Is it just me or has Rune Wars started to slow to a crawl? There haven't been any exciting new announcements and new expansions just seem to be slowed to a trickle. Back this summer we were getting teasers for all types of new and interesting units like the Wraiths and Crossbow Daquan, but now? Nothing? What is Rune Wars going to be in 2018?

I think this is our chance to enjoy what we have, and share this game with others. Yes, there were a lot of announcements, but that was completely atypical for FFG product lines. That was strictly done to garner interest and have a visual presence on the homepage. We're entering a more stable, sparse release schedule, I think. Everything is going to be OK. Armada hasn't died yet, and those guys are intimately familiar with complete comms silence from FFG. And they just got some new cool stuff!

As long as we get what we're already expecting and they can manage an expansion or two per faction per year, plus organized play support, I'll be happy.

The game has not reached the models Battle Lore had, except the elven Army, which was never made. there are no exciting Units, not even the roc rider and the banshee from Battle lore, not even the Pegasus rider from runewars boardgame. it is a strange politic to make a tabletop and drop the boardgame for it. Warhammer had the mighty Empires boardgame to develop Scenarios and campaigns. all the Traders in my Country, Germany, are telling me, the game is low selling. so the question is : will ffg creature more exciting models to make the game more attractive or will they drop it ? for battlelore they had the same question: will they make the elven army to make the game more attractive or dro it and they decided to drop it. i fear the miniature game will be dropped too after the ulthuk army. that is the way ffg deal with their products.

@magicrealm You echo a lot of the same thoughts I've had, but there is one thing I hold out hope for. BattleLore's distribution model made it easy for people to grab one of each expansion and be done and the models were really quite cheap (except the neutrals). My hope is that the higher price of Runewars Miniatures, combined with a model that encourages duplicate purchases, means this game can stand on its own for a bit even with less-than-stellar sales.

Yeah I agree they need to speed things up again. Been forever since we even got an article.

Real life has kept me from keeping up with this game the past few months. I have 4 Carrion Lancers still to finish painting from my initial purchases and then my Daqan/Waiqar will be complete, minus the few boxes of Crossbowmen and Death Knights I picked up over the holidays. So I haven't been keeping tabs much lately.

But this game has been out for less than a year, and at a glance at the products page I see there are now 20 expansions available, 23 if you include the dice pack, mat, and essentials. There's another 6 expansions that are in development. Realistically, how much more do people expect? We have 2 well developed factions, the Latari are just missing 1 unit to bring them to the same level, and the recently released Uthuk are catching up.

Destiny is sure to get more attention for now, but the best thing for Runewars is to keep playing and encouraging it at local stores. We have a glimpse of some new specialty units for the Daqan and Waiqar, hopefully they'll announce what's coming for the others soon.

It's letting me catch up on expansions. Just ordered another Scions.

But it would be nice to see the rest of the Uthuk and I am anxiously awaiting the Wraiths and Elven melee infantry.

Maybe it is not the place here to talk about it, but FFg sold their company to Asmodee. This company is only interested in profit. They dont care what product they sell, if potatoes, cars or boardgames. They want money. they will kick project who do not bring money immediately very fast. they do not have the patience to wait for development, they have no understanding about what content will bring more customers and what content will loose customers, the only thing they have in their mind is money (and what they buy with the money, probably no boiardgame).

1 hour ago, magicrealm said:

Maybe it is not the place here to talk about it, but FFg sold their company to Asmodee. This company is only interested in profit. They dont care what product they sell, if potatoes, cars or boardgames. They want money. they will kick project who do not bring money immediately very fast. they do not have the patience to wait for development, they have no understanding about what content will bring more customers and what content will loose customers, the only thing they have in their mind is money (and what they buy with the money, probably no boiardgame).

I think, er, no, I mean, er, yes, but it's all wrong

That is I think I disagree

- Beatles, Strawberry Fields Forever.

You are right, I suspect, they are interested in profit, and if a game was to go on long enough without making one it would be dropped.

I also believe even though the IP was rather universally panned when the game came out (less than a year ago), it is one of the better games out there.

But I do believe they are not solely interested in profit, but putting out a good product for a good value, we have fun, they get to eat and pay their mortgages, everybody wins.

FFG has a good track record and as far as I can tell from interviews and articles I've seen and read, that they themselves are gamers and they have considerable latitude in their operations.

So I'm not ready to buy into the "money-grubbing rat b**tards, 2nd up against the wall when the revolution comes"...type mentality, myself.

Companies are always interested in profit, that's what companies are for. Mission statements are gimmicks, to ideally lead to profit.

Best mission statement I ever heard was: "Have fun, make money".

clear, concise, and easy to measure.

On 1/5/2018 at 3:01 PM, magicrealm said:

Maybe it is not the place here to talk about it, but FFg sold their company to Asmodee. This company is only interested in profit. They dont care what product they sell, if potatoes, cars or boardgames. They want money. they will kick project who do not bring money immediately very fast. they do not have the patience to wait for development, they have no understanding about what content will bring more customers and what content will loose customers, the only thing they have in their mind is money (and what they buy with the money, probably no boiardgame).

FFG is a design studio that is owned by a publisher. Having said that, they are allowed to make their own design decisions and have the freedom to create and produce the products they want. Anything that gets dropped is from a decision within FFG itself and not the parent company.

On 1/5/2018 at 0:00 PM, Daverman said:

Real life has kept me from keeping up with this game the past few months. I have 4 Carrion Lancers still to finish painting from my initial purchases and then my Daqan/Waiqar will be complete, minus the few boxes of Crossbowmen and Death Knights I picked up over the holidays. So I haven't been keeping tabs much lately.

But this game has been out for less than a year, and at a glance at the products page I see there are now 20 expansions available, 23 if you include the dice pack, mat, and essentials. There's another 6 expansions that are in development. Realistically, how much more do people expect? We have 2 well developed factions, the Latari are just missing 1 unit to bring them to the same level, and the recently released Uthuk are catching up.

Destiny is sure to get more attention for now, but the best thing for Runewars is to keep playing and encouraging it at local stores. We have a glimpse of some new specialty units for the Daqan and Waiqar, hopefully they'll announce what's coming for the others soon.

While I understand this perspective, I think that's not the most useful way to approach a miniatures wargame. There are 20 expansions available, but that's not a lot in a format like this where the expectation is that a given player will only play one faction, and maybe collect a second that they just want to paint or occasionally dust off to play against a friend who doesn't have an army of their own.

So that 23 expansions doesn't represent a really broad range of choice, yet. Waiqar and Daqan have 4 units and 2 heroes each to build an army from. Army lists contain 4-7 or so units, on average. Compared to other wargames Rune Wars Miniatures is in its infancy, and has not developed a full product line, which would likely be around 20-30+ units /per faction/ for something like Warhammer 40k.

So while Daqan, Waiqar, and yes, even Latari are playable and interesting, I wouldn't call them well-developed. Uthuk is out, but I wouldn't consider them playable until their unit expansions drop to grant access to their extra upgrades, etc. Buying two army boxes of Uthuk right now is going to be a tightly-constrained list without even the relatively (compared to other games) constrained army building options available to the other three factions right now, and as such only an option for somebody willing to pay a premium to play them Right Now and then pick up the expansions later as well. At the very least, we need those Uthuk expansions to really pitch the game to our friends and try to grow the game during a lull. And it would be easier to answer questions about balance if we could point to a balanced set of available expansions and show that each faction is getting additional attention, so we need the Darnati Warriors for Latari and a unit that hasn't even been announced yet for Uthuk to do that.

The six-week lull or whatever we're going on now hasn't killed Rune Wars yet, but to pretend we can go as long as they feel like waiting without harm is silly.

Yet the most common complaint in the early days (and I say that jokingly as it wasn't even a year ago) was "oh I don't like the humans or undead, when are the elves or other factions coming out?"

They've gone with a breadth vs depth approach for now. How long did X-wing take to be more than 4 ships?I

The complaints still keep coming... elves took too long, where are the dwarves, players are choosing Legion now, etc. Some people seem to want this game to fail. Play the game for what it is, hope for more of you like it. If you don't, that's Ok too.

10 hours ago, kaffis said:

While I understand this perspective, I think that's not the most useful way to approach a miniatures wargame. There are 20 expansions available, but that's not a lot in a format like this where the expectation is that a given player will only play one faction, and maybe collect a second that they just want to paint or occasionally dust off to play against a friend who doesn't have an army of their own.

So that 23 expansions doesn't represent a really broad range of choice, yet.

I'll repeat what Darthain said: all those units only present the illusion of within-faction diversity. Many of the 20+ units in other war games are either completely out classed by other units within the faction, or are niche specialty units that don't see a lot of play. While I think that's okay for upgrade cards, I don't think it's great for unit expansions. I'd rather have fewer, balanced expansions than a bunch of units just for the sake of "diversity."

I will admit that a slow release schedule can get boring or stale to people who play a lot, especially if they stick with one faction. But I don't often read, "I've played this game to death and I need new product because the game got boring." Most of our problems are that we can't get enough games in. I don't quite see how more units faster will help us overcome that hurdle. I guess some people may actually desire to get into the game, but are scared off by low unit count, but in my opinion that's just an excuse they may use, and there are other things holding them back.

Oh, absolutely, Parakitor. With the game design Rune Wars has, 20 units per faction would be a lot of waste. But I could easily see design space for it to accumulate and be a ticket game with, say, ten units per faction.

But when you're used to 20-30 and a poorer, less tightly balanced game design that wastes more units, 3-4 looks like a huge warning sign, especially if there appears to be no haste to release more. It's more about the appearance to outsiders than a problem with the game.

8 minutes ago, kaffis said:

But when you're used to 20-30 and a poorer, less tightly balanced game design that wastes more units, 3-4 looks like a huge warning sign, especially if there appears to be no haste to release more. It's more about the appearance to outsiders than a problem with the game.

I'll grant you that. I still suspect that most people will realize that the game is just getting started, and that more units will come. I mean, if you like what you see, you buy in, right? If you don't like what you see, you can pass.

What I don't want is a list of 20 expansions that are announced, but not yet released. If you see that, and you see that nothing has been released for two months, that's a bad sign. I think that 7 units in the queue is plenty, unless they can print them faster. I do wish the Uthuk would get here sooner because, borrowing my words above, right now we have the "illusion" of 4 factions.

Yeah, the sooner we can get the Darnati and next 5 Uthuk expansions out, the better. We can stand a pause, then, while we wait for the Outriders, Wraiths, and whatever scout-y mobile units I expect the Later and Uthuk will get in that wave. Announcing those two, say once a month after the Latari and Uthuk catch up can you is over and build interest leading up to the summer, then spread their releases over two months in August and September or whatever to stabilize and lock in the metro for Worlds next year. Then start teasing 2019's units at/around Worlds to build and keep momentum, one hopes.

At least, that's what I would do.

So let's just put this out there. Yes things have slowed down the last few months. We have expansions for Uth in particular that we should have had by now.

One must remember that manufacturing in China had a crap ton of problems over the last 3-4 months of 2017. The government there was mandating many a factory shut down.

It's not just Runewars has seen pretty big slow down in the availability of new already announced stuff. Armada is running a good 3-4 months late with Wave 7 for instance. Even Star Wars Legion isn't on time as compared to what was originally being communicated. (December initially, looking like perhaps February) OTOH FFG has a bit of a reputation for running late.

When delays happen, it's easy to get depressed and read things that just aren't there or that the end is near and disaster all around. Dial up a rally everyone. Things just ain't that bad.

1 hour ago, tgall said:

So let's just put this out there. Yes things have slowed down the last few months. We have expansions for Uth in particular that we should have had by now.

One must remember that manufacturing in China had a crap ton of problems over the last 3-4 months of 2017. The government there was mandating many a factory shut down.

It's not just Runewars has seen pretty big slow down in the availability of new already announced stuff. Armada is running a good 3-4 months late with Wave 7 for instance. Even Star Wars Legion isn't on time as compared to what was originally being communicated. (December initially, looking like perhaps February) OTOH FFG has a bit of a reputation for running late.

When delays happen, it's easy to get depressed and read things that just aren't there or that the end is near and disaster all around. Dial up a rally everyone. Things just ain't that bad.

Idk who was hoping December for Legion. I was on the floor at GenCon, running a demo table for the game the day after it was announced and overheard FFG staff telling people Q1 2018.

On 1/9/2018 at 5:13 PM, rowdyoctopus said:

Idk who was hoping December for Legion. I was on the floor at GenCon, running a demo table for the game the day after it was announced and overheard FFG staff telling people Q1 2018.

The original article said Q4 2017, but was quickly changed.

52 minutes ago, Wired4War said:

The original article said Q4 2017, but was quickly changed.

Legion was put on the boat mid-December. Expect it in a hair less than a month.

I am just interpreting this lapse in news as ffg focusing thier resources on Legion. The bottom line however is that of the Uthuk expansions were at the printer in August, they have probably been done now for some time. Businesses don't make money by idling product. I bet they will be on stores soon enough.

12 hours ago, Wired4War said:

The original article said Q4 2017, but was quickly changed.

And FFG was telling people in person Q1. Q4 was obviously a mistake.