I have to say Runewars Miniatures Game is one of the best mechanical wise games in the table top scene. It is simple yet there is incredible depth that can be created. I been showing this game off to a lot of my friends even a group who are into Warhammer and while they are impressed by the system they are not very impressed with the lore or miniatures. Miniatures aside, their complaint that the Lore isn't really strong is quite real. What drives this home is while the starter set comes with a 32 page lore guide, the new Warhammer 40k starter set rule book(even if I find its rules to be abysmal) has 170 pages of Lore fluff. Now arguably Warhammer franchise has had like 30 years of lore created behind yet there should be a bit more fleshing out when it comes to the lore to make the game more attractive to certain players. Things like

• Maps of Terrinoth.
• Locations and events of previous battles.
• Colour scheme of various factions within each faction, not just listing 2 baronies.
• Some background on more heroes even those from Descent.

I just feel like more is needed.

I completely agree. The lore for Kari in the book was a joke. Oh she hunts people? I got that from the name, thank you! I feel like I didn't know much more about the factions than I did when I started. The part of the officer and little girl was interesting, as well as the final few pages. However, the rest was utterly forgettable and vague.

Remember this game sprung up as a miniature game based on the Runebound boardgames, just as GW grew out of Spacehulk.

Now from a marketing stand this their foray into a rank and file war game. The investment in time, effort, and money is significant and they hope and hedge their bets for success.

Now the game looks to be successful, from that success will spring other things.

We will need to see expansion of that Runebound universe as follows

1. Lore through books and game pieces. This will shape all of the Runebound universe and shape the game.

2. An RPG would help an expand the Universe, history, maps, and hence the game. You would need structure of what house, color schemes, political structure.

3. More heroes and villains as mentioned above descent has a wealth of those and will keep the game getting stale.

So if this is a success, and I think it will be, they need to expand their universe and give us quality content. If they do this the fans will keep them going forward.

Let DUST be a lesson in what not to do. (I loved that game, sigh.)

We all believe a lore book is coming. It will likely be in the same style as the Worlds of Android sourcebook and the Arkham Horror Files. When they announced Arkham Horror Files at GenCon(?) lasr year, they said the Android book was a huge success and they had plans to do books like that for their other intellectual properties. Later on that presentation, they announced Runewars Miniatures Game. I'm pretty sure a lore guide will be out this year or next year.

I' ve seen a few mentions on this forum about the game needing more elaborated fluff, mostly presented as a critical point to attract players to this brand/game. But I don't remember any one saying why it is important to themselves!

Personally, I don't really care for a deeper background story, but I would be genuinely interested in understanding why it matters for some people. What does it bring to your gameplay experience? This is not a role-playing game right, but do you incarnate those hero characters when you play? Do you intend to create game scenarios based on the fluff? I'd be curious to know.

47 minutes ago, Xargonaut said:

I' ve seen a few mentions on this forum about the game needing more elaborated fluff, mostly presented as a critical point to attract players to this brand/game. But I don't remember any one saying why it is important to themselves!

Personally, I don't really care for a deeper background story, but I would be genuinely interested in understanding why it matters for some people. What does it bring to your gameplay experience? This is not a role-playing game right, but do you incarnate those hero characters when you play? Do you intend to create game scenarios based on the fluff? I'd be curious to know.

I think there's a strong story telling element to all good games, especially miniatures games. The most important story is the one you create during the playing, but without any lore your soldier is just "generic guy in knight's armor." Lore combines with the beauty of a game's physical components to breathe life into the abstraction of rules and mechanics.

The lack of story is better than a bad story. The lack of story allows ones imagination to roam free. There is a loose frame work. I'll buy any lore book that eventually comes out, I hope it's lore I like.

becareful of what you wish for, a bad story line might leave you wishing there was no story line. That said, I have faith any lore coming out will be well received.

thise who need story as motivation to play will hopefully come when the lore comes.

i for one jumped on board with Intro of Leonx riders. Original enough for me and homer in for my fantasy itch

The big problem with lore is that you either do it right the first time or end up like Games Workshop and just retcon the **** out of whatever they feel like whenever they feel like just because. So as Ywingscum said, a loose framework is all you need to make your own lore that fits you and your own army.

2 hours ago, Necronson said:

The big problem with lore is that you either do it right the first time or end up like Games Workshop and just retcon the **** out of whatever they feel like whenever they feel like just because. So as Ywingscum said, a loose framework is all you need to make your own lore that fits you and your own army.

Let's not forget how truly laughable GW lore is. Only darkness lies on this path.

10 hours ago, Darthain said:

Let's not forget how truly laughable GW lore is. Only darkness lies on this path.

Oh of course, the new Primus Space Fairies is telling proof of this.

I don't need piles and piles of lore just more descriptions of places, people and the factions. Give me ideas for colour schemes I could use to paint my army, tease me on what heroes I might see get released. Show me some of the epic battles in the pass so pushed to create my own. It annoying that there is what 8 Baronies and yet the lore guide only talks about 2 and doesn't even describe their colour scheme.

18 hours ago, Xargonaut said:

I' ve seen a few mentions on this forum about the game needing more elaborated fluff, mostly presented as a critical point to attract players to this brand/game. But I don't remember any one saying why it is important to themselves!

Personally, I don't really care for a deeper background story, but I would be genuinely interested in understanding why it matters for some people. What does it bring to your gameplay experience? This is not a role-playing game right, but do you incarnate those hero characters when you play? Do you intend to create game scenarios based on the fluff? I'd be curious to know.

At first I totally was in this same state of mind. I bought into the game after a few fun skirmishes with the San Antonio guys.

However, after reading the Lore Guide, I was really hooked. Just having a little back story really helps in my opinion.

I don't really want or need TOO much more, but I'd really love for them to keep slowly building on the lore as things get released.

And a Map. Man do I want a map.

23 hours ago, EpicBubbleSA said:

I have to say Runewars Miniatures Game is one of the best mechanical wise games in the table top scene. It is simple yet there is incredible depth that can be created. I been showing this game off to a lot of my friends even a group who are into Warhammer and while they are impressed by the system they are not very impressed with the lore or miniatures. Miniatures aside, their complaint that the Lore isn't really strong is quite real. What drives this home is while the starter set comes with a 32 page lore guide, the new Warhammer 40k starter set rule book(even if I find its rules to be abysmal) has 170 pages of Lore fluff. Now arguably Warhammer franchise has had like 30 years of lore created behind yet there should be a bit more fleshing out when it comes to the lore to make the game more attractive to certain players. Things like

• Maps of Terrinoth.
• Locations and events of previous battles.
• Colour scheme of various factions within each faction, not just listing 2 baronies.
• Some background on more heroes even those from Descent.

I just feel like more is needed.

I think there's no hurry to get this, but in a mid-long term it would be a desireable product

18 hours ago, Contrapulator said:

I think there's a strong story telling element to all good games, especially miniatures games. The most important story is the one you create during the playing, but without any lore your soldier is just "generic guy in knight's armor." Lore combines with the beauty of a game's physical components to breathe life into the abstraction of rules and mechanics.

Definitely agree. Part of what makes the "Spectacle of painted Armies" so grand is the story behind them that brings the battle to life. Either from the maker or via my own invention my armies/factions/warbands usually have at least some background in my mind.

Terrinoth needs at least some of the trappings that other game universes have. This could come via a standalone book or an RPG sourcebook, either would be usefull to Runewars fans.

17 hours ago, Ywingscum said:

The lack of story is better than a bad story. The lack of story allows ones imagination to roam free. There is a loose frame work. I'll buy any lore book that eventually comes out, I hope it's lore I like.

becareful of what you wish for, a bad story line might leave you wishing there was no story line. That said, I have faith any lore coming out will be well received.

This is a very good point. I felt that the fluff as it exists is not bad and is functional but stil pretty generic and sparse. However, it seems that there's still plenty of room to expand it into something more interesting. If small indie RPG companies can create innovative fantasy worlds then surely a company with the resources of FFG has -or can hire- some talent that can make Terrinoth into something special.

I'll probably buy a lore book too.