I always enjoy reading players thoughts about games before buying so I thought I'd contribute with a little brief description of what we experienced during our first 3 player game of RuneWars.
First thoughts out of the box were really impressive with all the content (as always when it's FFG). The amounts of units and the different races makes me think of Heroes of Might and Magic and Age of Empires in combination.
Which I kinda would put it as with this game, a somewhat mixture of them. I got a few StarCraft TBG vibes here and there but only a few.
The randomization of the game board is really awesome and it makes each game round a bit different with new important parts to take control of for various tactical advantages. The distinct different races with their own attitude and feel are also awesome. Even though they are only 4 different ones (5-6 would be a bit nicer since usually we are 5-6 players on our gaming nights).
Beasts really feels crazy with bloodlust and they sacrifice their own units to deal monstrous damage if lucky. Elves have that classy finesse feel when they crackshot and take down targets as so the player chooses. The undead die like flies, but come back as fast when they resurrect their units and spread fear with their undead knights. The humans feels like a very solid race with hard hitting militia and brute strenght siege towers. I also enjoyed their massive defensive capabilities when building strongholds!
The different strategies during a single year are astronomical. And I love how you have 8 different orders and choose one different order during each season. Really hurt when you did a mistake.
The resource gathering and zone controling was enjoyable. Especially since battles during winter season often resulted in many retreating units that exceeded the allowed limitations of how many units a zone can hold, resulting in many sacrifices since food is so harsh during that specific season.
What hurt really much when was I was attacked on a zone providing 3 food. I lost the zone, then my opponent played the pillage tactic making him gain +3 food while I immediately lost 3 food. Which hurt like crazy since it was winter and 6 units had to be sacrificed as a result! I was devestated.
Heroes really are a bit strange in this game. Even though they had their important roles they still felt like something that could have been worked on some more. It feels super strange as heroes may walk the board unstoppable and even move through entire enemy armies without anyone being capable of beating them. I laughed as my hero walked all the way to the opponents main base and completed a quest there.
The collecting of dragon runes was not so much focused on when we played. We mostly just cared about fighting eachother and giving revenge for previous attacks. It was about near the end of the last year when we noted that some really were near victory by controlling 6 runes. The heroes might not have had as much importance for dragon rune hunting as I thought. Sure they can move anywhere and look at all runes, but then it felt really rare as they actually practically recieved runes by themselves.
What also was hilarious were all the typos everywhere and that ALL cities were misprinted originally
Thankfully a replacement sheet followed in the package to correct this. And the entire faction sheet for the elves was also replaced since it had a typo in it aswell.
The only typos that arent corrected are the map tiles which shows too many giants that should be placed on the game board at the start of the game. Took us some time to look it up on the net which zone that should have 2 and which 2 zones that only should have 1.
I'm really looking forward to the next game round though
I love the "empire management" and many different strategies and that it is so much you can do and things to aim for.
I would give this game a 8.5/10 making it my 2'nd fav FFG game under StarCraft
<Then we have the rules questions I would like to know more about>
Q1: I attacked an opponent who had only routed units. He then played a retreat tactic before combat canceling the combat and made it possible for him to retreat all units in the zone. It also said that the retreating units WOULD NOT BE ROUTED. Does this mean the routed units gets to escape without being eliminated?
Q2: Unless specifically stated, dealt damage and routing is always decided by the player struct by them?
Q3: The winter ability to use current food instead of the usual 8 stacking limit is active as long as the winter season is active right?