I watched the Dice Tower's demo game of A Song of Ice and Fire recently. I had some thoughts about it I wanted to share, comparing what I saw to Runewars. These thoughts are basically completely biased, in Runewars' favor, and I also don't know a whole lot about A Song of Ice and Fire, but I thought I'd share my thoughts anyway.
1. Prediction vs. Reaction - This is something I've mentioned before. I highly value prediction-based play in games. When both players know the optimal moves, so they start second guessing their own moves, that is a beautiful thing. Runewars' command tool system with simultaneous action selection allows you to do this. When you choose your action, you don't always know what your opponent will do. You have to predict their actions and choose your actions accordingly. A Song of Ice and Fire (ASOIAF) doesn't have this aspect with movement. You take turns activating one unit at a time. This means that you know exactly where your opponent is and you know (barring dice) that your actions will succeed [charges require you to roll for extra distance, so if you are too far away, your charge may fail because of the dice, but not because your opponent out-played you]. ASOIAF puts you in a position to react to your opponent's moves, rather than to predict them. To me, that's boring. To be fair, the more you get to know the game, the more predictions may become important, especially regarding the tactics cards.
2. Unit sizes - One thing that I love about Runewars is that the shape and size of your unit is variable, both during setup and throughout the game. You can choose to have a few large units or many small units. In ASOIAF, the trays are fixed; they don't change sizes. This means that if there is only one guy left on the tray, someone can clip the corner opposite that figure and still attack it. In Runewars, that's still an issue for a single tray, but at least you're not hitting the opposite corner of a 3x4 tray unit with only 1 unit left. In addition to the footprint of the unit, Runewars' units actually suffer in combat effectiveness as they suffer damage. A decrease in unit size affects rerolls and threat (damage multipliers). I've read complaints that Runewars' models are superfluous since they're basically just tracking hit points. Because the trays have fixed sizes in ASOIAF, I feel like this criticism is even more true of that game.
3. Morale - I've read some criticisms of Runewars' morale system on BGG, but I'm a fan of how it works. The basic criticism of Runewars is that units can suffer awful morale effects without suffering damage, which is jarring since most soldiers lose morale when they start losing. You'd expect them to hold their ground until their buddies start falling. Because I'm not a wargamer, this wasn't something I had ever thought of. In fact, I thought checking whether a unit deserts or not was pretty silly the first time I saw it in Age of Sigmar battle reports. But after thinking more about it, it's a fair criticism, and it's something that ASOIAF does right. The more ranks you lose, the more likely more figures will run away from your unit (the figure is removed). However [and this is my bias coming in], from a gameplay perspective it's boring. I love that the morale deck in Runewars can have all sorts of things happen -- not just losing figures. Now, despite my praise of ASOIAF's morale system, there is a sister mechanic that I cannot stand. You can also rally your unit to gain figures back. I'm not clear on how exactly it works, but occasionally, you roll to see how many more figures you can add back to your unit. I suppose the guys that ran away maybe didn't actually run away, but were just unable to battle, so then you can get them to form up again and join the unit ... I guess? After playing Waiqar, it was a weird mechanic to watch since I associated it with resurrection of fallen soldiers. I'm totally aware that it's an abstraction of a different concept, but I still didn't really like it.
4. So many dice! - ASOIAF is a standard wargame with lots of dice. I understand the rationale: more dice gives you less variance. That means you can count on doing some amount of damage more consistently. It also means that you're less likely to get screwed by a bad roll. However, I feel like throwing less dice just makes for a cleaner experience. I also really like the icons on the dice because it helps immerse me in the game system. I'm not a huge fan of standard dice. To me, those are the tools of Monopoly and Clue. If I want a deeper, more thematic game, I want to see custom dice with icons made just for that game.
5. Tactics Cards - ASOIAF uses tactics cards. You have a small deck of cards that can be used as interrupts during the game to help you or hinder your opponent. Each card has two effects on it. The first effect is the main effect. The second effect uses a track of bonuses. During a round, instead of moving or attacking, you can take control of one of four icons. I didn't catch what they represent, but it's something thematic, I think. If you control an icon and have that icon on the second part of your tactics card, you gain that second effect as well. Also, you can discard tactics cards to reroll your initiative die at the start of a round. As a BattleLore player and a casual LCG/CCG player, I actually found this aspect of the game very intriguing. I think having surprises like these tactics cards can be a lot of fun. However, I also feel like it is just one more way to increase the variance in a game. But then, if you add dice and tactics cards, is that any more random than Runewars' dice and morale deck? I don't know. I can't say that I'd actually want to see card play in Runewars. I think I'll just enjoy it in BattleLore where it feels completely natural to surprise your opponent with lore cards. But I think it's a telling sign when my favorite part of a miniatures game is the card mechanic.
6. Figure Upgrades and Heroes - Both games have figures that can represent specific individuals in a unit and that character adds abilities to its unit. The ASOIAF heroes seem to have bigger effects on their units than the Runewars heroes, but they also can't be on their own like the Runewars heroes can, as far as I can tell. I think this is fitting of the two settings. ASOIAF's setting has heroes that are important, but are still human. You won't see them performing Legolas-levels of heroics during battles (at least, I don't think so; but since I've never read or watched and Game of Thrones things, I really can't say for sure). Meanwhile, Runewars is based on the Runebound universe where heroes are expected to do the impossible. Also, ASOIAF's heroes are going to get more people appreciating the ties between abilities and the lore because there's more lore to draw from. In Runewars, we're going the other way. We're looking at heroes' abilities and making judgments about their characters from that, instead of knowing a character and admiring how the mechanics represent that character.
Well, this concludes my completely biased comparison of a game I've played a few times and been following for almost a year to a game that isn't even released and which I've only seen one demo game of. Take it for what it is. As for me, I'll be sticking with Runewars.
**Random aside. As I wrote this up, I noticed a similarity between Runewars Miniatures Game and the original Runewars. Both games have simultaneous action selection, but different actions have different initiatives. Just something neat to tie the two together a little more, even if it is pretty generic.**
.