Anyone have any comparison thoughts between RMG and WH 8th/9th/KoW?

Just from what I've seen/read, there are multiple elements about RMG that I like/dislike:

LIKE: Trays- I like the idea of movement trays specifically designed for the game. By offering a bit of space between each of the models, it will make it significantly easier to put models back on at the end of the game. 8th/9th was a pain if you had multiple large blocks of 20mm bases that fit together gingerly. KoW accounted for this by keeping models on in the unit and simply adding a wound counter. This saved time from having to put models back on and kept the footprint of the unit the same so there was no question about where you are in contact with a unit once they lost a few models.

I also like how all the units have the same tray size. No fudging around with 20mm, 25mm, 40mm, 50mm, 100mm, and 150mm bases.

DISLIKE: Puzzle-pieces- I don't like the puzzle-piece-like connectors on the trays. Sure, it's nice when building the units in their respective formations. But my reasons for disliking them are twofold:

First, I don't like the look aesthetically. I hope they come out with some kind of edge piece that fits on to make it smooth across the edge.

Second, when you lose enough models, you have to take off the empty tray, and that could disrupt the existing models. I foresee a lot of players magnetizing their models to the trays for this reason.

LIKE: Movement- March, move, charg, wheel, reform, quick reform (reform then move), fast cav reform (unlimited), 1-inch rule, so many rules in 8th/9th/KoW, and every single one of them fudgeable. I like the movement templates in RMG, simplifying unit movement, while still making maneuvering an important part of regimented combat.

LIKE: Command Dials- I'm an avid fan of SW:Armada and familiar with X-Wing, so I'm used to using command dials. Again, it is a simplification of rules. No more keeping track of "you did this, so you can't do that later". You do whatever is on the dial. In true medieval fashion of raising flags or signs to relay commands to units, the command dials reflect a historical aspect to regimented battle.

LIKE: Players alternate- I love the idea of taking turns activating units. 8th/9th/KoW can get a little boring when it's not your turn. Going back and forth keeps players engaged all game long. I like the Initiative aspect as well, conceptually allowing faster units to activate earlier and take advantage of their speed (don't know if this actually happens in game, but this is how I imagine it).

LIKE: Alt dice- I'm tired of rolling 50 d6s. I like having blanks or doubles or combos on dice, and that different colored dice have different values.

LIKE: Upgrades- I love how you can buy upgrades for units. It gives a sense of customizability to each unit, even if they're vanilla. This will probably be pretty important for the foreseeable future, as with the limited number of factions, there may be a lot of mirror matches. Upgrades are one way to differentiate armies in mirror matches.

LIKE: Aesthetic- The slightly blocky "Warcraft III" look normally doesn't appeal to me, but for some reason I like the models in this game. I especially like the elves (which I play in pretty much every game). They actually look like elves! Elves should look like elves, dwarves should look like dwarves. I'm tired of GW's sense of elves looking like halflings with pointed ears and helmets taller than the rest of the bodies.

NOT SURE: Scale- When I talk about scale, I mean the scale of battle, not the scale (size) of the minis. That being said, I don't know what kind of game this is supposed to be. Skirmish? Mid range? Epic? I have heard arguments either way (like and dislike), and I see value of both opinions. I like the scale of the minis themselves, but the extra space between models and on the edges of the trays creates a lot of space not used. Yes it's nice not to have to cram models together that don't fit nicely. But it also creates a large footprint for the unit on the tabletop, limiting how large of battles you can have.

Don't get me wrong, I like the scale of ~200 points (I like all scales and sizes of battles). But seeing 100, 150, 200+ models on each side of the table looks dramatic and cinematic. The persians didn't invade Greece with 25 people. They invaded with over a million (though today considered much smaller, like 100k, but still). I do hope that they increase the army size in the future for tourneys. But homegames can always be bigger, so no fret there.

PS, for all the people freaking out about the lack of epic scale, chill the eff out. Same goes for the fanboys who tell those people to go play another game. People can have their opinions about scale. But the game is what it is, and you can do whatever you want with it.

I like the idea of this game because you can play it on various scales. You can have a small force of about 100 points as a scouting/raiding party. Then a mid-range game as the vanguards of each army come together. Then a large game that can turn the tide of a war.

The reason I am NOT SURE, is that I don't know how the game balances at different point levels. I guess that's something for which we'll have to wait and see.

NOT SURE: Story- History/Lore really gets me into a game. If I like it, then I put a lot of effort in getting into the game. Campaigns also help with this. Hopefully FFG will put out some more definitive history of the world for those who aren't too knowledgeable in this realm's history (as well as the other game systems preluding to RMG). I've read the wiki pages, and some few others, but I'm waiting for more.

So these are just my initial thoughts. But does anyone else have thoughts in their experience playing both RMG and another rank n file game system?

If you played 6th or 7th edition Warhammer, you're going to absolutely love Runewars Miniatures. They really captured the essence of the movement phase being at the heart of the game. Here's a bunch of comparisons/responses to your concerns in no particular order.

Trays: Yep, they're a pain and the models don't fit easily and firmly into them at all. Serious gamers will want them magnetized. It's also really difficult to get the trays apart when you need to remove a tray. I'm expecting some after-market ones soon. One thing though is because you square up bases in combat, you can actually remove your unit from the board to wiggle the tray away and know exactly where it goes back. That sounds weirder than it actually is.

Initiative: You know how the turn based system in Warhammer sucks, but no one can figure out something much better? I think Runewars has totally cracked that problem. Slow dudes attack slowly, but through the cunning use of tactics can turn their slowness to their advantage, for example, planning a late turn charge to intercept a faster unit that hasn't gotten to your charge target point yet. No more of this you wiped out half my army by turn 3 just because of turn order and now I have to claw my way back into it.

Tons of Dice: You mentioned rolling 50 d6s. Not only do you avoid that, but you don't have to roll the dice multiple times. There's no to-wound, armor saves, or invulnerable saves. You do all that with one toss of the dice. Dice also provide a tone of effects besides just damage. You can use certain dice results to activate a special ability, target a hero inside a unit, or ignore armor.

Flexibility: Your units have choices beyond just moving and rolling dice. You can choose to take a defensive stance, or take an offensive stance that causes more risk, but lets you pack more punch. Many units have, or have access to, special abilities that let them contribute outside of the role they are primarily designed for. Carrion Lancers can move great, fight well, and are super durable. But they can also weaken enemy units from range. It's really awesome.

Magic: No more BS with a Dark Elf Wizard Lord with 27 power dice to your 3 dispel dice. You all use the same pool of magic, and you know what that pool is at the start of the turn so you can actually plan around it, instead of maneuvering to get your spell where you need it to be, only to see it fizzle. At the moment, we don't have spell casters in the game, so I'm basing this off the units that do have rune-based effects, along with what I've read about soon to be released spell casters.

Not Tedious: As an Empire player, just packing up my army of over 100 models in 8th edition to take to a game was ridiculous, let alone deploying and managing them during a game. Don't even get me started on how tedious it is to paint 50 Halberds and 20 cav. It took me years to fully paint an army and I still never got a full army up to the standard that I would have wanted. Then, after you do all of this careful planning you get into a game that is so mismatched because of poor game balance issues that I either walk away feeling like I had just clubbed a defenseless baby seal, or face that dude with the unstoppable and tedious magic phase. Who loves having nothing else to do but remove models for 20 minutes while their opponent rolls 300 dice? And yet in Runewars you get lots of tense decision points and for the time being, the game is very balanced. I expect a meta game to develop where the most efficient units and combos are identified and some imbalance occurs, or some units feel irrelevant. But unlike GW, I actually trust FFG to notice that in the first place and then try to fix it, instead of simply changing the marketing strategy to try and convince people to not play competitively and buy crap units because they are fun and launch it all with another article from Crazy Old Uncle Jervis in a twenty dollar magazine that they can't be bothered to fill with new content.

Here's the metaphor I've been using to describe the difference between Runewars and Warhammer: Runewars is an iPhone 6. Warhammer is Microsoft Zune. FFG has taken into account so many innovations in tabletop and video game design and melded them really well into this game. GW has been so far behind the curve in this regard that I almost pity warhammer players the same way I pity that guy with at the meeting when I can hear the loud hard drive on his chunky Dell start up. GW has added a lot of features to their games that do make them more complicated, but aren't based on good gaming principals. So they end up feeling random, tedious, and too cute... distractions from the actual game at hand. I was also super dissapointed to see their standard disclaimer in the recent release of Silver Tower: if the rules don't work, just change them. They put this disclaimer in because they are too lazy, too cheap, or unaware of its importance to properly play test their games. Silver Tower didn't touch the quality of game play one finds in Descent 2nd Edition that has been on the market over four years. Yes GW's models are much more detailed and that really is their core business value. But rebranding from " Games Workshop" to "Warhammer" was one of the most honest moves they've made in years.

I am finding it difficult to compare them directly. I played Warhhamer since 1997, and tried to get into KoW when AoS first dropped. Comparing WFB to KoW is very easy, but runewars is so different from either. One thing I adore about KoW that I miss is how you don't have to fiddle with individual models like WFB and runewars. One thing I absolutely love about runewars though is not having to roll buckets of dice, and then re roll them, and then the other guy rolls a bucket of dice, etc...

I'm a huge warhammer fan and really like rune wars so far. It captures everything I love about rank and flank fantasy games.

I've found that the movement mechanics are one of the best things about how they made runewars. Rank and Flank games have always had very specific and restrictive movement mechanics. The movement templates keep that feel while making movement much faster and less fiddly.

Focus on a few aspects:

Game for gaming: balance, playable, easy to transport, deploy, assemble. This is not the best game for artists or for lore readers, but this is the game for true miniature gamers who seek balance, strategy, a certain dose of realism and replayability .

Other games are designed to sell miniatures or lore but with poor games. RMG is really well done as a game:

• Few rules but all well placed into the general game, quick learn but enormous amount of choices during the game, very tactic without heavy rulebooks . Less is more is my policy.
• Excelent mechanics: no passive/inactive turn, no unbearable combos, no target specific units, no unbeatable units (you can kill cavalry with infantry and viceversa, monsters aren't invincible at all and must be played carefully).
• Quick play, buy with depth , lets you run a tournament in a single day without incomplete matches (unless you are a tortoise).

To sum up, just what I was looking for for a long time.

Having played Warhammer Fantasy Battles I think the list of things that I will miss is short, but the items on the list are to me personally vital.

First is the the expanded and detailed game book which included all of the lore, hobby tips, rules, index info, plus of the expanded army books. To me, the most fun aspects of a good miniature game is musing about the game world, the rules, the hobby itself and of course list building. I personally think these books added a tremendous amount to the game and Runewars at least right now is more or less missing them in their entirety. Its a real bummer.

Next I think is the Lore itself. Now I already mentioned the books but to me the thematic presentation of the armies of Warhammer was extremely well done. The Tomb Kings, The Vampire Counts, The Greenskins and so much more. Each had this wonderful unique flavor that really brought out the armies theme. I absolutely loved that they would base aspects of their world on human culture (like Tomb Kings Egyptian theme for example). By comparison Runewars is very flat. We have a human, Elf and Skeleton army. Its very generic and bland, there really isn't much gusto. I haven't played Warhammer in years and the army books still have a place on my shelf and rarely stand still long enough to collect dust. I just love looking at them and I think the Lore/theme of them is a big part of that.

These two things however thus far are the only thing I think was done better in Warhammer then in Runewars. In every other category I think Runewars blows the doors of WF.

While I agree on the 'lack of' lore when compared with WHFB I think it would be a comparison that is certainly not fair to just about every gaming system.

I play WHFB for 3 decades and there is no other game with more history.

That aside. WHFB is dead. And buried. By GW. (IMO)

The game is less then one month old. I do have hope more lore will be released. But I do like the place we are in now. There is a framework of the world we are in, and the rest is free for imagination. I already have a story line in my head for Leonx riders ?

9 minutes ago, Ywingscum said:

The game is less then one month old. I do have hope more lore will be released. But I do like the place we are in now. There is a framework of the world we are in, and the rest is free for imagination. I already have a story line in my head for Leonx riders ?

Yeah this is where I disagree. I actually don't think we have a good framework at all.

The basis of the Lore has already established all of the armies thematically and I would describe them at absolute best as "generic". You have a standard "Knight in Armor" human army and very generic "Undead Skeleton Army". There is nothing either artistically or thematically unique about either of them and the standard "Wood Elves" did little to nothing to extend the games generic lore.

Consider for example elements of Warhammer Fantasy like Tomb Kings. Undead based on an Egyptian theme with Mummies, Skeletons all thematically driven by the concept. The driving force where old curses with themes like Scorpions, large dog like humanoids all kind of inspiring the imaginative concept of a pretty well established piece of human history with a fantasy twist. That is a solid basis for a fantasy army. In Runewars we got "skeleton people"... its just bland.

I don't see how they can "write" their way out of that sort of cliched baseline they have created. There is no room to re-invent these armies to give them more thematic presence or cultural significance. There is little invention coming either, the Uthuk are a little more interesting but it would have been far more fun to see them create something new than latch on to existing themes like "skeletons and elves". And they certainly could have done something more interesting with the human army then put them in armor.

I think FFG missed an opportunity, the complaints about their generic fantasy world where already exhaustively talked about in their other game lines. They could have given these armies far more uniqueness by taking the time to create a more thematic and unique game world on which to base this miniature line on.

31 minutes ago, BigKahuna said:

Consider for example elements of Warhammer Fantasy like Tomb Kings. Undead based on an Egyptian theme with Mummies, Skeletons all thematically driven by the concept. The driving force where old curses with themes like Scorpions, large dog like humanoids all kind of inspiring the imaginative concept of a pretty well established piece of human history with a fantasy twist. That is a solid basis for a fantasy army. In Runewars we got "skeleton people"... its just bland.

I'm curious what the Tomb King faction looked like in 1983.

33 minutes ago, BigKahuna said:

I think FFG missed an opportunity, the complaints about their generic fantasy world where already exhaustively talked about in their other game lines. They could have given these armies far more uniqueness by taking the time to create a more thematic and unique game world on which to base this miniature line on.

I'd be curious to see how the numbers of people that are turned off by the generic fantasy setting compare to the people who like that it is a generic fantasy setting or don't care either way.

Yeah, I never cared for warhammers lore actually. Only mini's I Everest owned from GW are Lord of the rings minis.

One thing to remember about the lore of Runewars is that it was intentionally made to be generic because gaming was a priority over story. The more you lock down the lore, the more likely you are to see game interactions and game occurrences that clash with the established lore. For example, we don't have a map of the world during the Runewars. Part of that was because the first part of every game of Runewars boardgame was building the map. The relative position of home realms was meant to be different in every single game. To avoid the feeling that your game was clashing with the lore, they put out less lore. It was a chance for players to take this somewhat generic fantasy world and tell their stories without feeling like they were "breaking the story."

So setting Lore aside (while I expect not much more will come about, but I hope they do build on it, especially for campaigns), how does the gameplay flow? Instead of having a movement, magic, shooting, and combat phases, you just have activations, right? So if you move, you can't attack? (Unless it's a charge.) If you attack you can't move? If you cast a spell, you can't shoot? Where does the modifier dial come into play? Can you set your Action dial to attack, then your Modifier dial to shift, and do both? In what order?

Secondly, in other games like 8th/9th/KoW , there are common strategies (full forward, refused flank, etc) and military tactics (hit and run, tarpitting, expendable redirection, etc). I've done it all. 50/60 man units tarpitting. Eagles for redirection and movement control. Hit and run reavers. Force concentration of high strength characters leading bunker units. MSU swordmaster speedbumps. Magic and shooting attrition. Assassination runs. Et cetera.

I've read of some tactics like a small sacrificial unit to die in front of a larger slower unit so that second unit can get a counter charge at a later initiative step. Any other military strategies or unit tactics out there?

5 minutes ago, wisetiger7 said:

So setting Lore aside (while I expect not much more will come about, but I hope they do build on it, especially for campaigns), how does the gameplay flow? Instead of having a movement, magic, shooting, and combat phases, you just have activations, right? So if you move, you can't attack? (Unless it's a charge.) If you attack you can't move? If you cast a spell, you can't shoot? Where does the modifier dial come into play? Can you set your Action dial to attack, then your Modifier dial to shift, and do both? In what order?

The dial system is very flexible. You have to do your action dial first (left side) the modifyer dial (right side) either modifies your action dial in some way or gives you a bonus action to do after. So all your theoretical combinations are possible depending on how the dial is set up. Also keep in mind not all units can do all actions. Cav can't shift. Golem can't turn only do a reform.

11 minutes ago, wisetiger7 said:

So setting Lore aside (while I expect not much more will come about, but I hope they do build on it, especially for campaigns), how does the gameplay flow? Instead of having a movement, magic, shooting, and combat phases, you just have activations, right? So if you move, you can't attack? (Unless it's a charge.) If you attack you can't move? If you cast a spell, you can't shoot? Where does the modifier dial come into play? Can you set your Action dial to attack, then your Modifier dial to shift, and do both? In what order?

You do whatever is on the left dial first, followed by what is on the right dial (assuming that the colors match).

11 minutes ago, wisetiger7 said:

So setting Lore aside (while I expect not much more will come about, but I hope they do build on it, especially for campaigns), how does the gameplay flow? Instead of having a movement, magic, shooting, and combat phases, you just have activations, right? So if you move, you can't attack? (Unless it's a charge.) If you attack you can't move? If you cast a spell, you can't shoot? Where does the modifier dial come into play? Can you set your Action dial to attack, then your Modifier dial to shift, and do both? In what order?

You are correct. You don't always get to shoot or attack and you don't always get to move. I find it to be very refreshing. Currently, there aren't really spell attacks, per se, but they will likely be cast with the Skill action, which is what we've seen in previews so far. So again, if you are casting a spell, you may not be moving. But as @Klaxas says, some units can still do movement actions on their modifier dial, so you could perform a skill action, followed by a march or shift. The Carrion Lancers are a perfect example of this. They can spit a blighting acid using the Skill action on the action dial and then do a speed-3 March with their modifier.

Regarding the lack of lore, I expect FFG will follow what they have done with their Arkham Files IP in the universe of Runebound. They recently released a beautiful hardback book about the various investigators in the Arkham universe and they have also published novels set in the universe. FFG knows we will want stuff like that and I trust they will deliver.

On 4/24/2017 at 4:14 PM, WWHSD said:

I'm curious what the Tomb King faction looked like in 1983.

In 1983 Gamesworkshop didn't have 30+ years of miniature games on which to base their work.

In my eyes, FFG really doesn't have an excuse for creating generic "skeleton, Elf and human" armies. Its all been done a thousand times at this point. If it was 1983, these armies would stand out as would the lore, but today, after 30+ of miniature gaming I thing they should have made an effort to create something fresh and new, they certainly had the opportunity.

I understand the logistics of using their existing Runebound world, but this world was created in a generic fashion for the purposes of boardgaming in which lore definitely plays second fiddle and considerably less important. In fact, its typically preferable to keep the lore simple as board gamers tend to be more interested in the game then the lore behind it. In the miniature game hobby however, a hobby that is a cousin of RPG's, lore is paramount, its part of the core. To have it be generic and uninspiring, its a bit of a let down.

Lore is certainly important to some. (incl. me)

But far more important is the following difference:

WHFB is dead. D E A D. Dead.

Runewars is not. Young. Might not mature. But I am certainly giving it the benefit of the doubt.

(2 coresets landing on my doorstep in 2 days after 2 games last sunday with a single coreset)

2 minutes ago, Elkerlyc said:

Lore is certainly important to some. (incl. me)

But far more important is the following difference:

WHFB is dead. D E A D. Dead.

Runewars is not. Young. Might not mature. But I am certainly giving it the benefit of the doubt.

(2 coresets landing on my doorstep in 2 days after 2 games last sunday with a single coreset)

Oh absolutely, truth is that Warhammer Fantasy was dead long before it was dead dead and as I have pointed out to a lot of people on this forum, gameplay will kill a game, lack of lore will not. Its a bonus, many people really want it, but if the game is good, lore or not its going to do a hell of a lot better than a crappy game with good lore which is exactly what Warhammer Fantasy was.

Call me sappy, but as I go back into the Runebound catalog to play the games that I missed prior to my introduction with Descent and Battlelore, I actually see a whole lot of potential in the evolution of the lore.

It started as exactly what people say, as a generic fantasy backdrop for a game about warriors and dragons where you flipped discs. FFG kept it alive as their own IP and continued to place games in the universe, and with each game the story grew, maybe retconned a bit, to include some new characters and new reasons for the games to exist.

It has some unique points, some fun bits, some interesting characters and a twist here or there. The nature of the Deathborn Legion, Waiqar's motive as a sort of maniacal benefactor, some of the cooler monsters of the Uthuk, the blending of High and Wood elf motifs for the Latari, the sheer coolness of a necromancer riding a wave of bone, or a cackling skeleton riding a poison spewing maggot mount. Hell, just the fact that all the skeletons look like they just stumbled out of Jason and the Argonauts.

The Runewars Lore Guide illustrates their willingness to flesh out this universe given the success of their games, and given that we know the quarterly challenge kits will be story/lore related, I sincerely look forward to watching Terrinoth evolve into a more mature form.

I think there is potential to make the game world more interesting. I think the one thing holding it back is that the theme of the armies is kind of set in stone right now. I totally agree that the surfing skeleton is the greatest thing to ever be formed into a miniature, its about 98% of the reason I ended up giving this game a second look after dismissing it initially. Still, its a skeleton army. There really is no culture or uniqueness to it and I don't think they will be be able to write there way out of it. Its too late to put a thematic layer on the army to give it more character.

For now however I feel very unmotivated by the lore of the game to do something creative like creating campaigns (a common practice with most miniature games for me). There just isn't much there right now to excite me to do something like that.

There is no doubt however that FFG is painfully aware of their lack of lore in this universe, I think we can certainly expect them to make an effort in this department.

Meh. Lack of lore is an excuse.

Example:

I had a very large Chaos (WHFB) army mainly Slaanesh-themed (some undecided) when I started an Empire one.

By then my preference shifted a bit and I liked Nurgle quite a bit more.

So I painted my Empire in Nurgle colours.

Used Empire rules *and made my own fluff* about an Empire army going north to the chaos wastes in order to fight an incursion.

Getting lost in the ever changing wastes, losing all hope and thus finding Father of despair, papa Nurgle.

Just sayin'

Yes, but consider what you had to work with. You didn't invent the Nurgle god, you found him in the lore and used him for inspiration because you liked the lore its based on. You also mention other aspects of the lore like the Chaos Wastes, a very specific place written about a great deal.

There is a difference between "invention" and "inspiration". Getting inspiration from the existing lore is exactly what you have done and you created an army concept around it. This is what the lore is for and why its so important.