Hello Runewarriors!

Tons of excitement here at the Runecasters as we got to see a new Waiqar hero! Lord Vorun’Thul shakes up the discussion quite a bit as Gabe and Josh can’t wait to sink their teeth (bad vampire joke, check) into this article! Tom also gets some goodies as we talk a bit about Spined Theshers and the two cards spoiled in their latest article!

https://runecasters.net/2018/06/07/episode-23-the-incredible-vorunthul/

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I think the deployment is called Vanguard Clash.

34 minutes ago, Budgernaut said:

I think the deployment is called Vanguard Clash.

Oh shoot, did I say deployment? I meant objective. I think someone said "Treacherous Ground", which looks right to me. You're right: the deployment is definitely Vanguard Clash. Thanks for tuning in, Bro!

A very enjoyable listen, as always.

No criticism against you all, but I do look forward to the time when we can talk about Runewars without complaining about faction balance. Unfortunately, I don't think that will ever happen. If one faction isn't overpowered, we'll be complaining about whichever one is lagging behind (like we used to hear complaining about Waiqar).

24 minutes ago, Budgernaut said:

A very enjoyable listen, as always.

No criticism against you all, but I do look forward to the time when we can talk about Runewars without complaining about faction balance. Unfortunately, I don't think that will ever happen. If one faction isn't overpowered, we'll be complaining about whichever one is lagging behind (like we used to hear complaining about Waiqar).

Yes. It's something we at the Runecasters are cognizant of, and we're working to improve. We are very much looking forward to hearing Aaron's experience using the Uthuk so we can discuss the game from a new perspective. I am going to try to find time to play as the Uthuk as well.

3 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

Yes. It's something we at the Runecasters are cognizant of, and we're working to improve. We are very much looking forward to hearing Aaron's experience using the Uthuk so we can discuss the game from a new perspective. I am going to try to find time to play as the Uthuk as well.

I really mean it, though, when I say it isn't a criticism against you. I am referring to the community as a whole. We all do it.

I think you guys should speak your mind and give your opinion whatever it might be. If you structure it too much to conform, it risks becoming stale and boring. I enjoy it the way it is and even appreciate some complaining. I listen to get both opinion and analyzes. When there is an "issue", lets get the fruatration out there, thats what communication is all about. I think you guys seem to complement each other nicely.

Mr Waiqar is optimistic, I often share views with mr Latari, mr Daqan is really funny and mr Uthuk is on top of the rules

And just in case I'm being misunderstood, I'm not saying issues shouldn't be raised. My original post was meaning that I look forward to the time when things finally feel balanced so that nobody has anything to complain about. I'm not wishing the community would "suck it up and move on," I'm wishing the developers would "finally get the balance right."

39 minutes ago, Budgernaut said:

I look forward to the time when things finally feel balanced so that nobody has anything to complain about.

I'm looking forward to the time when everyone lays down their weapons, and the world unites in harmony and peace.

And I'm likely to get my wish before you get yours.

13 hours ago, Budgernaut said:

I do look forward to the time when we can talk about Runewar  s without complaining about facti  on balance

#MeToo

Am I using that right?

In seriousness: I completely agree with @Budgernaut in that I don't want there to be complaining because I'd like for there to be nothing to complain about. On the other hand I am currently borrowing some Uthuk toys to experiment with and I will have some interesting conclusions in our next episode about my experience (yes that was a tease ) .

7 hours ago, Xelto said:

I'm looking forward to the time when everyone lays down their weapons, and the world unites in harmony and peace.

And I'm likely to get my wish before you get yours.

Runepeace!

I mentioned it elsewhere, but I’m increasingly convinced that the game was initially balanced around the first five units and three heroes of each faction.

Look at the complaints:

Daqan: Rune Golems suck and they have no deep threat units to disrupt their opponent. Oh look, a deep threat unit and a hero that buffs high armor units (Zachareth). I’m generalizing, but am correct.

Undead: they are slow, have no scary solo hero, and have no way to threaten an enemy’s backfield. Which makes archers very painful to face with undead. Oh look, two units with extraordinary ability to get through blockage and get to an enemy’s rear. The hero being fast enough to get in painful positions on turn 1-2.

Latari: They feel like their ability to move unexpectedly makes them a little OP, but their inability to stand up and fight makes them vulnerable to Uthuk blitz. Darnati will help address that. I expect they will get some new mechanic/strategy with the next two announcements that don’t supercharge the lateral mobility any more.

Uthuk: Blitz is feeling broken/OP due to extreme efficiency. Except that they suck something awful at armor busting. Expect to see the next hero have wierd technical play/abilities but not super high damage and for the archers to somehow be mortal strike dealers. I’m not even gonna take a stab at their 5th unit.

I think they expected to have all of that out by now.

19 minutes ago, Church14 said:

I’m increasingly convinced that the game was initially balanced around the first five units

@Church14 I am bringing this up on our next podcast because I do think you're on to something here since I've seen Baron Z (especially with this wound denial tokens). After playing a couple of games with Uthuk I really think it's going to come down to two questions (assuming every faction is hitting equilibrium with 1 melee, 1 range, 1 cav, 1 siege, 1 'special', and 3 heroes):

1) Are the upcoming Uthuk releases just going to be underwhelming, and we've seen the 'nut' list (to use a poker term) right out of the box?

2) With a ranged unit(reanimate archers), a siege unit (lancers), a melee unit (reanimates) and the best upgrades against high hit point units how are we seeing so little success with waiqar players vs ravos lists.

To expand on my theory on the podcast: Daqan and Waiqar both have these tool to deal with Ravos. They can both hold siege to siege vs Uthuk, and melee to melee with uthuk as well while having ranged units to gun Ravos down. I've heard many more stories of Daqan having more success at this than Waiqar however. LAtari will be able to join the game once they have Darnati to hold up berserkers so they can set scions free to hold up thresher and gun Ravos down with their archers. Waiqar have the added bonus of Executioner and Mistland Saboteur. I would think those 2 upgrades would put them over the top and be a nightmare for uthuk players, but that isn't happening. Curious to see why.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this.

6 hours ago, flightmaster101 said:

@Church14 I am bringing this up on our next podcast because I do think you're on to something here since I've seen Baron Z (especially with this wound denial tokens). After playing a couple of games with Uthuk I really think it's going to come down to two questions (assuming every faction is hitting equilibrium with 1 melee, 1 range, 1 cav, 1 siege, 1 'special', and 3 heroes):

1) Are the upcoming Uthuk releases just going to be underwhelming, and we've seen the 'nut' list (to use a poker term) right out of the box?

2) With a ranged unit(reanimate archers), a siege unit (lancers), a melee unit (reanimates) and the best upgrades against high hit point units how are we seeing so little success with waiqar players vs ravos lists.

To expand on my theory on the podcast: Daqan and Waiqar both have these tool to deal with Ravos. They can both hold siege to siege vs Uthuk, and melee to melee with uthuk as well while having ranged units to gun Ravos down. I've heard many more stories of Daqan having more success at this than Waiqar however. LAtari will be able to join the game once they have Darnati to hold up berserkers so they can set scions free to hold up thresher and gun Ravos down with their archers. Waiqar have the added bonus of Executioner and Mistland Saboteur. I would think those 2 upgrades would put them over the top and be a nightmare for uthuk players, but that isn't happening. Curious to see why.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this.

Executioner one shot Ravos today. He had only taken a single wound from the Dimmoran fissure and he also one shot 2 spined threshers.

I have been a hardcore Latari player since they came out. I have played a lot of Uthuk in the last 2 weeks and just won our Regional with them today. After playing both, I believe the elves would win the most for me if I played 100 games each. The Uthuk are just super easy to play when you are new to them, and super hard to beat when you have not faced them. Get 20 games with them and 20 games against them and I believe their superiority drops precipitously.

2 hours ago, Drakoniss said:

Executioner one shot Ravos today. He had only taken a single wound from the Dimmoran fissure and he also one shot 2 spined threshers.

I've played executioner twice against Ravos lists. Both times the Uthuk player realized the threat and engaged it with Fleshripers, who successfully managed to roll the accuracy both times and snipe him out.

I really have a hard time understanding how a competent player would put Ravos up against an executioner (or infantry at all if avoidable)? He should be able to outrun Reanimates.

Edit: Saw your second post; Congratulations to your regionals win! May I ask what the top 4 finishers were faction-wise and perhaps even inquire to your list?

Yeah, I am not competent.

10 hours ago, Maktorius said:

I've played executioner twice against Ravos lists. Both times the Uthuk player realized the threat and engaged it with Fleshripers, who successfully managed to roll the accuracy both times and snipe him out.

I really have a hard time understanding how a competent player would put Ravos up against an executioner (or infantry at all if avoidable)? He should be able to outrun Reanimates.

Edit: Saw your second post; Congratulations to your regionals win! May I ask what the top 4 finishers were faction-wise and perhaps even inquire to your list?

Err, I've sure taken on infantry units with Ravos. Hey, the guy has gotta eat and they come in such cute bite-sized pre-packaged groups of 4....

43 minutes ago, tgall said:

Err, I've sure taken on infantry units with Ravos. Hey, the guy has gotta eat and they come in such cute bite-sized pre-packaged groups of 4....

I didn't intend to be a jerk, sorry. To be more precise, I meant infantrystars. I sure have had Ravos gobble up 2 trays of my infantry/archers per attack without problems, which is great vs 2x1's and 2x2's. But in my experience he starts to get more than he can chew (pun intended) against 3x3's or larger.

10 hours ago, Maktorius said:

I really have a hard time understanding how a competent player would put Ravos up against an executioner (or infantry at all if avoidable)? He should be able to outrun Reanimates.

This criticism comes off a bit harsher than it was likely intended... But it is also a reasonable concern. When the hard counter to something is considerably less mobile than the thing it is meant to counter it becomes very difficult to actually leverage.

I haven't give up on executioner yet, but I am struggling to see how I can ensure he finds the right target when reanimates are so unwieldy, especially against Uthuk.

I'm all ears if someone has the formula though...

25 minutes ago, QuickWhit said:

This criticism comes off a bit harsher than it was likely intended... But it is also a reasonable concern. When the hard counter to something is considerably less mobile than the thing it is meant to counter it becomes very difficult to actually leverage.

I haven't give up on executioner yet, but I am struggling to see how I can ensure he finds the right target when reanimates are so unwieldy, especially against Uthuk.

I'm all ears if someone has the formula though...

I think it's blight, ranged and blockers. Least that'd be my suggestion. I'd keep executioner. I'd actually kind like to game this out on vassal sometime.

52 minutes ago, tgall said:

I think it's blight, ranged and blockers. Least that'd be my suggestion. I'd keep executioner. I'd actually kind like to game this out on vassal sometime.

This is what I've been running recently and while blight is undoubtedly good against Spined Threshers, they still manage to be so tanky for their cost that I just don't have enough damage to chew through them fast enough, especially with Kethra in the back shooting with mortal on the dial or blowing things up from across the whole map.

In the end it takes 39 points of a solo carrion lancer and 2x1 RA with CI to shutdown 1 28 point 2x1 of spined threshers. Made this work one game and still lost a close game due to some monster rolls from Kethra (she one shot two carrion lancers in a row). The next time I played the same buddy he brought berserkers with a rallying shreeker and smoked me without the berserkers ever even getting into combat. They just removed blight every round while the threshers cleaned house.

Maybe an all executioner army?

Careful Approach with a triangle of terrain blocking up the whole center made for a very hard game. That’s how I beat Uthuk with my other armies often in the current meta.Sacrificing him in a aggressive trade for Ankara Maro was worth it because Shooting wins everything in that scenario. Plus to kill him my opponent needed to face several units the wrong way. All of the good reanimated fighting units would not fit. When your army doesn’t fit and you need all your units in combat quick you have to make even trades early on sometimes to get into position. Flesh rippers running down the flank was the game winner.

On 6/9/2018 at 4:20 PM, flightmaster101 said:

1) Are the upcoming      Uthuk releases just going to be underwhelming, and we've seen the 'nut' list (to use a p  oker term) right out of the box?

2) With a ranged unit(rea  nimate archers), a siege unit (lancers), a melee unit (reanimates) and the best upgrades against high hit point units how are we seeing so little success with waiqar players vs ravos lists. 

1) Not underwhelming, but different. I think they front loaded the best stuff for this Uthuk archetype (Blitz). Every faction seems to have three things they do now.

Uthuk get a sort of overzealousness (Warsprinter, sacrifices), manage the morale deck, and nothing else yet. Gorgemaw doesn’t match any of that.

Maybe my exact analysis is off, but the point stands. Uthuk only have two tricks, not three. So I’m expecting the 5th Uthuk unit to be a siege that encourages some sort of new way to play. It will still involve self-abuse and more aggression, but not the “in your face in one turn” approach.

I also expect the Uthuk archers to cause mortal strikes. Except for Ravos (and I’m told Kethra but I don’t see it yet), Uthuk have no way to generate mortal strikes. As much as I’ve joked about a 2 red die, but low threat (max 2) archer unit that causes lots of morale tests, I think I would expect more of a blue-white, low threat archer unit with some sort of surge to mortal strike mechanic

2) I can’t really say, I’ve only had one game as Waiqar against Uthuk. I used a bizarre combination of Cursed Signets, Triumphant Cry, Lingering Dead, and Dispatch Runner to make a 12 tray of Reanimates spin like a top and wreck little units.