2 hours ago, Elliphino said:

Totally tangential question: do we know that only one of each upgrade comes in the core set?

We don't know for sure, but I feel like the spread in the unboxing photos we've seen show all the upgrade cards that are included. And based on my impressions of FFG's core boxes, it seems like the amount and variety of upgrades that you'd expect from a starter.

15 hours ago, Budgernaut said:

I'm not seeing how you can build a 200-point army with 2 cores' worth of units from a single faction. Maybe I'll have to try again, though.

I'm sorry you are correct my original break down getting to 200 was with split cores and 1 of the expansions my bad...

This has been an interesting thread to read. As a mainly Warhammer Fantasy/Age of Sigmar player it's fascinating to me to see the points of view of mainly FFG fans regarding pricing. To me, this game is dirt cheap. I have no idea how much I have spent on Warhammer Fantasy, but I've spent over $3K on Age of Sigmar and I still feel I'm just getting started. A rank and file miniatures war game I can get into for around $300 and have a full army is amazing! And I'm used to not having all options available from the get go. Even with X-Wing, which I also play, I immediately bought two starter sets to get a more solid starting point. For my group, mainly war gamers, our greater concern is product support, expansions and frequency of releases. Prices seem really good, even if the models aren't to the standard I'm used to, they just have a very cool feel to them. I've been pushing this game everywhere I can. I'll support it with $$$ when it releases and hope it goes somewhere great. If it's anything like X-Wing the level of fun will completely nullify the price issue as it just becomes one of those "gotta have it" things.

On 2/26/2017 at 3:50 PM, Hawkwinter09 said:

This has been an interesting thread to read. As a mainly Warhammer Fantasy/Age of Sigmar player it's fascinating to me to see the points of view of mainly FFG fans regarding pricing. To me, this game is dirt cheap. I have no idea how much I have spent on Warhammer Fantasy, but I've spent over $3K on Age of Sigmar and I still feel I'm just getting started. A rank and file miniatures war game I can get into for around $300 and have a full army is amazing! And I'm used to not having all options available from the get go. Even with X-Wing, which I also play, I immediately bought two starter sets to get a more solid starting point. For my group, mainly war gamers, our greater concern is product support, expansions and frequency of releases. Prices seem really good, even if the models aren't to the standard I'm used to, they just have a very cool feel to them. I've been pushing this game everywhere I can. I'll support it with $$$ when it releases and hope it goes somewhere great. If it's anything like X-Wing the level of fun will completely nullify the price issue as it just becomes one of those "gotta have it" things.

This is pretty much how I feel. Most of my friends are going to buy a core set, then we're pairing up and swapping armies. That way each of us will get double the contents of a core set for one faction for ~$100. That's basically free when compared to Warhammer AoS/40k. I just spent $69 to buy a 40k unit consisting of three models.

I have a friend who is planning to play Daqan, and I want to play Waiqar, so we may end up trading down the line, but we're going to use our Core sets to introduce it to some of our friends who opted out of AoS. I see the other half of the core as an introduction set, to help bring new players into the hobby and convince them to invest in building their own armies so we can play. I've tried to do the same thing in XWing and Armada, focusing on Rebels and avoiding Imperial and Scum, but I still have enough of the other factions to loan ships to others to learn and try the game out.

28 minutes ago, KrisWall said:

I just spent $69 to buy a 40k unit consisting of three models.

Yeah, anyone who thinks this game is too expensive clearly hasn't played other big games like 40k, AoS or even Flames of War. Heck even Warmachine which used to be on the cheap side is now fairly spendy since they increased the number of models needed.

Sure it will cost more than X-Wing or Armada, but means about as much as the fact that a Ford Fiesta costs more than a RV Camper does. Sure they're both vehicles you drive, but no one expects them to cost the same. Likewise no one should expect a rank and file game with 50+ models to cost the same as X-Wing with 3-4 models.

Actually, I think its about on the same level as Armada. While the Armada Core and Runewars Core cost the same, and the expansions look like the same cost, we end up looking at 'which one requires you to buy more models to play a full game'. In this case, the Runewars core looks like about half an Army, and the Armada core is about half a fleet. However, most people end up using other ships than the ones that come in the core for Armada (and I'm sure that a few years from now, we will be playing with heroes and models that don't come in the core for most of our armies too)

i agree about comparing it to armada, but it's missing the lower price points of armada ships. I hope in the future they release small 1-2 figure packs that can be used to upgrade an army. Like descent miniatures it'll mean a higher per mini cost but at least it gives you options. Command and character models seem like a great way to do it. Like a variant banner and musician model for Daqan spear men. In this case they can release them without a dial or tray to keep the cost of these little booster packs down. A few cards and a few minis would be great, at $10-$15.

1 hour ago, Dosiere said:

i agree about comparing it to armada, but it's missing the lower price points of armada ships. I hope in the future they release small 1-2 figure packs that can be used to upgrade an army. Like descent miniatures it'll mean a higher per mini cost but at least it gives you options. Command and character models seem like a great way to do it. Like a variant banner and musician model for Daqan spear men. In this case they can release them without a dial or tray to keep the cost of these little booster packs down. A few cards and a few minis would be great, at $10-$15.

It might be similar after we get a feel for how the game plays and what sort of meta game develops. Then watch that crumble with each new wave just like Armada.

Armada has -squadrons- with lower price, but the ships are comparably priced to the expansions we've already seen (and most are more expensive). I would love to see them use single-figure upgrade packs to help add some meta-shakeup options and expand character representation.

14 minutes ago, drkpnthr said:

Armada has -squadrons- with lower price, but the ships are comparably priced to the expansions we've already seen (and most are more expensive). I would love to see them use single-figure upgrade packs to help add some meta-shakeup options and expand character representation.

The difference is really points per dollar (or proportion of full list per dollar since the point structure will be different). Yes, an ISD is double the cost of a single expansion for Runewars. That ISD is at a bare minimum more than 1/4 of your list. Two packs of Knights gives you 34-40 points without upgrades, which can likely get very close or above 1/4 of a 200 point Runewars force.

So yeah, I think Armada is a pretty fair comparison for the price point. I know that's a little bit of a reversal from by previous hand wringing. I just wish I could find the time to paint...

I've been helping a friend develop his plan to fast-paint his collection, and then be able to go back and detail units as he has time in the next few months. We're going to spray primer his whole collection (Daqan white, Waiqar grey), then airbrush all of the Daqan armor blue, and the Waiqar cloth purple. Then we're going to airbrush skin tone on the Daqan faces and hands, and bone tone on the Waiqar faces and hands, and he's going to call it a day. They won't be the prettiest, but it will be decent to play with and he can go back and detail and varnish when he has the time.

5 hours ago, drkpnthr said:

I would love to see them use single-figure upgrade packs to help add some meta-shakeup options and expand character representation.

We'll definitely get more heroes (already revealed in GenCon) and undoubtedly get more siege units. Each of which will be able to act as a one many squad or an infantry upgrade which will help give different options.

It will be interesting to see if an army consisting of only a handful of heroes could compete with full blown regiments of infantry.

Surely be some build limitation on the number of heroes you can field as independent units? Now I'm thinking of looking across a table and seeing a monster build of a full block of runegolems with five heroes dancing around them.

I mean that could be a technique...The argument could be made that the point difference between the embedded hero vs the free moving hero is enough restriction that they wouldn't need to really put a 1 hero unit per army rule. Kari is 32 pts and then upgrades can easily make her around 50 pts so 5 heroes and an easily avoided unit of rune golems sounds like an army I wouldn't mind facing with a punch of archers and reanimates... I could be wrong and that could be terrible though...I'm not sure yet...I want to see other hero list building abilities...

1 hour ago, jek said:

I mean that could be a technique...The argument could be made that the point difference between the embedded hero vs the free moving hero is enough restriction that they wouldn't need to really put a 1 hero unit per army rule. Kari is 32 pts and then upgrades can easily make her around 50 pts so 5 heroes and an easily avoided unit of rune golems sounds like an army I wouldn't mind facing with a punch of archers and reanimates... I could be wrong and that could be terrible though...I'm not sure yet...I want to see other hero list building abilities...

This is why I'm desperate to get the game. I want to be able to play test and decide whether a full formation of Rune Golems is disastrous or brilliant. Or maybe I just want to field a dozen small formations of archers to pepper the evil Daqan army into glorious undeath.

@Muz333 It will ne easy enough to test the elite hero army right of the core box as well. Just as @jek mentioned you could field Kari up to 50pts then a 50pt infantry army and you would get a fairly goo idea of how it would play out. Without objectives of course but still...

Or you can make a cross over by fielding Kari and Ardus who have to team up against their respective troops who got on strike and want to cut their leaders'heads off.... Try to survive with Kari and Ardus against golem, carrion lancers, archers, skeletons and spearmen... ... ... Ok I... No, that's not such a bad Idea, I'll test it anyway !!! Or if you buy multiple core sets, you can imagine Kari has sisters and Ardus brothers.... and then you go on a full messy fight like when we played full barbarian in Diablo II....Ok, there I'm going crazy !

58 minutes ago, Orcdruid said:

@Muz333 It will ne easy enough to test the elite hero army right of the core box as well. Just as @jek mentioned you could field Kari up to 50pts then a 50pt infantry army and you would get a fairly goo idea of how it would play out. Without objectives of course but still...

this is not necessarily true. a hero army could be a poor choice while a single kari could decimate an equal costed block of soldiers. or it could be the other way around. i mean it is a starting point but its not definitive.

new expansions announced.
$25 for 10 skeletons
$35 for 2 Golems.
higher end of the price spectrum as a whole...but with Army building so compact it's probably not as expensive in the long run.
(I will be using the figures for KoW as well as RW so even more value for me)

On 2/26/2017 at 3:50 PM, Hawkwinter09 said:

A rank and file miniatures war game I can get into for around $300 and have a full army is amazing! And I'm used to not having all options available from the get go.

Check out "Kings of War" for a great rules set with sub-$200 tournament legal lists.

14 minutes ago, Hidatom said:

new expansions announced.
$25 for 10 skeletons
$35 for 2 Golems.
higher end of the price spectrum as a whole...but with Army building so compact it's probably not as expensive in the long run.
(I will be using the figures for KoW as well as RW so even more value for me)

A single Space Marine Dreadnought model costs $46.25 USD before tax, and I like both the Carrion Lancer and Rune Golem models better than that, so I'd say this puts it fairly low on the price spectrum if we're talking wargames.

39 minutes ago, Hidatom said:

Check out "Kings of War" for a great rules set with sub-$200 tournament legal lists.

Loving Kings of War and have Warpath as well from Mantic. playing Gates of Antares and Infinity as well but their not as cost effective.

I'll be painting those humans in a Roman style theme, to use alongside my Kings of War Human army.

Whenever a miniature game is discussed on the Internet, invariably there is a cost/expense/price discussion and that discussion invariably ends up in comparisons with Games Workshop pricing.

Which I always found a bit disingenous. Games Workshop consistently has the highest pricepoints in the miniature gaming market, by a mile at that. Saying other manufacturer's are cheap because GW products are pricier is like saying every other companies' smartphones cost pennies because Apple charges a premium for their iPhone.

This particular comparison is further flawed when you take into account the fact that Games Workshop models are not only of an objectively superior casting quality (you might not like the aesthetics, I myself in fact dislike them, but as far as the technical design and casting technology goes, GW is outpacing the competition by at least half a decade) manufactured in-house out of a completely different material than FFG's miniatures manufactured in China. Yes, they're both 'plastic', but that's like saying your stainless steel wristwatch and a gold Rolex are both 'metal' timepieces.

Mantic products have been brought up earlier and I feel they are a much better fitting comparison. A large chunk of Mantic's models are manufactured in 'restic', which is a sort of comparatively soft PVC plastic very similar to the plastic used in FFG games. These are also manufactured in China, I'd say have a similar level of detail and casting quality (which is objectively inferior to GW products) and similar posing and sculpt variety (ie. not much, 2-4 individual poses per unit) and are also of a similar scale compared to the exaggerated GW models. Rank-and-file infantry sets made in restic for their fantasy game are priced at 35$ for 20 figures, including parts to make up the command group. A similar amount of figures purchased from the Runewars brand would be two infantry boxes and a command box, also giving you 20 figures of comparable utility, size, quality and material, but setting you back a whopping 75$, that is, over twice Mantic's price.

Now, it is true that Runewars miniatures come with additional components: trays, dials and cards. However, I am not sure those components would justify such a steep step up in price, especially since you will be getting diminishing returns on those. After the second or third box you'd need to fill out the unit, you'll be swimming in surplus cardboard and after FFG reaches a unit variety beyond what fits in the standard 200pt army, you'll have a lot of surplus trays as well.

TLDR would be: Don't compare RWM with GW, that's not comparing like with like. And comparing like with like, my conclusion is that RWM is indeed a VERY pricy proposition. So pricy in fact, I will probably postpone getting the game and wait to see if it bites in my local area so I have people to play and trade with.

Before I saw the 'expansion' pricing, I was ready to jump in both feet and be the guy setting up the RWM community in my area.