I played in my first store championship tournament this weekend. There's a lot to talk about, but I'm waiting until @Tvayumat posts all the lists and results before I go into my comments on my matches. But my last opponent said something that sort of caught me off-guard. He said something along the lines of, "Those Flesh Rippers sure are tanky. It took me a long time to chew through them." I never considered them to be tanky, but it made me consider their roles in previous games, so I thought I would summarize their roles in various games set in the realm of Terrinoth and compare them to the Flesh Rippers of Runewars Miniatures Game.
Runewars (2010)
As far as I can gather, this was the first time Flesh Rippers appeared. They were a 1-health rectangular-based unit that acted at initiative 1 (out of 5). For reference, triangle units had the most misses, circle units did a bit better but pulled special results best of all, rectangles dealt good damage and routs, and hexagon units were heavy-hitters. Being initiative 1 meant they drew cards in the first round of combat. They were pretty good units, except for the health, but their special ability solved that. During combat, if you pulled a "special" result from the fate deck, they had the following ability: "
Unrelenting
: Each of your Flesh Rippers has 3 health until the end of the battle." Immediately we see a similarity between health of Flesh Rippers in RMG and in the boardgame, but I think that's just coincidence. But when my opponent said he thought my Flesh Rippers were tanky, it made me think of this ability. You see, in Runewars, your opponent deals damage, but you assign it to your own figures. If a figure has damage on it, you must assign damage to that figure until it is defeated. The Flesh Rippers' ability protected your later-initiative units by soaking up damage. Now the thing that was crazy about this ability is that if you had, say, 4 Flesh Rippers in a battle, each one draws a fate card but it only takes 1 special result to cause all 4 (or however many you have) to become 3-health for the rest of the combat. So if you were lucky, you could draw some 2-damage cards along with a single special to deal good damage
and
be ready to tank damage in later rounds. Honestly, I don't think Flesh Rippers are all that tanky in RMG. It was the fact that I had two 2x1 trays that tarpitted his 3x2 Oathsworn Cavalry and prevented them from taking out my bounty unit that made him think they were tanky. Still, they take more punishment than the horses!
Another aspect we see carried into Runewars Miniatures Game is that Flesh Rippers are Fast . When you put Dead Sprint on them, and if 4 unstable runes are showing, they can go 2, 4, 2 for a total distance of 8 trays in a single activation! In Runewars, they had the Fast keyword, which meant that they could move 3 areas instead of just 2. Out of 36 units in the game, only 7 were fast (1 for each faction besides Latari, which got two, and 2 neutrals).
Rune Age (2011
Being a deck-building card game, this one is necessarily going to be different from the other games on this list. Rune Age had no health on units -- you were either wounded or destroyed, with wounded units surviving long enough to add their strength to the battle, but being destroyed at the end of that combat. Flesh Rippers cost 2 gold and had 2 strength, which they shared with the likes of Daqan Bowmen, Latari Storm Sorceresses, and Waiqar Skeleton Archers. Their ability reads: "
When Played
: Wound 1 friendly unit to draw 1 card." As far as I'm concerned, this is the key card in the Uthuk faction. Card Draw is always important card games and Rune Age is no different. Once you've bought a few powerful cards (like the 5-strength neutral demon or the 4-strength Uthuk-only Chaos Lord), you want to get multiples of those out and extra card draw can accelerate that. Also, Flesh Rippers can wound themselves, which is great because it means you have a consistent, cheap source of card draw. They only cost 2-gold to buy back, after all, and you start with 5 gold in your deck. Now, wounding them isn't always the best strategy, because you probably want to wound the 1-cost, 1-strength Berserkers which gain 2 strength when wounded. In the early game, You buy a couple Flesh Rippers to add to your starting deck of 3 Berserkers and 5 1-gold cards, and you are dealing decent damage
and
drawing cards early in the game. It can be potent for quick attacks against enemies, opponent's strongholds, or securing cities.
In Runewars Miniatures Game, I don't think we see anything that relates to this incarnation of Flesh Rippers. They don't have a way to wound friendlies and there isn't anything similar to drawing cards. If their surge ability was something like "Surge+: Deal damage to a friendly unit at range 1 to cause that amount of damage to the target," then there would be some connection. But there isn't.
BattleLore: Second Edition (2013)
In this game, most units are composed of 3 figures, and therefore have 3 health, so these guys don't tank damage any better than other units. (If you want tanky, look at Rune Golems and Ironbound!) Flesh Rippers roll 3 dice in combat, which is average. Their movement speed is 3 hexes. Now, to put that speed in perspective, each faction had 9 units. The Undead (which were really Waiqar, though they strangely never used that name in BattleLore) had three units with speed 3. Daqan had two units with speed 3 and one with speed 4. The Uthuk had only two units with speed 3: the Doombringer and the Flesh Rippers. Since most people only bought one of each expansion, they would have 3 units of Flesh Rippers and 1 Doombringer. That means that if you need speed, you're likely relying on the Flesh Rippers. But the Flesh Rippers' speed goes beyond their movement. They have the coveted Pursue ability only found on Citadel Guards (similar to Spearmen) and Flesh Rippers. In BattleLore, you can advance into a hex after an attack if your target either retreats or is defeated. With Pursue, you move into that hex but may then perform another attack. The Citadel Guards can do that, but the Flesh Rippers go further by getting Pursue 2. Instead of advancing, they can move
two
spaces and perform another attack. Very fast! Pursue is a little different from Dead Sprint, but you can see how RMG maintains their speed, especially with Dead Sprint.
Another ability the Flesh Rippers have is Bloodthirsty. As a melee unit, they only deal damage on 2/6 sides of the dice. With Bloodthirsty, though, they can hit on an extra side if the target had suffered damage before the attack. This brings them up to a 50% chance to hit. However, if you roll a retreat on your die and your target would retreat into impassable terrain or one of your units, they suffer damage. So with careful maneuvering (made easier with a speed of 3), Flesh Rippers can get up to 66% chance to deal damage on their attacks. For BattleLore, that's about as high as you can go! I feel like Feeding Frenzy was coming from this idea that they are crazed, bloodthirsty creatures that can eventually do crazy damage. Unfortunately, I think Feeding Frenzy falls short. Having played 4 games so far with my 200-point armies, none of my Flesh Rippers would have even advanced to Lethal 1 if they had Feeding Frenzy equipped. Well, maybe one of them got the third token at the end of round 8, but wouldn't have gained the benefit of Feeding Frenzy. So while I appreciate them maintaining this theme, I doubt it'll see play in Runewars Miniatures Game. If you want high-damage Flesh Rippers, play BattleLore: Second Edition. (Seriously, go pick up a copy and play it! It's a great game!)
Runewars Miniatures Game (2017)
For reference, here are the Flesh Rippers of today.
