In the end, Runewars is a dice game. And like all dice games theres always that issue of "The dice hated me" as a complaint, lord knows its all over Xwing, Armada, and 40k.
However i've noticed something about RWM....in my 20sih games, not a single game felt decided by dice rolls being stupid. Sure, bad rolls happened where a unit w/o rerolls rolled blanks, but i dont recall that happening more than twice (period not per unit) in any singular game. Probably the most unlucky dice ive had was for some reason Fire Runes dont like me lol (its a normal ranged attack, so you get rerolls, and i still get blanks lol)

If i were to say one of my games WAS decided by dice rolls it was me getting an Accuracy to pick off an executioner before he could Execute my hero: which is a singular roll.

Even my regular opponent feels the same way. When we lose it is usually because we either did something stupid or an upgrade combo didnt work like we thought it did, not because dice hated us. I am liking this discovery as when the game isnt heavily weighed by one player's dice constantly rolling blanks, even if you lose you still have fun because youre still doing SOMETHING....its when you get crushed when it sucks to lose.

The dice are pretty forgiving for the attacker, as you said. Having extra ranks really ups the chances of having good results, and there aren't any defense tokens or dice to hamper your results. The game is pretty brutal when units start hitting each other.

Which is a good thing given the 'engage' mechanic. You don't want units tied up for 5 rounds just swinging -- that's pretty boring.

I'll add on another pleasant discovery: Squaring up and removing trays. It's very convenient to pull away your defending unit to remove trays and then re-square them up how they previously were. Makes bumping and moving far less of a problem when you have a reference point to re-square to.

The big thing I noticed when testing it compared to X-Wing is that there's only one set of dice. Only the attacker rolls, so there's no risk of getting a really good roll on the attack and them getting a really good roll on the defence and you just shrugging and saying welp I guess that didn't work. You know in advance if you're attacking a high defence unit, and the risks are easier to judge.

It's the first big minis game I've seen go down to that low number of dice passes - most do attack and defence, several do attack defence and save, some even add a fourth layer, and the more layers you egt, the less variance - but also the more chance of signifying nothing much, with a lot of sound and fury.

It does feel weird rolling so few dice i'll admit. I play orks/tau in 40k, both armies roll a bucket of dice when they attack lol. But it cuts down drastically on the luck, since for instance Orks usually rely on numbers to overcome their bad stats (needing a 5+ on a D6 to hit with a ranged attack) they can sometimes bust the odds and get like 80% or better hits, when statistically they should have had like 30% lol. Ive had that happen, and its hilarious.

Armada also doesnt have any defense dice, but it does have defense tokens and a fair number of upgrades that help too. So far in RWM ive seen one card that functions reactively to help defense and thats Shield Wall, which isnt a blanket fix since it has a tray requirement.

I like the fact that combat is pretty fast. You're not spending tokens to change results, only deciding on rerolls. The defender isn't making any decisions (mostly) -- it just hums along.

Though I think the best mechanic this game added / iterated on is the variable initiative system from the command dial. I really enjoy that decision making process.

It's interesting, but in a way, having fewer dice results in less variance, not more. If you were chucking five red dice, then you would roll "average" much more often, but really good and really bad rolls would be a lot more extreme. With two dice, the variation between a good Rolland a bad one is like three hits, not ten.

I have actually had several games decided om a Dice roll. Either someone needed just One more damage to kill the enemy bounty unit or One surge to trigger something.

It's few dice and slit of redan rolls in this game bit it is as much a dice game like any other IF you ask me

IMO, you are less prone to notice "bad" dice rolls because you're rolling so few dice.

I had a unit of knights with moment of inspiration roll up, morale, blank, accuracy, and double surge.

Did zero damage, despite having 3 of the 4 facing showing something.

I think it's those extra facings. Accuracy you can't use (due to lack of target, or enough hits to wound target), morale which turns into no noticeable effect, or surges that you cannot effectively spend.

It's easy to mentally justify: "It's not like I rolled 8 1's to hit and 5 1's to wound; I just didn't have the right equipment, and it's the panic deck that failed me, not the dice."

For me the dice are the "Fog of war" factor.

You can maneuver, hit, and fight. But in the end its your troops that fight and how well do it.

As the General you roll the dice and there is the results.

@jocke01 your autocorrect is hilarious!

22 minutes ago, jocke01 said:

I have actually had several games decided om a Dice roll. Either someone needed just One more damage to kill the enemy county united or One surge to trigger something.

It's few dice and slit of redan rolls in this game bit it is as much a dice game like any other IF you ask me

As to the OP, I look forward to getting more games in to see for myself, but I can already tell that movement decisions and being unpredictable wins games. Glad it's not a "make dice better" fest...yet.

Yeah, the most important aspect of the game seems to be correct maneuvering by far.

I'd say dice are less a factor as you either A have small units rolling more or B large uniys with a lot of built in reroll. Built in ReRoll was an excellent choice, and it makes sense laeger units are more consistent. Tjos consistency is where you see 'less bad rolls' as you get many chances to improve. And if you are 'stuck' with the roll, it is likely a choice you made at army building, or you are near dead anyway.

And the initiative war.

Dunno how many times both my normal opponent and i have done something at a low initiative to shaft what we expected was coming. Our last game my 4x1 Cavalry was sitting range2 from his archers, so he gambled i did a 2speed charge forward which would go off before his ranged attack and instead did a Reform at init2. Because of the positioning, rotating his bases 45degrees made my 2fwd charge miss by a **** hair.
Course this is after i threaded the needle with a 3bank charge on Hawthorne earlier and shafted his Ardus' charge lol (had a terrain on one side and my spearmen on the other, i didnt overlap multiple spearmen trays or land on any of them so i made the charge)

Had a rune golem blank out 3 in a row, but that's to be expected with no reroll.

I really like the fast paced dice mechanics of this game, it makes good strategies more important than just 'what throws lots of damage'

I actually think it is a maneuver game way more than a dice game. With the ability to roll small numbers of dice and you get multiplde rerolls, and other ways of manufacturing results, (threat and flanking)

I don’t see it as a dice game at all. I see it as a maneuver game.

I do think that some people don’t understand percentages, probability, statistics, and more with 8 and 12 sided dice, but that is another story.

the 12sided die does throw some people off. Many people are used to the 8sided die thanks to Xwing and Armada, but a D12 far as i know has never been used outside of DND type stuff.
Even still, it only has 1 blank. So when i see Ardus with Reaping Blade i kinda laugh lol...he has a very low chance of getting that

21 minutes ago, Hawktel said:

I actually think it is a maneuver game way more than a dice game. With the ability to roll small numbers of dice and you get multiplde rerolls, and other ways of manufacturing results, (threat and flanking)

A great consequence of the threat mechanic is that larger units look more dangerous, and that bears out in the game mechanics. True, some small units are also surprisingly dangerous, but those are also pretty easy to figure out. It helps when the board state is easy for onlookers to follow what's going on.

35 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

the 12sided die does throw some people off. Many people are used to the 8sided die thanks to Xwing and Armada, but a D12 far as i know has never been used outside of DND type stuff.
Even still, it only has 1 blank. So when i see Ardus with Reaping Blade i kinda laugh lol...he has a very low chance of getting that

And yet I've seen him double blank, also returns value when flanking, and it is a cheap upgrade.

17 minutes ago, Darthain said:

And yet I've seen him double blank, also returns value when flanking, and it is a cheap upgrade.

I'd say you're MUCH better off with Fortuna's dice - the chances of rolling at least one blank on two white dice are about 16%, so you could very plausibly never trigger it in a game. The Dice on the other hand are almost always useful, letting you tune your result for exactly what you need. Plus, mortal strikes aren't always particularly good - worse than a hit against 1-defense targets.

Good call on the flanking die though, it's much better when red dice are being thrown (it's gonna be great on Death Knights)

Yeah red dice are the most likely to wiff.
I've contemplated running a Relic Bearer so i could use it on a spearmen unit, but as Bhelliom mentioned theyre not that valuable against 1armor targets and majority of the time spearmen are hitting reanimates anyway.
Still trying to find a valid use for him. I like to try and find a use for everything no matter how silly because usually in doing so i find a sleeper hit that becomes insane later on.

5 minutes ago, Bhelliom said:

I'd say you're MUCH better off with Fortuna's dice - the chances of rolling at least one blank on two white dice are about 16%, so you could very plausibly never trigger it in a game. The Dice on the other hand are almost always useful, letting you tune your result for exactly what you need. Plus, mortal strikes aren't always particularly good - worse than a hit against 1-defense targets.

Good call on the flanking die though, it's much better when red dice are being thrown (it's gonna be great on Death Knights)

I don't play undead, and Fortunas is my favourite artifact. But it can't do much for the nefarious triple wiff.

I don't have fortunas upgrade. So it's not an option for everyone

2 minutes ago, Ywingscum said:

I don't have fortunas upgrade. So it's not an option for everyone

Makes Kari great against death stars /fig upgrade combos. You start sniping them out no problem. Oh you have a deathcaller? Nope.

You...dont?

It comes in a command box (for both sides). Thats a pretty important box to not have ye

I have both command boxes. I'll have to check again when I get home