So, had my first battle using the new expansions last night with @Hos fielding his Daqan and myself Waiqar (well, most of them - I don’t have the Archers yet and no time to print some proxies).

2 x 2 Oathsworn with Moment of Inspiration is beyond amazing and if you’re flanked - oh boy!

Rallying Cornicen is a phenomenal upgrade especially for readying Moment of Inspiration. Having a unit of Cavalry “attached” to your unit of Waiqar with a freaking extra white die every round is as bad as it sounds.

Deathcallers are amazing especially when paired with a Support Carrion Lancer and Simultaneous orders. Managed to one-shot a passing Rune Golem while in combat with a unit of spearmen. I realised it too late, but they’re deadly to Cavalry units at a potential one tray a pop. Approaching Kari level awesome.

Executioner FTW! I managed to one-shot a Rune Golem with a 3 x 2 Reanimate unit, causing a wound then finishing him off with Executioner in the same attack. The dice were freakishly in my favour, but still - wow.

If I had to make a call based on this single game it would have to be that I NEED (not simply want) another Infantry Command pack. Funnily enough not so much for the chance to run multiple Deathcallers or more than one Melee Champion (which would be nice), or for multiple drummers (one seems to be more than enough for now) but for multiple Standard Bearers. I could quite happily find a use for both a Raven-Standard and a Blighted Vexillum Bearer (or two of either) in any given force.

Overall - apart from already loving this game, it truly is so exciting to have more options to bring to the table.

Love. This. Game.

If Maxam ever says anything about Kari again, I'll mention Executioner it is almost OP

2 x 2 Oathsworn is a solid unit, they can lose a few figures and still be effective - the extra white dice really makes them dangerous

Deathcaller+Frontline Rune Golem? I'm not sure I'm following. Did you have Daqan units in your Waiqar army?

44 minutes ago, Elliphino said:

Deathcaller+Frontline Rune Golem? I'm not sure I'm following. Did you have Daqan units in your Waiqar army?

D'Oh! Support Carrion Lancer(!)

fixed. (^_^)

Yeah, running multiwound Daqan seems to be getting pointless with the amount of mortal strikes and Executioner silliness that can be thrown around.

2 hours ago, Waywardpaladin said:

Yeah, running multiwound Daqan seems to be getting pointless with the amount of mortal strikes and Executioner silliness that can be thrown around.

The point is that you can kill executioners if a bit lucky, because all but rune golems have 1+ blue die/white, which has accuracy. So wounded fallen hero, front line rune golem or upgrade card kari are quite safe.

Executioner can't be used on a charge, and requires to let a multiwounded enemy injured (sometimes you do more damage than expected and just kill).

I think that executioner will be often just a psycological element rather than a real damage dealer.

3 hours ago, Waywardpaladin said:

Yeah, running multiwound Daqan seems to be getting pointless with the amount of mortal strikes and Executioner silliness that can be thrown around.

The Command units do pop surprisingly quickly with Accuracy...

6 hours ago, maxam said:

The Command units do pop surprisingly quickly with Accuracy...

And with lucky dice. You can set an accuracy + damage white or blue die, and then you need very little luck on the other dice to kill.

Accuracy + kill is also an effective combination avilable for characters.

Of course it won't always be there and it isn't an unbereable situation: you can blight kari away from shooting, for example

I think the added layer command models added to combat was essential. With just the core it was usually very obvious what needed to be dialed in. Now there are some real choices, unlike armada, where I feel upgrade cards actually detract from the solid base rules, I'm loving the upgrades and interactions so far in runewars.

Actually, with a white skill modifier and Aggressive Drummer, a unit of reanimates can totally charge and use Executioner on the same activation. Without the drummer they can still engage and pop it off, they'll just take a panic token and won't get an attack.

Command units are awesome in what they can do and terrible for how easily they can get sniped with an accuracy icon. So, risk/reward. So, balance.

i played a pisspoor game Friday to test my new Waiqar upgrades. I found Mistlands Sabateur awesome even when I just messed everything up. Stripping upgrades off the enemy hero or breaking some combo they set up is awesome.

3 hours ago, Tvayumat said:

Actually, with a white skill modifier and Aggressive Drummer, a unit of reanimates can totally charge and use Executioner on the same activation. Without the drummer they can still engage and pop it off, they'll just take a panic token and won't get an attack.

That's well pointed out. The problem now is to find an objective that is multi wounded and to loose no upgrade miniature on that unit.

As expected, blighted vexillium banners are great. You know what makes getting charged by a rune golem not feel scary? Blighted vexillium banners.

Know what makes it even less scary? Deathcallers.

Blighted Vexillum + Frontline Carrion Lancer is going to be a thing.

About the only weakness is the relative lack of surges on red dice, but they definitely come up.

On 5/19/2017 at 5:25 PM, maxam said:

Deathcallers are amazing especially when paired with a Support Carrion Lancer and Simultaneous orders. Managed to one-shot a passing Rune Golem while in combat with a unit of spearmen. I realised it too late, but they’re deadly to Cavalry units at a potential one tray a pop. Approaching Kari level awesome.

I feel like Kari with Fortunas dice just kills that upgrade with her first shot at the unit. You might get 1-2 wounds in her first, but so far from my games if Kari doesn't want to take wounds she doesn't. Might be a free 5 points.

2 hours ago, Eric W said:

I feel like Kari with Fortunas dice just kills that upgrade with her first shot at the unit.

I feel like Kari with Fortunas dice just kills most command upgrades with her first shot at the unit.

This is because A) Kari just being ****ing Kari and B) most command upgrades, particularly the "mage" types are especially fragile (on both sides)

In this particular game Kari was within a Spearmen unit, which on the one hand meant she wasn't able to do a normal ranged attack, however, it did mean that the (3 x 3) unit of spearmen gave her special ability a very, very long range which was in and of itself pretty awesome (in a bad way for me).