I have only played one demo game with a single core but I got back 2 reanimates after Kari had a bad roll in combat. First attack she killed a tray and next round she got 2 models who came back the same round which basically nullified her entire attack. I think they did regen on the last game round as well but then it didn't matter since I had already won. I still don't think it's a bad ability to possibly get back 1-3 models. It's free dudes and can make a big block of these guys a real tarpit in 200p games I think.

I can agree it isn't super powerful but it's just a cool flavour to the reanimates. They are more resistant to morale and can crawl back up with a missing head or limb. I think they should have more steadfast than just doubt since they are badass metal skeleton dudes but the game has to be compedetive as well.

Lastly we will get the necromancer upgrade later on that can trigger the regeration as well. Perhaps we will see future upgrades that can give it to archers as well or the possibility of raising whole trays.

For as cheap as they are, I'm surprised they even have regenerate. Looking at the Infantry Command packs for both the factions it looks like there are going to be some effects that might splash one or two damage onto units in an AoE. Regen will be great to have in those situations.

I dont know what you people are talking about, but I had to take my lord, and a block of spearmen, and they STILL lasted the entire game. Complaining about runes? Seriously? Our game (Uploading to YouTube as we speak.) we had at LEAST 2 green runes up almost every turn. In order to put down the undead..

2 = I charged with spearmen, did 3 wounds. 2 Green Runes.

3 = Spearmen do 2 wounds. 2 Green Runes again

4 = Lord range attacks. Kills 1. Spears whiff. 2 Green Runes AGAIN

5 = Spearmen kill 3. Lord Charges, kills 2. FINALLY a tray is removed. No green runes woot!

6 = Spearmen Kill 2, Lord kils 2. Tray Removed. 1 Green rune.

7 = Spearmen kill 3, Lord kills 1. Tray removed. 2 Green Runes

8 = Spearmen kill 1, Lord kills 2. 1 Skeleton Remains at Endgame.

Dont talk to me about Regeneration being "useless".

I think at heart, MSU is king due to the relatively inexpensive ability to get a rank-like effect and the difficulty of getting actions- if you're going to run the 12-stand unit you better bring a way to get it extra actions.

13 hours ago, BigKahuna said:

Meanwhile the Gollums were leveraging their threat increase every round in every match.

If that's true, the undead player was foolishly rushing in. Why on earth would they make sure they engaged the rune golem on the first round of the game? There should be a good two rounds of letting the thing approach and either shooting it or spitting on it.

1 hour ago, JasonGlass said:

If that's true, the undead player was foolishly rushing in. Why on earth would they make sure they engaged the rune golem on the first round of the game? There should be a good two rounds of letting the thing approach and either shooting it or spitting on it.

That's kinda what I was thinking. Rune Golems are ridiculously slow unless they get lucky with the rune toss. Otherwise it takes almost the whole game to get into combat.

25 minutes ago, DaShamrockKid said:

That's kinda what I was thinking. Rune Golems are ridiculously slow unless they get lucky with the rune toss. Otherwise it takes almost the whole game to get into combat.

Maybe in a full game but in a skirmish match they can close in fairly quick.

15 minutes ago, power500500 said:

Maybe in a full game but in a skirmish match they can close in fairly quick.

Right, totally forgot about the skirmish map size.

just so everyone knows, the bringing trays back isnt a rumor it is confirmed. as a special action he can add (stable) trays to a waiqar infantry unit, then receive wounds equal to the number of trays added. should also note his ranged attack heals a wound for 2 surges.

In a hurry so didn't read the whole thread, in case it was said already. The fact that damage is often doubled due to wide formations makes it so it is almost always dealt in even numbers, and rolling two damage is always easy with two dice. Two damage symbols clears a whole tray and it's combined with a random element, so as I'm sure others have said, it doesn't trigger much. Really makes their value questionable.

Flipside golems are laughably fast if you get lucky runes.

Init4 4speed charge just feels impossible for that thing rofl. Fortunately you are suppose to toss the rune tokens BEFORE you set dials, otherwise i think the runegolem would be pretty useless as nobody would ever risk dialing in the variable maneuver.

On 4/15/2017 at 7:51 AM, BigKahuna said:

Just first impressions but my group played 2 matches, for Undead it activated a total of zero times. It felt absolutetly and utterly useless. Meanwhile the Gollums were leveraging their threat increase every round in every match. I don't want to rush to judgement but it felt outright broken and completetly unbalanced. I actually didnt really get the point of the rune mechanic at all. Why add a completetely random element to the game for which there is no defense, decesion or strategy for?

First off, the average value of stable and natural runes is 1.5 for each. Natural is just more swingy, since it ranges from 0-3, while stable is more, well, stable and reliable at either 1 or 2 every round.

As for any have randomness? It's a game with dice, randomness and managing the odds are a central part of the game. If it made you feel better, they could have offered you 2d4 to give the same 16 combinations of results, but that would have increased material cost and not given the same level of granularity with flip mechanics that are upcoming.

You get to see what your units are capable of each turn before you give orders. If that looks nature roll won't serve you, rethink your action for the turn. That rune golem you praise does it when he deals with his feast-or-famine unstable march range.

On 4/16/2017 at 8:16 AM, Engine25 said:

In a hurry so didn't read the whole thread, in case it was said already. The fact that damage is often doubled due to wide formations makes it so it is almost always dealt in even numbers, and rolling two damage is always easy with two dice. Two damage symbols clears a whole tray and it's combined with a random element, so as I'm sure others have said, it doesn't trigger much. Really makes their value questionable.

I guess you need to take Shield Wall and larger units then....

3 hours ago, kaffis said:

First off, the average value of stable and natural runes is 1.5 for each. Natural is just more swingy, since it ranges from 0-3, while stable is more, well, stable and reliable at either 1 or 2 every round.

As for any have randomness? It's a game with dice, randomness and managing the odds are a central part of the game. If it made you feel better, they could have offered you 2d4 to give the same 16 combinations of results, but that would have increased material cost and not given the same level of granularity with flip mechanics that are upcoming.

You get to see what your units are capable of each turn before you give orders. If that looks nature roll won't serve you, rethink your action for the turn. That rune golem you praise does it when he deals with his feast-or-famine unstable march range.

It remains to be seen if the mechanic becomes more useful for the Undead with other units or ways to manipulate it, but as it stands right now the regeneration ability has zero impact on the performance of the skeleton unit. It does absolutely nothing to improve the unit.

First, you have no way to control it or activate it. Hence it kicks off on its own by circumstance if you happen to have empty spots on a tray, a rare occasion in a game where damage is dealt almost exclusively in even numbers (2, 4, 6 etc..). Secondly there is no impact of having a full or half full tray. Aka, as long as there is at least 1 unit in a tray its the same as having 4 units.

I don't see the point of it, I mean sure its there and does nothing, its not hurting anything so I don't really care but regenerate has ZERO impact on decisions at any point in the game, I would challenge anyone to prove otherwise. Its just a random lottery to see if you get a free guy.

2 hours ago, BigKahuna said:

It remains to be seen if the mechanic becomes more useful for the Undead with other units or ways to manipulate it, but as it stands right now the regeneration ability has zero impact on the performance of the skeleton unit. It does absolutely nothing to improve the unit.

First, you have no way to control it or activate it. Hence it kicks off on its own by circumstance if you happen to have empty spots on a tray, a rare occasion in a game where damage is dealt almost exclusively in even numbers (2, 4, 6 etc..). Secondly there is no impact of having a full or half full tray. Aka, as long as there is at least 1 unit in a tray its the same as having 4 units.

I don't see the point of it, I mean sure its there and does nothing, its not hurting anything so I don't really care but regenerate has ZERO impact on decisions at any point in the game, I would challenge anyone to prove otherwise. Its just a random lottery to see if you get a free guy.

Its more of an incentive to blight a unit fighting your skeletons, reducing their damage per round so more skellys regenerate.

2 hours ago, BigKahuna said:

It remains to be seen if the mechanic becomes more useful for the Undead with other units or ways to manipulate it, but as it stands right now the regeneration ability has zero impact on the performance of the skeleton unit. It does absolutely nothing to improve the unit.

First, you have no way to control it or activate it. Hence it kicks off on its own by circumstance if you happen to have empty spots on a tray, a rare occasion in a game where damage is dealt almost exclusively in even numbers (2, 4, 6 etc..). Secondly there is no impact of having a full or half full tray. Aka, as long as there is at least 1 unit in a tray its the same as having 4 units.

I don't see the point of it, I mean sure its there and does nothing, its not hurting anything so I don't really care but regenerate has ZERO impact on decisions at any point in the game, I would challenge anyone to prove otherwise. Its just a random lottery to see if you get a free guy.

I am going to start off by putting down some info.

Units attacks:

Kari, ranged: init 2 max damage(md) 6, melee: init 4 md 6, charge: init 3, 4 md 6

Spearmen, fast: init 3 md 6, slow init 7 md 8, charge: init 4, 5 md 6

Cav, fast: init 3 md 10 slow: init 7 md 12, charge: init3, 4, 5, 7 md 10

Golem: melee: init 5 md 12, charge: init 4, 8 md 12

The above chart is looking at core unit sizes without flanking bonuses. The reason i put in the initiative values is because the reanimate can gain defense up at initiative 4. The next chart will go through the wounds recived followed by the # of empty slots left in parenthesis. If the initiative of the attack is higher than 4 there will be 2 values seperated by a / the first value being without the mod, the second being with.

Kari: ranged: 6(2), melee: 6/3(2/3) charges: 6/3(2/3)

Spearmen: fast: 6(2), slow: 8/4(0), charges: 6/3(2/3)

Cav: fast: 10(2), slow: 10/5(2/1), charges: 10/5(2/1)

Golem: melee: 12/6(0/2), charges: 12/6(0/2)

Most of these wound counts are over a tray, however regen will refill the leftover trays a good chunk of the time. And on the surface it may not seem that important, but when you take it into multiple turns it can make a difference. For example lets say. A 4 tray unit took 6 damage one turn then 6 again the next. With 2 green runes that becomes 10 total damage, without you not only took away my reroll, you halved my threat.

35 minutes ago, Cultiststeve said:

Its more of an incentive to blight a unit fighting your skeletons, reducing their damage per round so more skellys regenerate.

I think that's where the difficulty comes in. Once your Reanimates are engaged, it's harder to get blight on the enemy attacking them. If you use Reanimate Archers, you are going to be forcing your Reanimates to suffer morale tests. And if your Reanimates are already engaged, you can't use the Carrion Lancer's ability because it only works on unengaged units.

Just now, Budgernaut said:

I think that's where the difficulty comes in. Once your Reanimates are engaged, it's harder to get blight on the enemy attacking them. If you use Reanimate Archers, you are going to be forcing your Reanimates to suffer morale tests. And if your Reanimates are already engaged, you can't use the Carrion Lancer's ability because it only works on unengaged units.

Yea, it doesn't seem easy yet. Hopefully it will get easier (thereby improving regeneration) as more unit choices are released.

I don't doubt that what we have is not the end to what will be possible with this mechanic (regeneration) or more importantly the core mechanic on which special abilities like this function (Runes). I fully expect to see improved versions either through specific hero abilities and upgrades. My only point is that at the moment, if regeneration were removed, the Skeletons would be largely unaffected, it is at absolute best right now a largely irrelevant feature of the unit.

Human are definitely getting a lot more out of the Rune mechanic right now though in the greater scheme of things, it doesn't appear to be affecting balance as there is a lot that offsets it like Blight which is a very powerful ability (albeit one not connected to the Runes mechanic).

Like I said at the very start, it remains to be seen what the full impact of Runes and Regenerate will be in the future.

I imagine thats the point of their morale ability. Its not foolproof, but it does make the more nastier morale tests rather difficult to do.

Shoot into combat, they get a panic token, but long as you dont spam that it shouldnt be horrible for the skellies.

20 hours ago, BigKahuna said:

if regeneration were removed, the Skeletons would be largely unaffected, it is at absolute best right now a largely irrelevant feature of the unit.

This is just untrue.

A 3x3 of reanimates spamming Rally/Defend and regenerating 1-3 units per turn is essentially a neverending tarpit for units of rune golems, and when this is your plan, it's hugely important.

I've been able to tarpit entire flanks with one big block of regenerating, defending skeletons while archers and lancers had their way with the other one.

Soooooo... blockíng a cheap unit with an expensive unit? Sounds not much like the best option.

That tactic is ok, but you do 0 damage, it would be ok in turns when you expect heavy damage on them or if you are able to counterattack with other units (for example, archers, shooting and preventing panic with inspiration tokens).

But as a general strategy I wouldn't consider that.

blocking your utility units with a tarpit? yes if you break down a 3x3 of skels vs a 2x1 of archers it is a large point difference however you aren't only holding things at bay from 1 unit you are protecting multiple units of archers while they rain down blight and damage. This helps your whole army as lancers and ardus are moving around murdering everything...

1 hour ago, jek said:

blocking your utility units with a tarpit? yes if you break down a 3x3 of skels vs a 2x1 of archers it is a large point difference however you aren't only holding things at bay from 1 unit you are protecting multiple units of archers while they rain down blight and damage. This helps your whole army as lancers and ardus are moving around murdering everything...

It would be a sound tactic IF a lot of very specific items fall perfectly into place.

1. IF you have open slots on a tray (with most damage being done evenly you are usually either removing a whole tray or removing 2 units, once a tray.

2. IF you initiative is faster then your opponent, else spamming defense does nothing.

3. IF for some reason someone is foolish enough to charge a skeleton force with a utility unit. No one does this, it takes about 1/10th of a game to realize you never.. ever, ever.. do this.

4. If regenerate comes up timed perfectly with the above.

I understand its not horrible, but in 3 full 200 point games, I have recovered a grand total of 2 skeletons between all of the games combined. Maybe its a fluke, but I think 3 games, 2 skeletons, means at absolute best regenerate is irrelevant.

2 minutes ago, BigKahuna said:

It would be a sound tactic IF a lot of very specific items fall perfectly into place.

1. IF you have open slots on a tray (with most damage being done evenly you are usually either removing a whole tray or removing 2 units, once a tray.

2. IF you initiative is faster then your opponent, else spamming defense does nothing.

3. IF for some reason someone is foolish enough to charge a skeleton force with a utility unit. No one does this, it takes about 1/10th of a game to realize you never.. ever, ever.. do this.

4. If regenerate comes up timed perfectly with the above.

I understand its not horrible, but in 3 full 200 point games, I have recovered a grand total of 2 skeletons between all of the games combined. Maybe its a fluke, but I think 3 games, 2 skeletons, means at absolute best regenerate is irrelevant.

A) Damage being done evenly is typically a result of using the core sets, since they are all hitting threat 2 besides the carrion lancer.

B) Who said anything about charging with a utility, I was referring to protecting the archers with a big block of skeletons,

C) Your right about initiative but most strong attacks happen at or after init 4 which would be when reanimates can throw out +defense if they attack earlier than 4 then they aren't getting the modifier at +1 hit...

I've had now 5-8 games, and some times I get no green runes some times I have had 2-3 runes, and I have regularly had a few skeletons coming back a turn. 3-8 games though does not create a valid pool to make any kind of assumption or correlation though, and honestly I think we should just wait an see what happens as the game progresses