Morning

How are we all doing with runewars?

It's been a couple of weeks now since we got our hands on this brilliant game and I am wondering how people feel the balance is?

Myself and a friend split two core sets with him taking the humans and myself the undead

We are playing at 200 points which doesn't really give me much flexibility bits it's been very fun

I'm currently on a losing streak which I blame the Oathsworn for having lost large chunks of my army to them, how are you undead players dealing with them? In early games I whittled them down with the archers buts my opponent has learnt to avoid the archers as much as possible and the forward 4, forward 2 they can do is a significant distance

Tldr; how are you finding core set balance? As undead how are you dealing with the cavalry?

So far only had a few games and mostly on the losing end. I have found putting a tar pit of reanimates in front of those oathsworn works if you then flank with a lancer and Ardus, but then you have to worry about kari and the rest of that tanky army. Nevertheless, I've enjoyed it so far and am in eager anticipation of those infantry upgrade units.

1 hour ago, Jukey said:

So far only had a few games and mostly on the losing end. I have found putting a tar pit of reanimates in front of those oathsworn works if you then flank with a lancer and Ardus, but then you have to worry about kari and the rest of that tanky army. Nevertheless, I've enjoyed it so far and am in eager anticipation of those infantry upgrade units.

How big are the reanimate units you are using?

How do you build them?

I should say it's only a mild success rate, a 2x2 will last long enough to get the lancer(s) into position and pin it. I got a good roll once by popping Ardus out of the pond which collided with the horses in a flank and one-shotted a column. The biggest problem I keep running into is the defense action boosting armor. Haven't tried it yet but I think raven taberds will help get your charge in first. Maybe combine it with metered march to stop early and deny a fast, short charge from the horses. I find it's very hard to predict oathsworn and when in doubt, queue up an attack instead of a charge because the horsemen will usually go first. The upgrade infantry packs will really bring reanimates to the fight though.

4 hours ago, Evil Doctor T said:

Morning

How are we all doing with runewars?

It's been a couple of weeks now since we got our hands on this brilliant game and I am wondering how people feel the balance is?

Myself and a friend split two core sets with him taking the humans and myself the undead

We are playing at 200 points which doesn't really give me much flexibility bits it's been very fun

I'm currently on a losing streak which I blame the Oathsworn for having lost large chunks of my army to them, how are you undead players dealing with them? In early games I whittled them down with the archers buts my opponent has learnt to avoid the archers as much as possible and the forward 4, forward 2 they can do is a significant distance

Tldr; how are you finding core set balance? As undead how are you dealing with the cavalry?

IMO, I say IMO, undead are currently underpower: they are just weaker: reanimates are probably better than spearmen, but characters are weak carrion lancers are too blight dependent and archers are dangerous, but not so good.

We move slowlier and not so long distances, we find it hard to kill tough enemies and despite ardus is quite good, he can't do the 10 damage that kari easily does with her broken ability.

So what? We'll have to wait untill next releases. Next releases bring new cards allowing the archers to spam blight, thanks to combat ingenuity and doing a lot of extra damage.

Of course daqan recieve powerful stuff as well, but our combos will be very, very powerful: the deathcaller may kill a golem on a single blight token, master crafted weapons + combat ingenuity will be destroyer on archers (why blight if you can just do 2x(3-4) damage!? every surge can be transformed into damage) and combat ingenuity will also be terrible in infantry featuring ardus Ix'erebus, letting him to blight on a surge.

So my opinion: just wait.

Some people claim archers to be good damage dealers, but I don't think so ATM. Don't trust archers as a damage dealer unit: they often score an average 2 impacts on dice, which is a total of 4 damage. That's little damage.

Mastercrafted weapons is melee only. Won't do you any good on archers.

What is good on archers, however, is rank discipline. It helps their consistency a good bit for not that many points.

4 hours ago, druchii7 said:

Of course daqan recieve powerful stuff as well, but our combos will be very, very powerful: the deathcaller may kill a golem on a single blight token, master crafted weapons + combat ingenuity will be destroyer on archers (why blight if you can just do 2x(3-4) damage!? every surge can be transformed into damage) and combat ingenuity will also be terrible in infantry featuring ardus Ix'erebus, letting him to blight on a surge.

Combat Ingenuity should be good on Archers, but Mastercrafed Weapons are wasted on them because it is a melee only ability like TallTonyB stated. Combat Ingenuity and the Surge modifier on the right dial will deal a single Blight token guaranteed, deal at least two Blight tokens just under half the time, three tokens will be less likely but shouldn't be too rare (just under 20% of the time without actually doing the math) and 4 tokens will be a possibility. 2 Blight tokens removes the ability for every unit currently in the game other than the Oathsworn and the Worm from being able to attack (unless they are flanking or have an upgrade that adds a die) and seriously cripples the damage output from the unit that are still able to attack..

Playing only the daqan from maybe seven 200 point games I've played with 3 core sets worth of figures against 4 coresets worth of undead figures it seems like the rune golem relies solely on the runes to do almost anything in a game and the wrong runes means a waste of 17+ points

although the spearmen like the Calvary may attack faster than the reanimates are slightly weaker overall with the reanimates being able to have 12 tray in a 4x3, attack with double reds, and regenerate health most of the time.

Calvary and Kari seem like the only reliable damage the Daqan have as of now almost as though some of the spearmen's attack power was removed and added into them. Although I play the same opponent and in atleast 2 games I recall him putting Ardus out in front of either my 3x3 of spearmen or 2x2 of Calvary to be decimated without harming any of my figures. I've only used Kari with heart seeker and tried to keep her back and take shots from behind terrain or my own units.

I have won 4 out of the 7 games.

I think it has to be a high priority to blight the Calvary and hide the archers behind some unit and have them peek out from an angle

Hammer and anvil tactic has worked decently for me as the Daqan as my opponent seemed to be fixiated on my 3x3 unit of spearmen on a few games with Kari and my Calvary attacked from the side especially on the "Hammer and Anvil" deployment

We've been proxying unreleased cards, but... fire rune and close quarters targeting on archers is the nastiness. The blighted vexillum banner is amazing as well, on either archers or reanimates. The blight tokens allow you to leverage your regenerate ability much more often and seem to be the key to grinding down the Daqan.

2 hours ago, WWHSD said:

Combat Ingenuity should be good on Archers, but Mastercrafed Weapons are wasted on them because it is a melee only ability like TallTonyB stated. Combat Ingenuity and the Surge modifier on the right dial will deal a single Blight token guaranteed, deal at least two Blight tokens just under half the time, three tokens will be less likely but shouldn't be too rare (just under 20% of the time without actually doing the math) and 4 tokens will be a possibility. 2 Blight tokens removes the ability for every unit currently in the game other than the Oathsworn and the Worm from being able to attack (unless they are flanking or have an upgrade that adds a die) and seriously cripples the damage output from the unit that are still able to attack..

You are right... then maybe we'll have to use different combos. I think tempered steel is also interesting. shooting+regroup can let you use it every turn.

I've played twice as each side. Lost every game. Perfectly balanced.

21 hours ago, druchii7 said:

You are right... then maybe we'll have to use different combos. I think tempered steel is also interesting. shooting+regroup can let you use it every turn.

Got in some games against a 2x1 unit of Reanimated Archers with Combat Ingenuity. They did a great job of keeping Kari from throwing more than one die against a unit she was flanking (sometimes she wouldn't get to throw any) .

Ive only played about 6 games, none of which were full 200pts, but in all 6 games the same thing caused either side to win and it had nothing to do with balance

Failed initiative bidding.

We are too used to Xwing's fixed pattern on how things move/when. Worse yet, its incredibly rare to have a ship in xwing literally do nothing as a result of the opponent, they almost always still move or have a shot on someone that didnt fly right into their face to bump.
RWM's variable initiative has shafted so many charges or ranged attacks its laughable. As a result i cant really see which is more powerful since when one side completely fudges himself over, balance isnt a factor since he basically just handed the turn over to the other guy lol.

On paper, i'd say its Waiqar because of the Blight shenanigans, but i dont think ive played enough to say anything about either side.

The options are many... I'd like to try archers as damage dealers 2x2 or 3x2 with inspiration. A white die won't blight that much, but it's a potentially enormous amount of damage, blight is good for damage prevention, but killing is the ultimate way to prevent damage

With a modifier of regroup you can use it every turn, and archers generally needn't any other action than fighting. AND! you can roll two decent dice on CC, which is a very interesting idea to make them even killier than reanimate unit of the same size.

3 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

Ive only played about 6 games, none of which were full 200pts, but in all 6 games the same thing caused either side to win and it had nothing to do with balance

Failed initiative bidding.

We are too used to Xwing's fixed pattern on how things move/when. Worse yet, its incredibly rare to have a ship in xwing literally do nothing as a result of the opponent, they almost always still move or have a shot on someone that didnt fly right into their face to bump.
RWM's variable initiative has shafted so many charges or ranged attacks its laughable. As a result i cant really see which is more powerful since when one side completely fudges himself over, balance isnt a factor since he basically just handed the turn over to the other guy lol.

I personally think that being last can be very profitable. Unlike warhammer, you can't shoot on turn 1. It's almost impossible, so if the enemy approaches on turn 1 it may be better for you.

And in second turn, when you'll be the first player, you'll find it easier to place your charges where you want.

Archers seemed OP in the demos but FFG nerfed them hard right before release by removing the auto hit modifier on their wheel.

As it stands, I think Daqan are straight up better. This is largely due to the movement options for Oathsworn. That said, it's early and it only takes a single upgrade to completely reverse the tables.

Play a lot. Learn a lot. When the game is inevitably balanced, brag that you were here now...

20 minutes ago, Oloh said:

As it stands, I think Daqan are straight up better. This is largely due to the movement options for Oathsworn. That said, it's early and it only takes a single upgrade to completely reverse the tables.

I think that Ardus's army building rule is going to make a big difference as more people start playing more games at 200 points with more available upgrades.

Being able to toss Combat Ingenuity on a couple of 2x1 Renanimate Archers is really nice for some cheap ranged support units.

I think so as well.

On 5/7/2017 at 7:50 AM, druchii7 said:

We move slowlier and not so long distances, we find it hard to kill tough enemies and despite ardus is quite good, he can't do the 10 damage that kari easily does with her broken ability.

I agree with most of what you say and would add that there is little in Waiqar's toolbox that prevents Daqan forces from turtling up and stacking an inspiration token or two in the early turns. Hopefully some units (or the Uthuk) come along with tools to seriously punish that kind of slow rolling. Without some more upgrades, Daqan have some out of the box functionality as a Waiqar counter.

That being said, I wanted to point something out regarding the text I quoted. Dealing 10 damage with Kari's surge ability is by no means easy. If you are attacking (not charging) you can dial in a surge modifier, and if you are attacking head-on, you have to roll 2x surge on both dice. I'm not good at statistics, but a 1/12 and a 1/8 chance combined can't be great odds, even with the reroll. Flanking and adding a blue dice makes it easier, but it is still far from a sure thing. Plus that means you are doing very little damage to the unit you are actually engaged with.

Don't get me wrong, Kari is a beast, and can be devastating (depending on how they rule on her ability, anyway), but going to the worst case scenario to call something broken is a little bit much.

Personally i would be somewhat miffed if i rolled that many surges with Kari. I dont want her to STAY in combat because shes not insanely durable, and if you seriously got 5 surges to burn you did no damage to the unit you are actually attacking. I want enough surges to poke at the Carrion Lancer (2-3 surges), while simultaneously whacking the unit im actually engaged with. Ive had her go against a small squad of reanimates (2.5 trays left by the time she made contact) and i did just this: got tons of surges, owned the other reanimate squad a bit, but now the Reanimates attack and roll good enough to deal 2 wounds to me. Had i actually hit THEM i would have taken their 1die reroll away and prevented that tray from regenning (which it did, so next turn was harder)
Do remember her ability is melee only. Ive caught myself forgetting that alot.

Just to clarify, Kari's melee ability isn't 'on' for a charge, because she didn't dial up a 'melee' right? The attack is because of charge, her ability is tied to melee action. Or am I wrong on that?

18 minutes ago, FatherTurin said:

That being said, I wanted to point something out regarding the text I quoted. Dealing 10 damage with Kari's surge ability is by no means easy. If you are attacking (not charging) you can dial in a surge modifier, and if you are attacking head-on, you have to roll 2x surge on both dice. I'm not good at statistics, but a 1/12 and a 1/8 chance combined can't be great odds, even with the reroll. Flanking and adding a blue dice makes it easier, but it is still far from a sure thing. Plus that means you are doing very little damage to the unit you are actually engaged with.

Don't get me wrong, Kari is a beast, and can be devastating (depending on how they rule on her ability, anyway), but going to the worst case scenario to call something broken is a little bit much.

With kari's ability it's almost impossible to do 10 damage, but adding direct attack damage, you need 5 surges, that means 2 surges on every die. But if you add CC damage to distance damage it will often be 8-10 damage. All results with 2 surge, 2 damage or 1 dama+1 surge translate into 4 direct damage (either direct CC damage or skill damage). Having precision makes it easier to get the biggest damage as possible.

So in general most turns kari has a big chance or dealing at least 6 damage (2 results of damage/surge + modifier). The drawback is that you cannot control whether the engaged unit or any other take that damage, but at least that's a serious threat. And precision 1 is a true life insurance. She can just shoot it the situation is not likely to engage in combat or just to push the enemy to come closer, where she is so dangerous.

However ardus is not that killy. In very particular situations the can do a carnage with his surge skill, but daqan can generally get rid of blight very easily. Specially kari and the golems, which have enormous defenses and would terribly suffer the carrion lancer's skill.

So kari is excelent standalone, ardus might be even killier, but often he'll waste his surges and do little damage and without precission 1 has little choice, you shouldn't risk to choose any other unique upgrade card than precission 1.

And for a reason that I cannot understand, he is more expensive than kari.

Damage 6 with ardus is more or less the average, whilst the CC average for kari is closer to 8, and wardus has no ranged skill.

@Ywingscum you are wrong. The attack performed after a charge follows all the rules of melee attack

9 minutes ago, Ywingscum said:

Just to clarify, Kari's melee ability isn't 'on' for a charge, because she didn't dial up a 'melee' right? The attack is because of charge, her ability is tied to melee action. Or am I wrong on that?

Nope. You just need to make a melee attack to trigger it. Charging creates a melee attack action just the same as the action that you'd pick from your dial.

RRG, pg. 8:

"16.3 If a unit resolving a charge collides with an enemy unit, the charging unit performs a melee attack action targeting that enemy unit after the move is complete"

I think he's more expensive than Kari because of his "list building" benefit that all heroes seem to have. Kari let's you (for now) take Deepwood Archers which don't have a ton of synergy with existing Daqan units and IMHO the newly revealed crossbowmen are better.

Ardus though may end up being the MSU king in this game.

The only reduction is that you cannot place extra damage/surge on the right dial, so it isn't so powerful (max 8 damage).

@FatherTurin quite a good point. I noticed that he'll grow stronger as long as new units are released and he gets more avilable skills. The problem is that ATM the best one is the carrion launcher one, which is blight dependant, and the archers let him place blights, but seems not too eficient to me, compared to kari.

Not to mention if you use kari's listbuilding ability you are adding far, far more cost to your list than Ardus has over Kari in his own cost.

So in the end, either Kari is just a standalone powerhouse or a major chunk of your list.