So I've been doing a little bit of Runewars content on my channel so far, including some of the unboxings for the most recent expansions. (Also have a contest going right now giving away a Star Wars Celebration Exclusive Funko Pop Rey w/Speeder)

What I have found to be bizarre is that the Spearmen didn't have any upgrade cards that were exclusive to them. I suppose if you are only buying a single faction then it would be a way for you to get certain upgrades that may be exclusive to that particular hero though...

Anyway, on to my question. So Ankaur Maro says i can add one non unique unit. Does that mean I can add a 3x3 spearmen DeathStar with Front Line Rune Golem? Are Upgrades allowed? If they are from the opposing faction? If so, what about unique upgrades like adding Lord Hawthorne? (I'm assuming you can't do that, but would like to hear it from someone else).

We're still not 100% sure how faction-specific upgrades will work with out-of-faction units. The prevailing opinion (at least, the opinion that I share) is that faction icons on upgrades must match your army's faction, not an individual unit's faction. So you would be able to put a Carrion Lancer in a 3x3 group of Spearmen that you recruited with Ankaur Maro's ability, but you could not put a Front Line Rune Golem in that Spearmen unit because Front Line Rune Golem is a Daqan Lords upgrade and you are running a Waiqar the Undying army.

1 minute ago, Budgernaut said:

We're still not 100% sure how faction-specific upgrades will work with out-of-faction units. The prevailing opinion (at least, the opinion that I share) is that faction icons on upgrades must match your army's faction, not an individual unit's faction. So you would be able to put a Carrion Lancer in a 3x3 group of Spearmen that you recruited with Ankaur Maro's ability, but you could not put a Front Line Rune Golem in that Spearmen unit because Front Line Rune Golem is a Daqan Lords upgrade and you are running a Waiqar the Undying army.

This is a brilliant answer and I am certainly compelled to agree with you.

Side question, related to this wave. Suppose I've got Lord Hawthorne with 3 enemies in range (and he's got that upgrade that allows him to melee multiple enemies at range 1). He attacks all 3. Then I've got Spearmen nearby with Dispatch Runners equipped - they can make Lord Hawthorne attack again - but since it's a new activation can he still attack all of them? (I made an argument that you CAN do this - because it's a separate activation).

Lord Hawthorne's Sweeping Strikes ability does not allow him to make an attack against all units in Range 1. It just makes all units in range 1 an eligible target for a Melee attack.

His own ability though allows him to make a normal Melee attack and then make a second Melee attack against a different unit (that is n eligible target) so when equipped with the Sweeping Strikes upgrade he'll have more eligible units for his extra attack to choose from.

If he then gains an extra Melee attack from Dispatch Runner this would also trigger his ability.

His ability let's you attack everyone you are engaged with, or in range one of with the upgrade. It triggers each time he melee attacks, giving another melee attack which then triggers it. The only limit is you can't attack someone you've attacked that activation.

If dispatch runner constitutes another activation of Hawthorne I don't know. I'm inclined to say no since it seems OP, but I haven't tried it myself. Maybe it isn't so bad.

Hmmm interesting! It can be read that way. I'd be surprised if they actually meant it to chain like that though (yet another clarification required).

Highly depends on how the faction unique upgrades are handled, currently there is no definitive answer.

The question mainly arose with Kari including some latari archers, but it obviously applies to Maro as well.
Probably one of at least a couple dozen things were waiting on a faq for. Honestly, this one i could see going either way and both benefits and drawbacks of both ways, but i highly doubt it'll allow ALL faction unique cards (say you can have the 3x3 Spearmen with a golem, lance corp, and the blight banner so you have a random skelly in the unit of spearmen AND a golem lol)

2 hours ago, Vineheart01 said:

Honestly, this one i could see going either way and both benefits and drawbacks of both ways, but i highly doubt it'll allow ALL faction unique cards

I could see it going either way too, but personally, I hope they go with Neutral upgrades only for the added unit. This would make it less likely for game breaking combos to slip in under the radar.

But then again, that might be my X-Wing ptsd talking...

1 hour ago, maxam said:

I could see it going either way too, but personally, I hope they go with Neutral upgrades only for the added unit. This would make it less likely for game breaking combos to slip in under the radar.

But then again, that might be my X-Wing ptsd talking...

Combat Ingenuity seems like it could break alot of stuff. Like Lenox Riders. Would be insane.

36 minutes ago, TallGiraffe said:

Combat Ingenuity seems like it could break alot of stuff. Like Lenox Riders. Would be insane.

Excellent point!

Roll on the FAQ! *sigh*

6 hours ago, TallTonyB said:

His ability let's you attack everyone you are engaged with, or in range one of with the upgrade. It triggers each time he melee attacks, giving another melee attack which then triggers it. The only limit is you can't attack someone you've attacked that activation.

If dispatch runner constitutes another activation of Hawthorne I don't know. I'm inclined to say no since it seems OP, but I haven't tried it myself. Maybe it isn't so bad.

The reason I think it does work that way is because it says "This activation" instead of "This round", or "Until end of turn". The fact that they wrote "This activation" as the limiting factor, seems to encourage you to find ways to let him attack out of activation for extra combos.

15 hours ago, TallTonyB said:

His ability let's you attack everyone you are engaged with, or in range one of with the upgrade. It triggers each time he melee attacks, giving another melee attack which then triggers it. The only limit is you can't attack someone you've attacked that activation.

If dispatch runner constitutes another activation of Hawthorne I don't know. I'm inclined to say no since it seems OP, but I haven't tried it myself. Maybe it isn't so bad.

Incorrect his ability is 'after' which per the rrg only occurs once per instance of that event and cannot occur the second time. So 2 attacks on an activation. (See rrg timing section).

1 hour ago, Darthain said:

Incorrect his ability is 'after' which per the rrg only occurs once per instance of that event and cannot occur the second time. So 2 attacks on an activation. (See rrg timing section).

But every attack is its own instance...

1 minute ago, rowdyoctopus said:

But every attack is its own instance...

RTFM -

83.8 An “after” event occurs immediately after the specified event
and cannot occur again for that instance of the event.

1 minute ago, Darthain said:

RTFM -

83.8 An “after” event occurs immediately after the specified event
and cannot occur again for that instance of the event.

I've read the rules. Each of his attacks is an individual and separate event. If he makes a melee attack, that is an instance that will trigger his after ability. His after ability is another separate and individual instance of a melee attack, so it is eligible to trigger his ability again. And so on. You aren't triggering the ability multiple times off of the same attack, which is what that line in the rules is preventing.

1 hour ago, rowdyoctopus said:

I've read the rules. Each of his attacks is an individual and separate event. If he makes a melee attack, that is an instance that will trigger his after ability. His after ability is another separate and individual instance of a melee attack, so it is eligible to trigger his ability again. And so on. You aren't triggering the ability multiple times off of the same attack, which is what that line in the rules is preventing.

That specifically says that can't happen, the second event cannot trigger after.

Im siding with mister rowdy octopus. The order of events ends up being:

Hawthorne attacks. After attacking the ability triggers (triggers on that instance of the attack). So he attacks again. But this is a different instance of the attack. So he should be able to trigger the ability again.

All this being said, I think it might end up bad if it works like that because you may be able to pull some jank combos.

Let's try this again, with context added.

83.8 An “after” event occurs immediately after the specified event (trigger, the first attack)
and cannot occur again for that instance of the event (the second attack) .

The second attack is 'that instance'as it is the after event the whole line is speaking about. Therefore it cannot trigger a third attack.

No, the second attack is a new event. Pretty sure 83.8 means: "an 'after' event occurs immediately after the specified event (trigger, the first attack) and cannot occur again for that instance of the event (still the first attack)"

The second attack would be a different instance of the same type of event (melee attack).

15 hours ago, Crabbok said:

The reason I think it does work that way is because it says "This activation" instead of "This round", or "Until end of turn". The fact that they wrote "This activation" as the limiting factor, seems to encourage you to find ways to let him attack out of activation for extra combos.

That's true, good catch. Has anyone tried that combo? I feel like if you are getting hit by 3+ attacks, and then another 3+ attacks from Hawthorne, it's probably not that the combo is OP, just that you are getting outplayed and his Hawthorne is positioned better than your troops. I'm going to have to try that out sometime.

On 6/18/2017 at 11:41 AM, Crabbok said:

Anyway, on to my question. So Ankaur Maro says i can add one non unique unit. Does that mean I can add a 3x3 spearmen DeathStar with Front Line Rune Golem? Are Upgrades allowed? If they are from the opposing faction? If so, what about unique upgrades like adding Lord Hawthorne? (I'm assuming you can't do that, but would like to hear it from someone else).

On 6/18/2017 at 0:00 PM, Budgernaut said:

We're still not 100% sure how faction-specific upgrades will work with out-of-faction units. The prevailing opinion (at least, the opinion that I share) is that faction icons on upgrades must match your army's faction, not an individual unit's faction. So you would be able to put a Carrion Lancer in a 3x3 group of Spearmen that you recruited with Ankaur Maro's ability, but you could not put a Front Line Rune Golem in that Spearmen unit because Front Line Rune Golem is a Daqan Lords upgrade and you are running a Waiqar the Undying army.

I'm not sure what is unclear about this. According to RR pg 3:

"However, some upgrade cards have a unit type or faction icon , denoting that these cards can only be equipped to a unit of the matching type in an army of the matching faction ."

Since Front Line Rune Golem has the Daqan icon it could only be used in a Daqan army.

2 hours ago, coletite said:

I'm not sure what is unclear about this. According to RR pg 3:

"However, some upgrade cards have a unit type or faction icon , denoting that these cards can only be equipped to a unit of the matching type in an army of the matching faction ."

Since Front Line Rune Golem has the Daqan icon it could only be used in a Daqan army.

Yes.

The next step is...

Can you equip your own faction upgrades on a non-faction unit, i.e. Latari Archers c/- Kari or just about anything c/- Ankaur

For example, could you put a Support Carrion Lancer with a unit of Spearmen...

RAW you should be able to as the unit belongs to your army which means the upgrades match the army faction (if not the unit)

Which could lead to some headaches ... cf :

17 minutes ago, maxam said:

Yes.

The next step is...

Can you equip your own faction upgrades on a non-faction unit, i.e. Latari Archers c/- Kari or just about anything c/- Ankaur

For example, could you put a Support Carrion Lancer with a unit of Spearmen...

RAW you should be able to as the unit belongs to your army which means the upgrades match the army faction (if not the unit)

Which could lead to some headaches ... cf :

The rules don't seem to care about the original army of the unit only the current one.

Right. An upgrade may have a unit icon (infantry, cavalry, siege) and/or a faction icon (currently Daqan or Waiqar). The unit icons are not faction specific (spearmen, reanimates, and archers are all infantry) so can go on any unit of that type regardless of faction. So, Waiqar fielding Ankaur could have a unit of Spearmen with Support Carrion Lancer, but not Front Line Rune Golem. Unit: infantry, Army: Waiqar.

Orcdruid: that's they way I read it too. A unit of Spearmen in a Waiqar army are Waiqar Spearmen, not Daqan.

39 minutes ago, coletite said:

Right. An upgrade may have a unit icon (infantry, cavalry, siege) and/or a faction icon (currently Daqan or Waiqar). The unit icons are not faction specific (spearmen, reanimates, and archers are all infantry) so can go on any unit of that type regardless of faction. So, Waiqar fielding Ankaur could have a unit of Spearmen with Support Carrion Lancer, but not Front Line Rune Golem. Unit: infantry, Army: Waiqar.

Orcdruid: that's they way I read it too. A unit of Spearmen in a Waiqar army are Waiqar Spearmen, not Daqan.

Exactly.

My concern (as voiced earlier in the thread) is that allowing "in faction" upgrades to "out of faction" units may at worst lead to some seriously broken combinations or at not-so-worst give the designers headaches and limit their design space when developing new units/upgrades.

Which is why I earnestly hope that they rule for Neutral upgrades only on "out of faction" units.