Just now, Zeelobby said:

Except coming from the non-X-Wing tabletop side of wargaming, people like to have their own factions. Sure I can switch out a Warcaster in Warmachine and my army will play differently, but nobody would have signed on with only Khador and Cygnar as the two options. It is important to many tabletop wargamers. Which is why I hope they expand Legion fast and why I think it's premature to say anything about RW at this point.

Knowing FFG, the waves will come faster than you will be able to keep up with.

Just now, Aurelus said:

That's pure speculation, and most likely false.

Not really speculation. Each command unit even has special cards that even allow a single specific commander to function entirely differently from one game to the next.

10 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Well seeing as the North American RuneWars Championship at Gencon only had an embarrassing turnout of 16 People, I think it's safe to say RuneWars was already being neglected well before Legion came along.

Is that FFG's fault? Can they be held responsible if a game fails to attract a big player base?

10 minutes ago, Dr Zoidberg said:

Is that FFG's fault? Can they be held responsible if a game fails to attract a big player base?

Well, who else could be responsible?

One thing I can say about Legion is that aside from the Star Wars franchise draw, which I think is fairly big and will attract a lot of people, to me and my group the announcement kind of landed flat.

I think the game has two core problems that will prevent it from entering my circles.

First, no one wants to play Rebels. This wasn't an issue with Armada and X-Wing because "space rebels" have a lot of iconic and memorable units (X-Wings, Y-Wings, B-Wings, Corvettes, Nebulon-B's etc..). There is a foundation for a Rebellion in space form that works as a faction for a game. Rebels on the ground however are soooooo incredibly boring and they are so completely irrelevant in the movies. I mean when it comes down to it, Rebels on the ground lost every battle in every scene of every movie, they did little else but run from the Empire. They do not inspire me to represent them on a tactical battlefield and even in the core set they are already pulling from "extended universe content" like the AT like walker which is so super lame.. its like "hey look at us we are as cool as the empire with our two legged walker like thing". I'm not one for predictions but if I was to make one I would say if this game ever goes competitive I would venture to guess that the majority of the people will play Imperials on theme alone.

I actually think this will be a problem for Legion. The Rebellion Foot soldiers is not a good element to pull for Star Wars. That's just my gut feeling on it right now and in my circles out of the dozen or so gamers we have, not a single person is willing to get into this game and play the Rebels and that reaction was instantaneous. It was like "yea I will play it, if I'm empire".

Second and the more obvious one is that we are already collecting and playing Runewars, Armada and X-Wing. I just don't think there is room for a 4th game right now and since we all just dropped a bunch of cash on Runewars and are still waiting to really sink our teeth into as we wait for other factions to be released, I just don't see Legion hitting our group at all.

But BigKahuna you are forgetting Ewoks, once they release them for the Rebels everyone will freak out about those little monsters and from that day on everyone wants to play Rebels and Ewoks and the sun will always shine

2 hours ago, Manchu said:

Well, who else could be responsible?

The Consumer? They're a fickle bunch. Clearly FFG though there was a market for Rune Wars (probably hoping to attract those who abandoned WFB when it turned into Age of Sigmar. Maybe they over estimated how many might be interested in a new game/system. A company will do what it can to attract customers to its products; but they can only do so much. At some point, it's on the consumer.

The problem of RW is that the IP is relativly weak and so a lot of people aren't willing to pay a premium price for unpainted miniatures. And this problem will only get worse, because you can't sustain a playerbase with a weak IP and the miniature market is too saturated with strong IPs, so it's unlikely that they can make RW a strong IP.

Runewars is pretty much over at this point. It failed to release other factions within the timeframe of it being "the thing", now 40k has released, people have dropped it, and its incredibly slow release cycle has killed all the buzz it had. Just too timid of a release schedule.

No tabletop has ever recovered from a weak release like this, and FFG are known to just axe underperforming brands, so people around here are unwilling to invest because its already pretty much dead.

Maybe a 2nd edition in a few years can do something, but they tried to come for the King (GW) and missed.

6 minutes ago, Kaiju said:

Runewars is pretty much over at this point. It failed to release other factions within the timeframe of it being "the thing", now 40k has released, people have dropped it, and its incredibly slow release cycle has killed all the buzz it had. Just too timid of a release schedule.

No tabletop has ever recovered from a weak release like this, and FFG are known to just axe underperforming brands, so people around here are unwilling to invest because its already pretty much dead.

Maybe a 2nd edition in a few years can do something, but they tried to come for the King (GW) and missed.

I don't think that a 2nd edition would change anything. The setting is too bland, the miniatures are good (but there are better ones) and rules don't carry a miniature game. I think it is more likely that they will release a L5R miniature game to fill the fantasy niche (and kill the RW miniature game completely).

Why are you talking about killing a brand new game like Rune Wars Miniatures that been out for less then 6 months - the weak part of RW is that the lore is not there yet, just give it time to build up the game lore and it will be a good game in time - with each army release and army general there should be more lore added to the game. For the people who say the lore of the game is not important then I will direct you to GW, they understand the importance of lore that's why over the year's we got lore in each Army book/Codex as well as the books comics and in White Dwarf - it helps to promote the game and give us an insight of each army and commanders of the army's.

People after watching the Star Wars movies & cartoons, reading the books and comics know the Star Wars univerise where as the people know very little about Terrinoth and the Rune Wars IP at this time.

There is room for both Rune Wars Miniatures and Star Wars Legion in the gaming world just like GW as Age of Sigmar and 40K

21 minutes ago, Torg said:

Why are you talking about killing a brand new game like Rune Wars Miniatures that been out for less then 6 months - the weak part of RW is that the lore is not there yet, just give it time to build up the game lore and it will be a good game in time - with each army release and army general there should be more lore added to the game. For the people who say the lore of the game is not important then I will direct you to GW, they understand the importance of lore that's why over the year's we got lore in each Army book/Codex as well as the books comics and in White Dwarf - it helps to promote the game and give us an insight of each army and commanders of the army's.

People after watching the Star Wars movies & cartoons, reading the books and comics know the Star Wars univerise where as the people know very little about Terrinoth and the Rune Wars IP at this time.

There is room for both Rune Wars Miniatures and Star Wars Legion in the gaming world just like GW as Age of Sigmar and 40K

The problem isn't that there is little lore (which is untrue given the different board games), but that RW doesn't have a niche in the current miniature market.

3 hours ago, BigKahuna said:

One thing I can say about Legion is that aside from the Star Wars franchise draw, which I think is fairly big and will attract a lot of people, to me and my group the announcement kind of landed flat.

I think the game has two core problems that will prevent it from entering my circles.

First, no one wants to play Rebels. This wasn't an issue with Armada and X-Wing because "space rebels" have a lot of iconic and memorable units (X-Wings, Y-Wings, B-Wings, Corvettes, Nebulon-B's etc..). There is a foundation for a Rebellion in space form that works as a faction for a game. Rebels on the ground however are soooooo incredibly boring and they are so completely irrelevant in the movies. I mean when it comes down to it, Rebels on the ground lost every battle in every scene of every movie, they did little else but run from the Empire. They do not inspire me to represent them on a tactical battlefield and even in the core set they are already pulling from "extended universe content" like the AT like walker which is so super lame.. its like "hey look at us we are as cool as the empire with our two legged walker like thing". I'm not one for predictions but if I was to make one I would say if this game ever goes competitive I would venture to guess that the majority of the people will play Imperials on theme alone.

I actually think this will be a problem for Legion. The Rebellion Foot soldiers is not a good element to pull for Star Wars. That's just my gut feeling on it right now and in my circles out of the dozen or so gamers we have, not a single person is willing to get into this game and play the Rebels and that reaction was instantaneous. It was like "yea I will play it, if I'm empire".

Second and the more obvious one is that we are already collecting and playing Runewars, Armada and X-Wing. I just don't think there is room for a 4th game right now and since we all just dropped a bunch of cash on Runewars and are still waiting to really sink our teeth into as we wait for other factions to be released, I just don't see Legion hitting our group at all.

Maybe you are right....but I LOVE the rebel forces. These arnt massive pitched battles, they are smaller skirmishes, the type where the rebels would hit and run...achieving their objective.

As a Kid I loved the camo Rebel Commandos in Jedi and I cant wait to get and paint them for this!!

3 hours ago, Kaiju said:

Runewars is pretty much over at this point. It failed to release other factions within the timeframe of it being "the thing", now 40k has released, people have dropped it, and its incredibly slow release cycle has killed all the buzz it had. Just too timid of a release schedule.

No tabletop has ever recovered from a weak release like this, and FFG are known to just axe underperforming brands, so people around here are unwilling to invest because its already pretty much dead.

Maybe a 2nd edition in a few years can do something, but they tried to come for the King (GW) and missed.

Lol @ all of this.

To be honest, no miniature game has had a strong impervious IP within the first 6 months (unless they've rented one like Legion). I think many people have unrealistic expectations for RW, possibly because of X-Wing. If you look at the start of any other tabletop wargame, they've all started out with a small player base that's grown over many years (even Warhammer). Even newly kick-started games can take a while to really take off (though they do achieve greater initial sales thanks to uninformed faith). This is true for all the tabletop games we have today, with X-Wings being an exception (thanks to it's rented IP).

Honestly I hope FFG realizes this and attempts to grow RW over the next 3/4 years rather than throw in the towel. I think the game system is honestly quite amazing, and the miniatures are solid. Would be a shame if the mentality was adopted that all miniature games going forward had to be built on existing (well known) IP to succeed, as all we'd end up with is a Hollywood state of remakes.

So since nobody was able to answer my question about Kings of War at GENCON, I went and looked: they had a ton of people. In all likelihood, that is where the potential Runewars players that FFG thought they could attract actually ended up. I know Kings of War and my already sizable collection of Fantasy miniatures stopped me from doing so. By and large, I don't think Runewars players are Fantasy holdovers. I bet they're mostly FFG fans that tried something a little different. The bulk of the Fantasy crowd that wanted to keep playing a rank and file Fantasy game went to Kings of War. If you don't understand why that is, then you probably didn't play Fantasy at the end.

Here's how the end of Fantasy went down. GW released the super secretive AoS ruleset, which dumped everything that Fantasy used to be into a 40k style skirmish game. If you like it, I harbor no judgment upon you. It just simply wasn't close to the game that was. Many players were scrambling to find a replacement. There were some fan based initiatives, but Mantic was the first business into the breach after Fantasy collapsed. They created a tight ruleset that plays very smoothly. Most importantly, they explicitly created army lists for former Warhammer Fantasy armies. That cannot be stressed enough. First and foremost they went for players, not customers. While we players might love that, it was an extremely risky business proposition. They had no guarantee that anyone would buy a damned thing from them besides a rule book. It looks like it's paying off. That's why I shrugged at Runewars: I already had miniatures and I already had a ruleset. Even if I liked the game system better, I didn't want to re-buy and re-paint a whole new set of models all over.

And yes, I'm looking at Legion. Why? Because 40k jumped the shark for me long ago. They haven't made a good ruleset in a while and I sold off my old models. Legion looks to be a game I always wanted, and I don't currently play a game that competes with that niche. So please, don't kid yourself that Runewars is in any way impacted by Legion. IA has a right to gripe. I get that. Runewars does not.

11 hours ago, Zeelobby said:

Except coming from the non-X-Wing tabletop side of wargaming, people like to have their own factions.

There are really only room for three factions in a game like Legion. Imperials, Rebels and Scum & Villainy. Of course that 3rd one may or may not show up.

In Star Wars the tech is pretty homologous, especially on the ground there really isn't much difference between the types of blasters carried by different troops, and there isn't a huge difference in vehicles either. A lightsaber is a lightsaber no matter who has it.

So there just isn't room in this game for the different kinds of play style you get with a game like 40k or Warmahordes. Even if you include some sort of S&V, they aren't going to be drastically different play styles, since they too use the same basic tech. Sure you may have Mando's or something that have some tricks, or maybe a squad of Wookie's or something. But this game will be much more like Bolt Action with slight differences in the nations then 40k where Orks play completely different from Tau which are completely different from Eldar.

7 hours ago, BigKahuna said:

One thing I can say about Legion is that aside from the Star Wars franchise draw, which I think is fairly big and will attract a lot of people, to me and my group the announcement kind of landed flat.

I think the game has two core problems that will prevent it from entering my circles.

First, no one wants to play Rebels. This wasn't an issue with Armada and X-Wing because "space rebels" have a lot of iconic and memorable units (X-Wings, Y-Wings, B-Wings, Corvettes, Nebulon-B's etc..). There is a foundation for a Rebellion in space form that works as a faction for a game. Rebels on the ground however are soooooo incredibly boring and they are so completely irrelevant in the movies. I mean when it comes down to it, Rebels on the ground lost every battle in every scene of every movie, they did little else but run from the Empire. They do not inspire me to represent them on a tactical battlefield and even in the core set they are already pulling from "extended universe content" like the AT like walker which is so super lame.. its like "hey look at us we are as cool as the empire with our two legged walker like thing". I'm not one for predictions but if I was to make one I would say if this game ever goes competitive I would venture to guess that the majority of the people will play Imperials on theme alone.

I actually think this will be a problem for Legion. The Rebellion Foot soldiers is not a good element to pull for Star Wars. That's just my gut feeling on it right now and in my circles out of the dozen or so gamers we have, not a single person is willing to get into this game and play the Rebels and that reaction was instantaneous. It was like "yea I will play it, if I'm empire".

Second and the more obvious one is that we are already collecting and playing Runewars, Armada and X-Wing. I just don't think there is room for a 4th game right now and since we all just dropped a bunch of cash on Runewars and are still waiting to really sink our teeth into as we wait for other factions to be released, I just don't see Legion hitting our group at all.

You're not wrong, but I would also add that Star Wars doesn't have enough interesting factions in it without serious shoehorning. FFG underestimated how important having many factions in a war game is with RuneWars and here we are. After the Empire and Rebellion, you have to start forcing factions in that are just thematically stupid, like "Scum". I think Legion is going to be far more successful than RuneWars despite this, because the Star Wars license just prints money, but I don't think that it will seriously draw players away from other wargaming, I think it will just bring in droves of board gamers and Star Wars fans.

7 hours ago, BigKahuna said:

they are so completely irrelevant in the movies. I mean when it comes down to it, Rebels on the ground lost every battle in every scene of every movie, they did little else but run from the Empire.

Honestly that is their strength. They are fighting a losing battle the struggle the underdog if you will is what the rebels represent. That thing in all of us that says we can't but we get off our asses and show the world we can. They succeeded in the Battle of Scarif winning by effectively starting the destruction of the Empire and the formation of the Rebellion. They also succeeded on the forest moon of Endor destroying the shield generator and making the Death star destructible both of those were ground battles. Yes many Bothans will die but their noble sacrifice is what makes us love the rebels so much. That quirky band of people willing to stand up for the basic rights of freedom from the tyranny of the Empire's reign. Never forget your might Empire was effectively ended by teddy bears.

12 minutes ago, Shadin said:

You're not wrong, but I would also add that Star Wars doesn't have enough interesting factions in it without serious shoehorning.

6 minutes ago, porkins_dietician said:

Alovack Rebel Clan, Clan Fett, Commerce Jedi Rebels, Commerce Guild, Confederacy of Independent Systems, Corporate Alliance, Dark Lords of the Sith, Death Watch, Dark Regions of the Sith, First Order, Free Ryloth movement, Galactic Empire, Galactic Republic, Gungan Grand Army, Hutts, Intergalactic Banking Clan, Jedi Order, Lothal Rebels, Mandalorian Clans, Nightbrothers, Nightsisters, Nite Owls, Rebel Alliance, The Resistance, Shadow Collective, Techno Union, Trade Federation, Tusken Raiders, Twi'lek Freedom Fighters, The 2nd Dark Order, The Dark Army, The Prince Army, The 2nd Dark Army, 3rd Dark Order, Frailger Alliance, Second Order, Yuuzhan Vong.

Sure there are some political things in there for giggles I didn't take out. I mean nobody really wants to run a banking clan army and I would hope they steer way clear of the Vong, but I feel like there are enough factions in star wars that are more than interesting material to pull from. That certainly isn't a comprehensive list just a quick google search.

I think maybe you are putting to much emphasis on unique factions. There is one conflict in Star Wars lightside vs darkside is what it really boils down too. Good guys vs bad guys. That being said there are many opportunities to flesh out armies with several outlying clans the nightsisters could easily provide a boost to an imperial army or the Mandalorians could join up each one giving unique abilities and strategies to the battle. The rebels could get squads of Bothans Twileks or various other alien races with unique abilities and none of that is "shoehorning". IMO.

I did see and sort of agree with an opinion on this forum that I hope they stay away from species specific armies like here is a squad of this alien and there is a squad of that alien, but that may be hard to avoid. I am for one excited to play a miniatures game whose lore and characters I am invested in totally.

Yeah but FFG never uses those factions. It's always Rebels vs Imperials, and then in X-Wing they got desperate and shoehorned in Scum.

Wargames can't put too much emphasis on unique factions, you have to have a lot of them and go beyond the Good vs Evil trope and give everyone a faction they can identify with and be excited about. How successful do you think Warhammer 40k would be if the entire game was Ultramarines vs Death Guard? There's factions within the factions, so everyone can find something that speaks to them and keeps them interested in the game and setting for the long-term. And when they get tired of that, there's plenty of others to pick and choose from to try something new.

3 minutes ago, Shadin said:

Yeah but FFG never uses those factions. It's always Rebels vs Imperials, and then in X-Wing they got desperate and shoehorned in Scum.

Wargames can't put too much emphasis on unique factions, you have to have a lot of them and go beyond the Good vs Evil trope and give everyone a faction they can identify with and be excited about. How successful do you think Warhammer 40k would be if the entire game was Ultramarines vs Death Guard? There's factions within the factions, so everyone can find something that speaks to them and keeps them interested in the game and setting for the long-term. And when they get tired of that, there's plenty of others to pick and choose from to try something new.

Yeah I hear you you certainly aren't wrong. As an obvious Star Wars fanatic I can tell you this game is a dream come true and there are a lot of us who will continue to pour in because we are invested in this universe. As someone who played 40k Orcs Nids Marines Necs I went around the table to find an army I could get into without success. I moved to Warmahordes for something different and actually found some factions I identified with.

This however is Star Wars a universe that has a fairly successful film and book and cartoon and toilet paper business model that is far more penetrating and established than 40k will ever see. We will buy the box just to have the minis with no intention of ever playing the game. We are an invested and often times rabid fan base that consumes anything with the name on it. We will buy the minis to use in RPG's or just to sit on the shelf painted like models. We dress up like the characters and grew up swinging sticks at each other while humming and clashing. No 40k wouldn't make it if that were the extent of the game but Star Wars I would argue certainly can.

Now long term you might have me there, hopefully they can solve that but I can tell you in the beginning you may want to preorder this one.

1 minute ago, porkins_dietician said:

We will buy the box just to have the minis with no intention of ever playing the game

To be fair, i almost did that for IA

I'm glad i didnt.

Just now, Vineheart01 said:

To be fair, i almost did that for IA

I'm glad i didnt.

Give me the app already.....

Just now, porkins_dietician said:

Yeah I hear you you certainly aren't wrong. As an obvious Star Wars fanatic I can tell you this game is a dream come true and there are a lot of us who will continue to pour in because we are invested in this universe. As someone who played 40k Orcs Nids Marines Necs I went around the table to find an army I could get into without success. I moved to Warmahordes for something different and actually found some factions I identified with.

This however is Star Wars a universe that has a fairly successful film and book and cartoon and toilet paper business model that is far more penetrating and established than 40k will ever see. We will buy the box just to have the minis with no intention of ever playing the game. We are an invested and often times rabid fan base that consumes anything with the name on it. We will buy the minis to use in RPG's or just to sit on the shelf painted like models. We dress up like the characters and grew up swinging sticks at each other while humming and clashing. No 40k wouldn't make it if that were the extent of the game but Star Wars I would argue certainly can.

Now long term you might have me there, hopefully they can solve that but I can tell you in the beginning you may want to preorder this one.

Oh yeah, Legion is going to sell great. My only point is that I don't think it's going to cannibalize other wargames, or even cannibalize RuneWars. The Star Wars fanbase is large enough and fanatical enough to keep the game afloat despite the missteps that Fantasy Flight makes in miniature wargames. There's a reason why RuneWars isn't doing so hot and X-Wing is, despite suffering from some of the same missteps.