3 hours ago, DesignXception said:

As an owner of Runewars Miniature game and someone who believes that it has a fantastic ruleset, I have to admit that it is not looking too promising for a lucrative future for Runewars. Based on my observations, the game struggled out of the gate for reasons such as a generic fantasy setting with no established lore or hook to get people to initially buy in. Unfortunately, no amount of lore matters if no one is really interested in that lore. There were a lot a fence sitters waiting to see what happens to the game in terms of factions. Then 40k 8 ^th edition was launched and some of those fence sitters jumped on that band wagon and bought into that. Now there is no interest in Runewars in my area at all. Stock is sitting on my local store’s shelf not moving and no one is playing it. 40k and X-wing dominate the miniature scene here with some AoS and Armada sprinkled in. However, the news of Legion has everyone excited because it’s a Star Wars miniatures game. I expect Legion is going to do very well in my area as it will in other places. While there are other obvious signs that Runewars is not doing well such as lack of any real social media coverage such as battle reports, dedicated websites, podcasts, or even significant forum chatter, the bottom line for FFG will be profit and is Runewars as a product line turning enough profit to warrant devoting significant design and manufacturing resources to it which there is only a finite supply. Of course FFG is not going to announce that Runewars is not selling well and cause panic. As a business they have product they want to sell to recover costs. They have never announced the discontinuation of support for a product line outside of losing an IP license (ex. the Warhammer license)….it just happens and people figure it out after a while when there is no new product announcements. At Gen Con they stated there is more to come but didn’t reveal anything that hasn’t been revealed already. This is probably indicative of them still assessing the market for Runewars and not comfortable to committing to future product releases at this time by exposing any more details. Its only solid business practice any business would employ. Will Runewars outright die….probably not….FFG will release the products for the other two factions that have already been announced to flush out the game. I suspect you won’t see much more expansions after that as lack of profits will dictate that and resources will be spent on Legion instead since that will be a license to print money for them for the for the next several years. Heck the Lathari Elves core expansion just dropped this past week and there is hardly any chatter in this forum about it let alone around the internet. This was supposed to be one of the milestones that was going to get fence sitters into the game per other’s opinions. The Legion forum just opened here on this website on Friday and there is already over 3,000 posts. The Runewars forum has been open for a year and only has just north of 21,000 posts. Clear sign of the difference in interest levels between the two games. My guess Runewars will follow the same path as Battlelore 2.0 and new expansions releases will just taper off as FFG’s resources are put into more lucrative product lines such as Legion. That has always been FFG’s mode of operation…they will quickly swing the axe and kill a product that’s not turning a projected profit for them. That said no one is going to come to your home and take away your Runewars Miniatures. It’s only a game after all and if you enjoy playing it or any other game for that matter then continue to enjoy it. “Hobby games” such as 40k, Runewars, or Legion require a large investment of time and money and as such come with investment risks that you need to be willing to take. Right now Star Wars Legion is the new hotness and unfortunately Runewars already had its window of opportunity and it fizzled commercially. To think otherwise is being ignorant.

I wish I could *superlike* this post.

I played a ton of WHFB (I haven't played Wrath of Kings) and I truly believe that FFG combined the best aspects of IA, X-Wing and Armada into RuneWars. In WHFB, you really couldn't adjust your battleline and if you suffered a lucky round of fire, then you knew you lost in Turn 2. RuneWars is fast (games will take a little over an hour) because once your dial is out, you know what you are going to do. (It's rare that you will have a "turn charge" with two equally viable targets to add more decision-making time.) The events I've been to... the promos include alt art but new battlefields and scenarios to play with.

Sure, we don't know all the details from Legion yet, but from what I've pieced together, I think RuneWars is the better tactical game (e.g., positioning). RuneWars is definitely a WHFB killer.

That being said, of the local FB groups... Runewars is about 67 and Legion is already at 208!

Locally, it seems like the X-Wing crowd gravitate more towards Legion than Armada. On that alone, I think Legion is the safer bet to show up to a FLGS and have someone to play with. Meeting new folks and getting to play games trumps everything else.

That being said, I asked the locals at my FLGS... it's mostly a 40k and Infinity store and the 40k folks aren't switching. I'm not so sure if Legion can beat 40k but I definitely think it will capture the X-Wing crowd (and whatever is left of the IA crowd) and probably the RW crowd that was waiting for the Latari and Uthuk... if RW had more units out in the wild before the Legion announcement...

Personally, I was going to get Latari (I have the army box) but I think I will get the Legion core and wait on the sidelines to see how things pan out.

Like I previously stated, I made the investment in Runewars and all of its expansions to date because I like the game and would love to see it be very successful. In response to the solicitation from the original poster I offered what I would consider my realistic impression on the current market situation concerning the game. This is based on my experiences not only with Runewars but with FFG as a long time customer of theirs and my understanding and experiences of business practices. I understand not everyone will share the same impressions. I applaud those who are more optimistic then I am. I don't have the time or interest to create web based content promoting this game or any other for that matter. I respect those that have the talent and desire to do so from both professional sites such as TC, BoW, BoLS, etc. and the independent Youtubers. I'm a firm believer that social media support goes a long way in supporting and maintaining interest in a game such as Runewars that needs community to thrive and be successful. My observations are that there is a significant lack of social media support for Runewars that is indicative of not a large "buy-in" or interest in the game which in turn will impact its future. Not everything needs to be supported by data and analysis to be considered a realistic viewpoint or opinion. There are counter opinions for every opinion and thats ok and healthy for constructive discussion. Once again i hope Runewars does well....I have a lot invested into the game.

3 hours ago, DesignXception said:

*snip* or even significant forum chatter...

TheLegion forum just opened here on this website on Friday and there is already over 3,000 posts. The Runewars forum has been open for a year and only has just north of 21,000 posts. Clear sign of the difference in interest levels between the two games.

First off, I would argue that most of the posts on the Legion forums are not significant. Same with X-wing. I find that the Runewars forums are nice because it's fans who are posting, not would-be fans complaining about how the game isn't the way they wish it was.

Second, Runewars doesn't have to be as big as X-wing or Legion to be successful. It can find it's own place for a smaller crowd and still have a long life.

And finally, to you and others, PLEASE stop posting doom and gloom predictions. PLEASE. It is the antithesis of building the community. Keep these thoughts inside, and instead focus on praising the game. Somebody upthread said the worry posts indicate that people love the game and would be sad if it had a short life. True as that may be, let's focus on sharing the fun with our friends, or making new friends, and expand our communities.

Thank you.

X-Wing was not popular in the beginning in my area. I had a majority of stuff even after a couple waves and thought the game was dead and sold it all. Much later it picked up and is now huge. I would never had called it at the time and looking back would have liked to have stayed in.

That said, the game is doing well for what it is. Yes, it hasn't really cracked into the deep lore of Terrinoth. Humans versus Undead is a pretty classic confrontation and even though some would call it boring, that design and the mechanics have sold out the first printing. When the lore really kicks in (and it already has with Latari), it'll get bigger and more interesting. More people will be drawn in. Uthuk will probably be the best thing to happen to the game because of their uniqueness.

Legion will take time to build. Assuming we see the core and a couple supporting box sets at launch, there will still be the overall price to consider. Rumors have it that you'll likely need 2+ core boxes to meet standard play and if there are limited supporting box sets to help get to the 800pt army requirement, people are gonna have to drop some serious money. Meanwhile, RW will have four armies out with tons of supplemental material. And definitely more previews and upcoming releases by early 2018.

I feel good about the future of RW. As mentioned it's a FFG IP, so no overhead there. It will only help to further develop the Terrinoth world, so only helps FFG establish their product spanning lore. It's got a reasonably good price point with relatively easy buy-in for expansions. And I'm honestly hooked and optimistic.

I am considering jumping into RW because of the Legion announcement, actually. While I love SW, RW seems to me like the better game. I will buy into RW in the next month or so and I do hope that it doesn't die. My hope is that people who play Legion might turn to RW to scratch their fantasy rank and file itch. While the minis may not be up to GW levels, the actual game seems better to me, and I hope that it lives long and prospers.

11 hours ago, davepaulstanley said:

Anyone have any feedback on what kind of player support they're getting in their areas? I'm a part of a Facebook group for local players and all of the stores in the Kansas City area are really struggling to find players to join up. My local store doesn't even carry any Runewars Miniatures products. One other store is now offering all RMG products at a discount in order to shed inventory.

For what it's worth, I painted the entire starter set along with the first infantry upgrades for both factions. I love the game, played it twice locally, then a bunch with my kids. Then summer hit and my gaming schedule overall diminished quite a bit because of outdoor activities. I honestly don't know if it's going to be worth it to sink more money into it, especially, frankly with SW Legion coming out in the relatively near future.

Is anyone else out there worried about the future of this game? Are we headed downhill quickly or will it pick up?

Kansas City is a short, eight hour and thirty seven minute drive from Denver. Swing by for a game some time!

Seriously though, Denver had a fast start and then hit a bit of a lag, especially facing competition from a new edition of 40k, Star Wars Destiny, and a new wave of X-Wing just shortly after it launched. I'm hoping that FFG will keep up its investment for the long term and I do think that once all of the factions are launched and FFG supports organized play I earnest, we'll see a new uptick.

Seriously though, swing be Denver for a game sometime.

Went to my FLGS tonight and noticed they put all of the RW small box expansions on the 50% off shelf. They are selling them for $12.50 and nobody is buying them. That says it all for me.

I really like the game, but I don't want to further invest in something that isn't sticking around. Plus, as a new comer to 40k this summer, I find it is a better hobby in basically every way. Just my opinion.

There is no space and time for any single game released by a big company and some FLGS will support the game, some other don't. Maybe you prefer Legion or AoS, that's fine just leave this forum and enjoy other games. We are fine with that.

Not any single game can be so much popular as X-Wing is nowadays. Here FFG with RW is hit the selves with a new line of product, not a boardgame (I consider Armada as another wargame of FFG, but it get a lot of revenue from X-Wing), all wargames takes time to be a success (or not). Probably your FLGS just want to support the popular games: AoS, WH40k, X-Wing, Destiny, maybe Infinity and Warmahordes.

We have to remember that this game was released in April, that's 5 months for a wargame!!! what do people expect?

Here in Spain we are just waiting for tournament kits, nothing has been published yet. As soon as the material is received we will started to do tournaments and show more the game in FLGS, I know this community is going to grow. Just sit, wait and see. And in the mean time enjoy the game!

12 hours ago, DesignXception said:

Much snipage

As an owner of Runewars Miniature game and someone who believes that it has a fantastic ruleset, I have to admit that it is not looking too promising for a lucrative future for Runewars.

Building a gaming community takes time and hard work. When I started 40k in '93 we had 1 army between us. We scrounged coins to get a second army and then rotated these between us. In the end we all ended up with an army a few years down the track but we continued to rotate armies between us so we could get games.

The same is going to be true with RWs for some time yet. I've just bought my second army, am painting it furiously, then I'm off to my LGS (now backed with social media which we didn't have in the '90s) to sit and wait, play games with strangers using my armies and maybe in a year or two there'll be a community.

I'll be haranguing all of the people I know who used to play Warhammer Fantasy but didn't pick up Age of Sigmar. I'll be going to Warmachine games nights and try to convert that lot. I'm going to work the gaming club circuit with my armies and I am going to bloody well build the community off hard **** work.

Why? Because its a bloody good game.

15 minutes ago, Thornoo1 said:

Why? Because its a bloody good game.

Amen

9 hours ago, IceQube MkII said:

Personally, I was going to get Latari (I have the army box) but I think I will get the Legion core and wait on the sidelines to see how things pan out.

People realize the Legion Core set is like 6 months out still right? Runewars was demoed / announced at GenCon and didn't arrive until April the following year.

1 hour ago, Glucose98 said:

People realize the Legion Core set is like 6 months out still right? Runewars was demoed / announced at GenCon and didn't arrive until April the following year.

Christmas I thought.

Just now, Darthain said:

Christmas I thought.

Take command of your forces and give the order to charge—the Star Wars : Legion Core Set (SWL01) is scheduled to be released in early 2018. Head to your local retailer to pre-order your copy today, or you can place your pre-order with FFG here !

23 minutes ago, Glucose98 said:

Take command of your forces and give the order to charge—the Star Wars : Legion Core Set (SWL01) is scheduled to be released in early 2018. Head to your local retailer to pre-order your copy today, or you can place your pre-order with FFG here !

if you change the name and date to 2017, that is the same line that Runewars had for its "early 1st quarter" april release

10 hours ago, Parakitor said:

And finally, to you and others, PLEASE stop posting doom and gloom predictions. PLEASE. It is the antithesis of building the community. Keep these thoughts inside, and instead focus on praising the game. Somebody upthread said the worry posts indicate that people love the game and would be sad if it had a short life. True as that may be, let's focus on sharing the fun with our friends, or making new friends, and expand our communities.

Thank you.

This...We've been saying this and trying to push it for a while, all the doomsayers are getting annoying TBH, I get that you all think that you are geniuses to be able to read into 5 months worth of metrics, that honestly you probably don't have access to outside of you local areas, but please if you are thinking maybe its time to jump ship then just jump the ship and leave, don't post an essay about how you have connects a, b, and c to show that the end is neigh and that everyone here should listen. The game is in it's infancy, so yeah it is struggling to find it's foot hold, but if you are not willing to put the effort in to build you community than quit whining that you don't have a community but loooooove the game...As one of the people here fighting the uphill battle of getting a community going I'm tired of those posts, and this isn't just coming from some random person that wants a community, Myself and several other people on this forums HAVE been putting out material, podcasts, battle reports, blogs, and the like...So yeah there is that out there but unfortunately with the game in its infancy we can't make a million different reports, or articles because we don't have enough options, which is why everything is a slow build but it is building...

In short, the game is great, work on your community and bide time...Miniature games are slow growing things, x-wing and armada didn't find their legs for about a year or two after they launched, and there was this same "Is armada dead?" talk after wave 1...so quit it because you are hurting the community that you are claiming to want to have.

¬,¬

14 hours ago, DesignXception said:

As an owner of Runewars Miniature game and someone who believes that it has a fantastic ruleset, I have to admit that it is not looking too promising for a lucrative future for Runewars. Based on my observations, the game struggled out of the gate for reasons such as a generic fantasy setting with no established lore or hook to get people to initially buy in. Unfortunately, no amount of lore matters if no one is really interested in that lore. There were a lot a fence sitters waiting to see what happens to the game in terms of factions. Then 40k 8 ^th edition was launched and some of those fence sitters jumped on that band wagon and bought into that. Now there is no interest in Runewars in my area at all. Stock is sitting on my local store’s shelf not moving and no one is playing it. 40k and X-wing dominate the miniature scene here with some AoS and Armada sprinkled in. However, the news of Legion has everyone excited because it’s a Star Wars miniatures game. I expect Legion is going to do very well in my area as it will in other places. While there are other obvious signs that Runewars is not doing well such as lack of any real social media coverage such as battle reports, dedicated websites, podcasts, or even significant forum chatter, the bottom line for FFG will be profit and is Runewars as a product line turning enough profit to warrant devoting significant design and manufacturing resources to it which there is only a finite supply. Of course FFG is not going to announce that Runewars is not selling well and cause panic. As a business they have product they want to sell to recover costs. They have never announced the discontinuation of support for a product line outside of losing an IP license (ex. the Warhammer license)….it just happens and people figure it out after a while when there is no new product announcements. At Gen Con they stated there is more to come but didn’t reveal anything that hasn’t been revealed already. This is probably indicative of them still assessing the market for Runewars and not comfortable to committing to future product releases at this time by exposing any more details. Its only solid business practice any business would employ. Will Runewars outright die….probably not….FFG will release the products for the other two factions that have already been announced to flush out the game. I suspect you won’t see much more expansions after that as lack of profits will dictate that and resources will be spent on Legion instead since that will be a license to print money for them for the for the next several years. Heck the Lathari Elves core expansion just dropped this past week and there is hardly any chatter in this forum about it let alone around the internet. This was supposed to be one of the milestones that was going to get fence sitters into the game per other’s opinions. The Legion forum just opened here on this website on Friday and there is already over 3,000 posts. The Runewars forum has been open for a year and only has just north of 21,000 posts. Clear sign of the difference in interest levels between the two games. My guess Runewars will follow the same path as Battlelore 2.0 and new expansions releases will just taper off as FFG’s resources are put into more lucrative product lines such as Legion. That has always been FFG’s mode of operation…they will quickly swing the axe and kill a product that’s not turning a projected profit for them. That said no one is going to come to your home and take away your Runewars Miniatures. It’s only a game after all and if you enjoy playing it or any other game for that matter then continue to enjoy it. “Hobby games” such as 40k, Runewars, or Legion require a large investment of time and money and as such come with investment risks that you need to be willing to take. Right now Star Wars Legion is the new hotness and unfortunately Runewars already had its window of opportunity and it fizzled commercially. To think otherwise is being ignorant.

Nice try, Games Workshop

Rank-and-flank is a niche. Good as the game is, I don't expect it will ever be as big as 40K or the upcoming Legion. However, the people that want it are likely to be pretty dedicated, so I have no concerns over it vanishing. It won't excel with general appeal, but by being the best game available in the style that people want.

I think FLGS firesales have more to do with core sets being vastly better value than expansions than the game being dead. I split a third core set with my roommate despite only REALLY wanting the Oathsworn because it's like 3.5 expansions worth of minis plus dice and terrain for the price of 2. Spearmen are sitting on the shelf at my FLGS too, but that's hardly the consumer's fault.

Legion is not really the same audience as RWM. It's clearly a stab at stealing 40k players: same low level of strategy, same buckets of dice, same identification with a well defined universe. It's probably marginally better in terms of mechanism but list building and dice rolling will still be what determines the winner

It will pull people away from RWM certainly, but only those who do not like to have a depth of strategy in their games, and those would have left anyway. Fortunately there will be enough of us left to keep the game going strong

14 hours ago, Click5 said:

I was at a small 7 person tournament the other day. There were probably 16 core set boxes spread throughout the game store. The people that are into Runewars seem to be REALLY into the game and buy a lot of product

That's the thing, maybe not the customer base as X-wing, but we spend more.

I bought my elves from LFGS as he pulled it out of the shipping box, I don't know how many he bought, but they are gone.

I know I'm an odd duck and I'm sure that FFG loves me, but I'm not planning on buying and an army, I'm buying and painting them all.

I'm getting elves painted then will buy 3 more Cavalry for Daqan and when the elves expansions come out I'll buy 3 archers and 3 leonx riders and at least one command.

I'll do similar when the Uthuk come out.

As much as I've spent on and will spend on this game, don't worry, it will be fine.

I think “The reports of RW death are greatly exaggerated.” - Mark Twain.

I've taken a break from my lgs recently since it's been tough to get a group together. Instead I've just been playing with family. In the next couple weeks I'll make another push and see what I can make happen. I'll probably repeat this cycle for a least the next year or so and then after that I'll just keep playing in the family group.

So for me at least, the game will be alive and well for at least the next 2 years. If things really don't pick up in that time, then so be it. For now I'm optimistic.

17 minutes ago, Willange said:

I've taken a break from my lgs recently since it's been tough to get a group together. Instead I've just been playing with family. In the next couple weeks I'll make another push and see what I can make happen. I'll probably repeat this cycle for a least the next year or so and then after that I'll just keep playing in the family group.

So for me at least, the game will be alive and well for at least the next 2 years. If things really don't pick up in that time, then so be it. For now I'm optimistic.

I haven't started playing at the FLGS yet either, but I feel like the trick is, to just get 1 friend to play with you, and then just go play it out in public, to draw more attention

1 hour ago, jek said:

This...We've been saying this and trying to push it for a while, all the doomsayers are getting annoying TBH, I get that you all think that you are geniuses to be able to read into 5 months worth of metrics, that honestly you probably don't have access to outside of you local areas, but please if you are thinking maybe its time to jump ship then just jump the ship and leave, don't post an essay about how you have connects a, b, and c to show that the end is neigh and that everyone here should listen. The game is in it's infancy, so yeah it is struggling to find it's foot hold, but if you are not willing to put the effort in to build you community than quit whining that you don't have a community but loooooove the game...As one of the people here fighting the uphill battle of getting a community going I'm tired of those posts, and this isn't just coming from some random person that wants a community, Myself and several other people on this forums HAVE been putting out material, podcasts, battle reports, blogs, and the like...So yeah there is that out there but unfortunately with the game in its infancy we can't make a million different reports, or articles because we don't have enough options, which is why everything is a slow build but it is building...

In short, the game is great, work on your community and bide time...Miniature games are slow growing things, x-wing and armada didn't find their legs for about a year or two after they launched, and there was this same "Is armada dead?" talk after wave 1...so quit it because you are hurting the community that you are claiming to want to have.

¬,¬

12 hours ago, Parakitor said:

First off, I would argue that most of the posts on the Legion forums are not significant. Same with X-wing. I find that the Runewars forums are nice because it's fans who are posting, not would-be fans complaining about how the game isn't the way they wish it was.

Second, Runewars doesn't have to be as big as X-wing or Legion to be successful. It can find it's own place for a smaller crowd and still have a long life.

And finally, to you and others, PLEASE stop posting doom and gloom predictions. PLEASE. It is the antithesis of building the community. Keep these thoughts inside, and instead focus on praising the game. Somebody upthread said the worry posts indicate that people love the game and would be sad if it had a short life. True as that may be, let's focus on sharing the fun with our friends, or making new friends, and expand our communities.

Thank you.

OMG thank you, everyone thinks they're a friggin corporate savant and they don't realize that their doomsaying prophecies can be self fulfilling, especially to their own perspective.

If you like the game, play it. Don't worry about something you can't control, and control what you can... like finding new friends to play with and... *cough* compulsively buying every new expansion.

1 hour ago, Adun42 said:

That's the thing, maybe not the customer base as X-wing, but we spend more.

I bought my elves from LFGS as he pulled it out of the shipping box, I don't know how many he bought, but they are gone.

I know I'm an odd duck and I'm sure that FFG loves me, but I'm not planning on buying and an army, I'm buying and painting them all.

I'm getting elves painted then will buy 3 more Cavalry for Daqan and when the elves expansions come out I'll buy 3 archers and 3 leonx riders and at least one command.

I'll do similar when the Uthuk come out.

As much as I've spent on and will spend on this game, don't worry, it will be fine.

I think “The reports of RW death are greatly exaggerated.” - Mark Twain.

I literally did the same thing. He got two boxes and meant to get 4, so I hope no one else was expecting to get their Elves right away...

I also just picked up another core box so I have equal forces on all sides, sans Elf command expansion :'-(

I probably wont be able to resist buying the Uthuk as well. Love this game, yo.

I love Runewars so much. It's everything I love about x-wing and everything I wish I loved about Warhammer. I originally had no desire to play it because of the painting time investment I knew it would take, but as more and more details about the game-play came out I got hooked. It's an amazing fantasy game with great mechanics and beautiful miniatures that allow for really creative and fun painting.

Legion doesn't have any of the same appeal to me. Armies of generic soldiers holding different guns with boring paint schemes is all I see.

1 hour ago, Wraithist said:

I literally did the same thing. He got two boxes and meant to get 4, so I hope no one else was expecting to get their Elves right away...

I also just picked up another core box so I have equal forces on all sides, sans Elf command expansion :'-(

I probably wont be able to resist buying the Uthuk as well. Love this game, yo.

Uthuk are mine homie.