So after reading the rules a few times theres 1 major thing im rather confuzzled on. Not that big of a deal right now since its not part of the learning match i'll be doing tomorrow.

Upgrades...

Its obvious the bottom right is the points and bottom left is restrictions, but the cards with the character silhouette confuse me. For instance, the Spearmen when taken in a large enough number can equip "Front Line Rune Golem" and its just listing the Brutal ability and its stats in the topright. Is this replacing an entire tray with a Rune Golem minus the special action bit or something? Its making me think that way but i cant find any rules calling these cards out.
Similarly the ones for the characters, only replacing a single model im guessing due to the standard base theyre sitting on.

Page 18 of the learn to play booklet brings this up. You've got the gist of it correct

Makes me wonder if replacing a full tray is good. Brutal is good though... Making a 3x3 hit like a 4x3 is pretty nice.

12 minutes ago, Click5 said:

Page 18 of the learn to play booklet brings this up. You've got the gist of it correct

Aha! Thank you, that answers my question.

@Lyraeus - its twofold why you would do that. 1) Its not increase by 1, its increase by X (X = number of Stable Runes). Minimum, its +1 since one rune token is dual-sided for stable runes, but it can also be +2 since theres 2 Stable runes in the mix of 5 tokens...that means a 5 multiplier ftw! Also 2) it makes it a lot harder to remove said golem if hes in the front rank of a 3x3. The bastard can hit really hard even on his own but i see him dying way too fast on his own to really make any use of it.

Personally i dont really hold that much value in his special action (which he'd lose in the front ranks upgrade) purely because of how easy he is to remove so it'd be difficult to get anyway, even if it is rather strong.

16 minutes ago, Lyraeus said:

Makes me wonder if replacing a full tray is good. Brutal is good though... Making a 3x3 hit like a 4x3 is pretty nice.

The brilliance of adding him right now is 2 cores don't give you 9 trays of spears. But it does give you 8 trays and a Golem.

I can see solo golems being used as chaff. They can be decently quick and being able to reform after move means you can move in front of an enemy. Change your facing so if they charge you they will have to align at an advantageous angle for you. And tbh 1 Golem isn't that expensive.

Oh yeah thats the other thing, maneuvering bonuses

The golem is oddly immobile. I was legitimately confused when i saw its dials...he cant turn! Unless im missing something his dial does not have a way to turn at all, he can only go straight and shift. Does have a white horn icon (forget what its called) which is cool so he basically will get Inspiration tokens uber easy early on (oh btw is there an inspiration cap? i didnt see one)

Really dont understand the decision behind making a unit unable to turn whatsoever.

In a weird way he's the most mobile. Every time you do an action you can turn to face wherever. Think a turn or 2 ahead.

You can literally run past a unit and set up a flank charge the following turn.

18 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

Oh yeah thats the other thing, maneuvering bonuses

The golem is oddly immobile. I was legitimately confused when i saw its dials...he cant turn! Unless im missing something his dial does not have a way to turn at all, he can only go straight and shift. Does have a white horn icon (forget what its called) which is cool so he basically will get Inspiration tokens uber easy early on (oh btw is there an inspiration cap? i didnt see one)

Really dont understand the decision behind making a unit unable to turn whatsoever.

The golem can reform off of any other action which is how it turns. It's not the most flexible form of movement but i think it's meant to be lumbering.

13 hours ago, Lyraeus said:

Makes me wonder if replacing a full tray is good. Brutal is good though... Making a 3x3 hit like a 4x3 is pretty nice.

The runegolem upgrade is 4/2 doubling the damage required to remove him over the normal spearman tray.

Just now, Orcdruid said:

The runegolem upgrade is 4/2 doubling the damage required to remove him over the normal spearman tray.

Actually, it doubles the number of wounds. It quadruples the number of damage to do a single wound!

13 hours ago, Vineheart01 said:

Personally i dont really hold that much value in his special action (which he'd lose in the front ranks upgrade) purely because of how easy he is to remove so it'd be difficult to get anyway, even if it is rather strong.

I think that the real benefit of the Rune Golem's special comes when using it with the option on the second dial that adds defense equal to the blue runes. That combo goes off at initiative 3 (the attack goes at 5) which gets the Rune Golem the increase in defense early in the round. With the boosted defense he can soak up some damage and the stun tokens can put a damper on the plans of whoever you hit with them. That special makes the Golem nice and sticky.

1 hour ago, rowdyoctopus said:

Actually, it doubles the number of wounds. It quadruples the number of damage to do a single wound!

I was looking at it like this its 8 damage to kille the golem or 4 damage to kill 1 tray of spearmen. In a real game he will soak up more than 8 most of the time, but, barring the accuracy mortal strike combo, this is worst case scenario.

10 minutes ago, Orcdruid said:

I was looking at it like this its 8 damage to kille the golem or 4 damage to kill 1 tray of spearmen. In a real game he will soak up more than 8 most of the time, but, barring the accuracy mortal strike combo, this is worst case scenario.

You don't need the accuracy when the spearmen get down to the last row though, right? Why you'd get rid of the Golem instead of two trays of spearmen is another question entirely.

2 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

You don't need the accuracy when the spearmen get down to the last row though, right? Why you'd get rid of the Golem instead of two trays of spearmen is another question entirely.

I personally wouldn't want to wait until the last rank to kill the golem because having a 4-5 threat unit running around is annoying. By killing the golem early you are able to knock out 25-40% of that units damage potential.

Also when am upgrade is destroyed, that slot is filled from the back so if you manage to kill the rune golem when they have one tray in there back roll you just reduced there rerolls and threat at the same time.

Losing the Golem vs losing a single tray. You remove 1 reroll or lower threat by 1. Take your pick. Add in effects like Shield Wall and normal Defense boosts and that is a hard target to contend with.

Stupid Question: You have a Rune Golem on the first rank of a Spearmen unit. After suffering casualties, it's the last tray remaining... It still functions like a tray of Spearmen (dials, damage, etc.) with a Rune Golem Upgrade right?

16 minutes ago, C3gorach said:

Stupid Question: You have a Rune Golem on the first rank of a Spearmen unit. After suffering casualties, it's the last tray remaining... It still functions like a tray of Spearmen (dials, damage, etc.) with a Rune Golem Upgrade right?

Correct. Unless we get an FAQ that says otherwise.

Another rule that might be overlooked is that you cannot kill a tray that would split the remaining unit into smaller units.

So when down to a single rank of trays, the most leftest or most rightest (in godly grammar) trays must be killed first.

Hahaha so I will put my Golem on the front row, center

I've been imagining Kari screaming at the top of her lungs "Forward!" and a formation of rune golems just hunkering down their shoulders and barrel forward at full speed. Then Kari glances away from her fight to check out where they are and screams "Turn Right!" as she parries another rusted sword and throws a dagger into a Carrion Lancer's eye socket. The golems try to stop and turn, and just end up skidding on their stoney feet through the slushing soft field dirt, kicking up mud everywhere while fishtailing to face their new direction. Kari looks back over, kicking a skeleton in the ribs to remove her longsword as she unlimbers her longbow and screams "Charge!" to send the rune golems barrelling into a formation of Reanimates that has just emerged from the nearby forest, plowing into them like bowling pins as their arms just piston side to side slashing with their massive blades. When the enemy is dead, they stand still in the twitching pile of corpses, until a voice screams "Turn Right!" and they all pivot to face a new foe.

Yes, if you put the rune golem in the middle of the 3 front ranks its basically the last thing to get damaged unless you dump a lot of accuracy damage into it.

I ran 2 games today, one regular learning scenario and one 175pt game with shared core boxes. I ran the 3x3 spearmen with a golem....ouch man all i gotta say lol

Charged a pair of Carrion Lancers, did 1 damage since i literally had 1 hit with a 4 multiplier. Next round though i had a Hit modifier and got 2 stable runes...rolled 3 hits...4x5=20 damage LOL

Needless to say he changed his opinion on trying to Accuracy that golem down...rofl...

So what happens if you (using Accuracy) kill a Heavy upgrade of a unit? Do you replace the tray with one from the back Ranks as you would do with a Champion upgrade?

24 minutes ago, C3gorach said:

So what happens if you (using Accuracy) kill a Heavy upgrade of a unit? Do you replace the tray with one from the back Ranks as you would do with a Champion upgrade?

I'm not 100% sure, but as I'm reading it (38.7), you would remove the figure and leave the tray there in the front. I, personally, don't like that, but I can't find anything to suggest otherwise.

With heavy upgrades you remove the tray and replace it with an entire tray from the back rank. I didn't see it in the reference but I know I read it. Let me look

EDIT page 18 learn to play top right under heavy upgrades. They don't have a heavy upgrade section in the reference

5 minutes ago, Klaxas said:

With heavy upgrades you remove the tray and replace it with an entire tray from the back rank. I didn't see it in the reference but I know I read it. Let me look

EDIT page 18 learn to play top right under heavy upgrades. They don't have a heavy upgrade section in the reference

Blast! I hate when rules are in the learn-to-play and not in reference. Thanks for finding that.