Hi everyone, Hope everything's fine for you today (yeah for me it's basically 10:59),

So as the title suggests it, I'd like to clarify some things about commands units and units upgrades

1) In the core set there are no musician, no champion, no wizard, no siege weapon and no sandard bearer. Well that is said. Then, units when in larger formations than their basic one, can have upgrades attached. In the core set when a unit can get a "champion" upgrade or wizard or I don't know, they can be attached an upgrade card matching the symbol icon, right ?

2) If the above statement is approved, then I ask : the command packs only contain cards and 4 minis. No dial for the command units which is logical. BUT and there I come with my main concern : when the command units will appear and, later on, the siege units : will those minis replace the upgrade cards ? I mean, will it cost something to add a command group to a unit or will it only take the tray it needs to stand on ?

Because say that I use an upgrade card with the siege weapon Icon (don't know if, the Rune golem set apart, there are some among the already known cards ?) while waiting for the siege weapons expansion pack to release. When the siege weapons minis come to shops, Will I have to replace the upgrade card by the mini or not ?

Thank you for your answers.

Elrad

I assume the unit fits into the squad and that unit, carrying the upgrade card, can be destroyed by accuracy shots to eliminate the upgrade. As the core-set doesn't have any command units to replace a regular soldier in the formation I suspect that a command figure won't be required at official tournaments until they can be bought.

That's partially what I ask. I know I was fairly unclear : what I would like to know is if the minis representing the command group will count or not as unit upgrade, preventing the player to add any upgrade card to the unit....Or are those two separate things ?

My impression is that there are upgrade cards with certain icons that require a specific figure, like Front Line Rune Golem... if I'm not mistaken it has the siege icon plus the Rune Golem icon in one corner, and other upgrade cards that have an icon but don't require a specific figure. I think the "Metered March" card has the musician-horn looking icon but doesn't require whatever they're calling that figure. I don't imagine there will be any upgrades in the core set that require figures from the command expansions.

There will be no command upgrades in the core. Each command upgrade card has an image of a model on it, and only works with specific units types. For command units (champion/ musician/ banner/ wizard) those models -replace- a normal model in one of the trays. For siege units (rune golem / carrion lancer) they replace an entire tray of models. They haven't been clear yet if heroes will replace a model or a tray (probably a tray?).

I think later upgrades may offer named command upgrades or alternate poses and models as expansions (like a Daqan Veterans pack).

Oh my.... I knew I could be unclear, but I don't get it.

1) when I look at the upgrade symbols available for a unit formation : what are the icons related to ? To cards or to units ?

2) How can I add a siege unit or heroe to my formation ? By using an upgrade card or simply by adding the heroe/siege wepon on its tray to the unit, removing a tray in my initial unit to respect the formation limit ? Because that is my problem : you have a unit of spearmen, you want to add to the formation a rune golem (let's say you have the right formation level to do so) how does it work ? Do I simply take the mini on its tray and inster it in the formation by removing one tray of spearmen to do so OR in order to add the golem, do I have first to pay the cost of an upgrade card allowing the rune golem to enter the battlefield in my spearmen unit ?

3) By elaborating like this, when the command units will arrive later this year (or still later), what will we do with them ? Will we add our musicians/banner/wizard/champion by paying the cost of upgrade cards saying that we have to replace a spearman (in our example) by a musician, etc. or will we be simply able to add the mini to the formation (by replacing) and only paying the unit cost ?

Am I clear enough, now or do I have to go to sleep so I don't look like I'm totally lost in lala land ? Because if you don't understand my question, feel free to say it : "What' y're askin' us you mother fckr ?"

1 hour ago, drkpnthr said:

There will be no command upgrades in the core. Each command upgrade card has an image of a model on it, and only works with specific units types. For command units (champion/ musician/ banner/ wizard) those models -replace- a normal model in one of the trays. For siege units (rune golem / carrion lancer) they replace an entire tray of models. They haven't been clear yet if heroes will replace a model or a tray (probably a tray?).

I think later upgrades may offer named command upgrades or alternate poses and models as expansions (like a Daqan Veterans pack).

This is in fact not true. Both of the two characters in the core set can be taken as unit command upgrades, their rules will be there presumably for how it's done across the board. You can find these unit upgrade cards in the french unboxing article. Also, like I warned everyone on threat multiplying surges, we don't have the rules yet for how those upgrades work, just guesses (even if reasonable ones).

@Taki yeah I meant the command upgrades as in the champion, musician, banner, and wizard models. There will be the option to add Kari and Ardus as hero upgrades and the rune golem and carrion lancer as siege upgrades right out of the core box.

So:
FLRG: Requires a Rune Golem to be added to the squad, we know this because it has the picture of a model in the top right.
Metered March: Doesn't require anything to be added to the squad because it has no model in the top right.
Not every card in the command expansions will require a model.
When that model is added to the squad it replaces units/trays, it does not add new trays.
It uses the original units command dial and start card plus whatever modifiers are on the upgrade card.
For instance when spearmen attack and you have a front line rune golem, the spearmen gain brutal (blue rune).
For instance when spearmen attack and you have an attached Kari, the spearmen attack with an extra blue die and can use the surge ability printed on the card.
The model for all intents and purposes is a part of the unit and does not retain any previous qualities.
If there is no model with specified hit points required by the upgrade card, you can not remove it with accuracy attacks.(However, one of the spoiled champion upgrades for reanimates looks like he can removed non model upgrade cards.)
As has been explained in multiple game demos and by Tony on these boards Threat does not multiply any symbol but hit. There is some chance that they could have changed it between the demos and actual release of the game, it is however much likely Rafpark read the rules wrong. That would be a very big change in the fundamental calculations of the game and with out any price adjustments or probability altering else wise would throw the balance of the game to **** probably.(Kari would become absolutely vomit inducing, she is already the most use of points in the game.)

This is all tentative to change until an actual rules document is revealed to us.

I would say the symbols represent the upgrade ability for let's say a bannerman and a bannerman consist is of a model which is swapped with a normal guy from the unit and a card depicting his banner, the rules it grants and its cost, if I remember correctly there were different banner cards, so you could have the banner of "It's just a flesh wound" or the banner of "Awesome ass-kicking" and of course you can only have one banner per bannerman and unit and if he gets killed soy lose those special rules.

I think to buy a Rune Golem upgrade you first buy your unit of Spearmen and then buy the upgrade and replace on tray with him.p, so you would pay the price for the initial Spearmen tray and the upgrade for the Rune Golem, but that is just what I think.

1 hour ago, Elrad said:

By elaborating like this, when the command units will arrive later this year (or still later), what will we do with them ? Will we add our musicians/banner/wizard/champion by paying the cost of upgrade cards saying that we have to replace a spearman (in our example) by a musician, etc. or will we be simply able to add the mini to the formation (by replacing) and only paying the unit cost ?

Is a picture worth a thousand words? I don't know, but hopefully these help. Marching Drummer on the left comes in the Waiqar Infantry Command Unit Upgrade Expansion (wow, that name is a mouthful, isn't it?). You can see the silhouette of the drummer figure in the upper right corner. This means that as part of this upgrade, you are replacing a figure from your infantry unit with the drummer figure. Metered March comes in the core set. It does not have a figure silhouette in the upper right corner.

Assuming this works like X-Wing, for each upgrade symbol on your unit sheet, you can equip one matching upgrade. A look at the Reanimates unit card indicates that a unit of any size can take 1 [horn] upgrade. You would have to choose between each of these; you can't equip both. If you choose Marching Drummer, you will replace one Reanimate figure with the drummer. In the case of Metered March, no figure is required. What's the significance? If my assumptions are correct, Metered March will last you the entire game until that unit is wiped out completely. Marching Drummer, on the other hand, is more fragile. If an enemy unit can get enough hits and accuracy results, they can target the drummer figure specifically, and if they can take it out, you lose the effect of the associated upgrade card.

Ardus will allow his army to equip upgrades as if they were one tier larger than their actual size.

I will try to find the full text when not on my cell.

It looks like the major advantage to the model replacement upgrades will be that they are harder to kill than standard model and have slightly better abilities, but can be targeted by accuracy and killed. The generics can't be killed and usually are usable by any faction.

3 minutes ago, drkpnthr said:

Ardus will allow his army to equip upgrades as if they were one tier larger than their actual size.

I will try to find the full text when not on my cell.

I'm gonna ninja you since I'm at a computer.

"Each unit in your army is treated as having the available upgrades in the row of its costing table with the next highest cost (ignore this if there is no higher-cost row in that unit's table)."

In case anyone isn't clear, this only applies if you are using Ardus as a unit, not as an upgrade, because this is his unit card ability. If you use him as an upgrade, you will not have access to this ability.

54 minutes ago, Budgernaut said:

I'm gonna ninja you since I'm at a computer.

"Each unit in your army is treated as having the available upgrades in the row of its costing table with the next highest cost (ignore this if there is no higher-cost row in that unit's table)."

In case anyone isn't clear, this only applies if you are using Ardus as a unit, not as an upgrade, because this is his unit card ability. If you use him as an upgrade, you will not have access to this ability.

Yes, so as long Ardus is on your army list every unit on this list benefits from his ability.

1 hour ago, Budgernaut said:

Is a picture worth a thousand words? I don't know, but hopefully these help. Marching Drummer on the left comes in the Waiqar Infantry Command Unit Upgrade Expansion (wow, that name is a mouthful, isn't it?). You can see the silhouette of the drummer figure in the upper right corner. This means that as part of this upgrade, you are replacing a figure from your infantry unit with the drummer figure. Metered March comes in the core set. It does not have a figure silhouette in the upper right corner.

Assuming this works like X-Wing, for each upgrade symbol on your unit sheet, you can equip one matching upgrade. A look at the Reanimates unit card indicates that a unit of any size can take 1 [horn] upgrade. You would have to choose between each of these; you can't equip both. If you choose Marching Drummer, you will replace one Reanimate figure with the drummer. In the case of Metered March, no figure is required. What's the significance? If my assumptions are correct, Metered March will last you the entire game until that unit is wiped out completely. Marching Drummer, on the other hand, is more fragile. If an enemy unit can get enough hits and accuracy results, they can target the drummer figure specifically, and if they can take it out, you lose the effect of the associated upgrade card.

That explains everything. Thank you so much for clearing my head friend !

And thanks to everyone who answered to help me understand what was actually simple...not for everyone I guess (I'm looking at me)

EDIT : By the way, your explanation does rise another question that will be answered later on when the command units will be in production or so : What is the plus side of command units... I mean if they only field with a card that describes the ability, the mini is then purely cosmetic. There must be an added value to them. I mean, you want to field a musician for your unit and this can only be by paying an upgrade card. So what does the mini bring to the table by itself. Like, will they have a "command unit sheet" with stats or "native" abilities ? Like spells or special combat techniques.... Or maybe Am I asking too much ?

Waiqar

• Ardus (Hero, Waiqar) - Crown, Amulet
• Reanimates (Infantry, Waiqar)
  • Tier I - Warhorn
  • Tier II - Warhorn, Banner
  • Tier III - Warhorn, Banner, Champion
  • Tier IV & V - Warhorn, Banner, Champion, Sigil, Siege
• Reanimate Archers (Infantry, Waiqar)
  • Tier I - Sigil
  • Tier II - Sigil, Equipment
  • Tier III - Sigil, Equipment, Banner
• Carrion Lancers (Siege, Waiqar)
  • Tier I & II - Sigil
  • Tier III & IV - Sigil, Equipment

Daqan

• Kari (Hero, Daqan) - Crown, Amulet
• Spearmen (Infantry, Daqan)
  • Tier I - Equipment, Warhorn
  • Tier II - Equipment, Warhorn, Champion
  • Tier III - Equipment, Warhorn, Champion, Banner
  • Tier IV - Equipment, Warhorn, Champion, Banner, Siege
• Oathsworn Cavalry (Cavalry, Daqan)
  • Tier I - Equipment, Sigil
  • Tier II - Equipment, Sigil, Banner
  • Tier III & IV - Equipment, Sigil, Banner, Champion
• Rune Golems (Siege, Daqan)
  • Tier I - None
  • Tier II - Equipment
  • Tier III & IV - Equipment, Banner

TLDR: You will need a 9-tray unit of spearmen to add FLRG

32 minutes ago, Elrad said:

So what does the mini bring to the table by itself. Like, will they have a "command unit sheet" with stats or "native" abilities ? Like spells or special combat techniques.... Or maybe Am I asking too much ?

All of the abilities that the figure adds to the unit is found on the upgrade card itself. I don't expect we'll see tables and charts that allow those figures to do extra things. I'm pretty sure it will all be on the card. However, it is more than just an aesthetic representation of your upgrade card. By having a figure, you could lose the upgrade card if your opponent attacks with a lot of accuracy results. This is a way for FFG to adjust upgrade card balance.

Look at the Marching Drummer again. It has a defense of 2 and a wound threshold of 1. That means that if you can deal 2 hits to it, it will be removed, meaning you lose the effect of the upgrade card*. If I understand accuracy results correctly, each accuracy result you roll during combat lets you assign one hit to a specific figure in the unit. If you had 2 hits and 2 accuracy results, you could assign 2 hits to the Marching Drummer. It's defense is 2, meaning that 2 hits will deal 1 damage. Its wound threshold is 1, meaning that 1 damage is enough to remove it.

Currently we know of no way to remove a non-figure upgrade card from a unit. That means that figure-upgrades have an inherent risk associated with them, which means we should expect figure-upgrades to have more powerful effects that are worth the risk of losing your upgrade before you even get to use it.

*I am speaking as though this were fact, but it is just my interpretation based on what we've seen so far. Don't get too comfortable with what I'm telling you until we finally get the rules.

39 minutes ago, drkpnthr said:

TLDR: You will need a 9-tray unit of spearmen to add FLRG

Actually 8 Spearmen, the 9th would be the Runegolem itself.
Real usefull info if you intend on buying 2 cores.

@Elrad

Every miniature in a miniature wargame is purely cosmetic, you can easily replace the with tokens, empty bases or cardboad figures and it would not change the game at all, provided the have the same measurements and inromation on them what they are. Miniatures are just there so it looks better.

33 minutes ago, Budgernaut said:

All of the abilities that the figure adds to the unit is found on the upgrade card itself. I don't expect we'll see tables and charts that allow those figures to do extra things. I'm pretty sure it will all be on the card. However, it is more than just an aesthetic representation of your upgrade card. By having a figure, you could lose the upgrade card if your opponent attacks with a lot of accuracy results. This is a way for FFG to adjust upgrade card balance.

Look at the Marching Drummer again. It has a defense of 2 and a wound threshold of 1. That means that if you can deal 2 hits to it, it will be removed, meaning you lose the effect of the upgrade card*. If I understand accuracy results correctly, each accuracy result you roll during combat lets you assign one hit to a specific figure in the unit. If you had 2 hits and 2 accuracy results, you could assign 2 hits to the Marching Drummer. It's defense is 2, meaning that 2 hits will deal 1 damage. Its wound threshold is 1, meaning that 1 damage is enough to remove it.

Currently we know of no way to remove a non-figure upgrade card from a unit. That means that figure-upgrades have an inherent risk associated with them, which means we should expect figure-upgrades to have more powerful effects that are worth the risk of losing your upgrade before you even get to use it.

*I am speaking as though this were fact, but it is just my interpretation based on what we've seen so far. Don't get too comfortable with what I'm telling you until we finally get the rules.

1.) accuracy lets you apply 1 wounds worth of hits to a model.

2. Mistlands sabatuer: Waiqar command model 2defense 1wound. Special skill action: discard one non-figure upgrade from an enemy unit that is engaged with you.

Just now, Orcdruid said:

1.) accuracy lets you apply 1 wounds worth of hits to a model.

2. Mistlands sabatuer: Waiqar command model 2defe

Okay, so it's 1 accuracy to apply one wound, not to apply one hit to the defense? I admit that part of combat is still fuzzy for me.

@Budgernaut just a heads up you commented mid edit because my phone is terrible and posts things before I'm ready.

If your unit rolls 4 damage and one accuracy, it can apply 4 damage to cause one wound to a FLRG.

@AnimusLiberus I was speaking of the -size- of the formation, not how to compose it (I have made the same point myself in other threads). To use FLRG, you need to buy a Tier IV formation of spearmen (which is 3x3 = 9 trays).

@Budgernaut You must have found another source I haven't seen... where did you see Mistlands Saboteur? Was it in one of the command expansion images? There are a few upgrades there I haven't been able to make out. Is it faction specific? What slot and unit restrictions? I could see that as a great upgrade for a cavalry or siege formation.

@Obscene Could you clarify what you mean? I thought each Accuracy result lets you apply a single damage, does it let you designate a specific target per Accuracy?

Also, there isn't a real reason you couldn't use the command minis to fill out a squad in a casual game.

Mistlands Saboteur is a reanimates command champion upgrade.

FLRG has 4 armor and 2 health. If you roll 4 damage and one accuracy, you can assign the 4 damage to the front line rune golem to apply 1 damage instead of killing 4 daqan spearmen.