard of your abilities compared to anyone else, you get a minor points boost. Minor enough to act as a tiebreaker, but not enough to seriously affect standings. That encourages contributing to the visual spectacle of miniature wargaming but doesn't detract from the idea of the event being a challenge of generalship.

Then again, I never treated miniature events (note that I am purposefully avoiding the term 'tournament') as a challenge of generalship, but more like a group celebration of a fun hobby. Obviously, YMMV with that.

This looks interesting, but the biggest drawback for me is it looks INCREDIBLY fidgety. Trays look nice in concept, but terrible in execution. Watching the TC demo video and them having to pull the trays off - awful. For me, this is the #1 thing to modify before production, find a better way to keep these together or allow the trays to stay until an entire rank is eliminated. Combine this with the numerous tokens, multiple dice, command dials, runes, & TBD # of cards one must have between decks, upgrade cards & unit cards, there is a TON to keep track of & will make the game run much longer trying to manage it all.

If the TC demo game was a ~100 pt game with a large game being ~200 pts, that would give the human faction 6-8 units with cards, dials, tokens, upgrade cards, etc. Imagine running an Armada game at 800 pts and its probably not far off in terms of the amount of stuff to track. And that will be the target game size. If they streamline this down and make it more manageable, I think it can do very well. I'll keep an eye on it, as I do love my Descent & like some of the lore of Runeworld. If nothing else, I will probably steal some of the miniatures for my KoW armies. But if it stays with this massive amount to extra stuff, I think it will die under its own weight of stuff to manage.

I'm not sure why it's important that you take empty trays off at all, why can't they just be empty?

This would also "fix" something stupid about the undead abilities. Oh, so we're undead so we can re-raise some of our losses. That makes thematic sense. Oh, but obviously we CAN NOT do that if the number of guys we've lose is evenly divisible by FOUR? Whaaat? OK, now that sounds stupid.

Now imagine that you have to do the same only without the cards, constantly referring to rulebooks, FAQ documents, army lists. Welcome to Warhammer Fantasy :-D I played Bretonnia for example, and had to use tokens also to remember which unit still had the blessing. Same with spells put on my units by the opponent. So no changes here. Runes - remember the power and dispel dice you counted/rolled turn by turn. My point is - mechanically these are not that different, and we did just fine, after a couple of games it gets fast. Another example is Warmachine/Hordes, where tournament rules require you to use individual tokens for every game effect. A bit fidgety, but makes everything crystal clear on the tabletop.

But I wholeheartedly agree with the removal of empty trays! :-) Probably the only thing I do not like from the demo videos.

TBF, with what we know about the game so far, for multiple row units, I see no crucial gameplay reason you couldn't leave the empty trays in there until you clear out the entire back row, and clipping off an entire row would probably be a bit easier and faster than taking off individual trays that are attached along two edges.

In casual play anyhow. For tournaments you'll have to follow the official rules. But they may still change it before launch.

The demo did mention that removing a tray could cause two units in combat to no longer be engaged though, so there can be (albeit rarely) an actual game effect from removal.

With what we know so far, it shouldn't matter 90% of the time since on contact you should align to the remaining full tray on the relevant facing. If it does matter for any reason, you can just ignore the completely empty trays. Imagine they're not even there, they're flat on the board so they shouldn't get in the way of anything much. But that's still speculation at this point.

Now imagine that you have to do the same only without the cards, constantly referring to rulebooks, FAQ documents, army lists. Welcome to Warhammer Fantasy :-D I played Bretonnia for example, and had to use tokens also to remember which unit still had the blessing. Same with spells put on my units by the opponent. So no changes here. Runes - remember the power and dispel dice you counted/rolled turn by turn. My point is - mechanically these are not that different, and we did just fine, after a couple of games it gets fast. Another example is Warmachine/Hordes, where tournament rules require you to use individual tokens for every game effect. A bit fidgety, but makes everything crystal clear on the tabletop.

But I wholeheartedly agree with the removal of empty trays! :-) Probably the only thing I do not like from the demo videos.

​Oh no, I get that aspect of it, and WFB (didn't play) was terrible from what I have read regarding that through the constant ages & releases. As someone that started to get into Warmahordes, the worst part for me is / was the learning curve plus the amount of tokens involved. The volume of stuff to remember makes the game intimidating to get into. One of the reasons I prefer the ruleset & limited fidgetiness (real word??) of KoW. Easy to see & get what each unit does from an army list, but understand many peoples desires for a larger spell / abilities list while maintain balance & giving variety of army builds. I'm looking forward to seeing what their skirmish game will be.

As for the trays:

The tray removal will be crucial for this style of game & how they've defined it (per my loose, no I haven't even seen this in person & my review of the TC demo). If you flank an enemy, or are even coming in diagonally and hit an empty tray, you're not engaged with the enemy. No enemy is there due to the defeat of that group. If the empty tray keeps you from moving the full amount forward & then the unit is defeated / routed, your next move would not be the full potential distance due to having shorted your prior movement.

Even as dboeren points out, removing a tray could cause the unit to no longer be engaged, which to me, makes sense in the example from the demo. My cavalry charges into some reanimates, I kill off a squad within the unit, next turn, I can charge again into the next squad due to the open distance to the next point of contact. Especially on a flank move (which, again, until the ruleset comes out ) should result in more damage to the group as a whole.

One solution? Leave the trays in place and go with a unit's footprint being static. If its 2 trays wide by 2 trays deep, that's the units footprint. But as a tray is empties, that rank looses its bonus - no more reroll or no more boosted damage depending on width vs. depth. For reanimates, not knowing the reanimation aspect, possibly only reanimate in trays with units left, or, empty trays reanimate at half the ability (so if it takes 1 surge or 1 rune to do it, require 2 surges / 2 runes to get 1). This would let the large units (3 x 3) still maintain their tarpit nature of clogging up lanes while representing a line of troops that is slowly breaking apart under constant assault. Once the last of the unit is routed, viola, huge open lane.

Agree though we have to wait and see more. FFG distrubtion network will help this game, just curious where it will fall against a lot of its competition (AoS, 9th, KoW, Frostgrave)