Probably Ankaur Maro-ing an old topic here but...

I know we often talk about potential factions and other units for existing ones, but do we take enough time to talk about what other game play aspects of Runewars could be implemented in the future?

I'm talking things like:

Boons (we've had vitality), banes, conditions (they were introduced with DK's).

Unit types in general? (Obviously we talk about flying mounts - but how would they work?!)

More in regards to Magic and Runes (This stuff is a pretty huge part of the Lore, which we could then get into in regards to novels etc)

Rulesets!

Organised Play Stuff.

There are lots of conditions and things from Descent that could be translated over. I personally like to think they'll introduce Giant Minis that cost lots of points and will result in an "Epic" Variant which means bigger board and more points.

Stuff like dragons could then maybe burn multiple units at once.

I've seen people talk about Poison bane.

Let me know some more ideas that may have been missed or you've kept to yourself!

First i wpuld love a huge monsters like undead dragons that single model will be on multiple bases (one giant drake on 2x2 base size). I would love alternate formats for more point size games (i must test 300 points per side) and the app similar to x wing 2.0 would be nice Kf course more units (as i wrote previous topic i want vampire infantry in heavy armor that kills and regenerates by sacrificing extra damage).

also phalanx like units would be fun. You have melee range 1 and if chargef you inflict wounds (deadly keyword on unit) but wpuldt be abke to charge itself

More units - great

More factions - awesome

More mechanics - hmmmm depends. I really don’t want tons of rules bloat. There is plenty of design space within the framework of the existing rule set (the dual dial system is fabulous for this). I don’t want this to end up like X-wing 1sr Edition with dozens of reference cards needed beyond the core rule set.

Just my 2 cents/ euros/ pence (depending on location)

Well, between Roc Warriors and Yeron Riders we will definitely need rules for flying units. Which is cool because it's not the kind of mechanic where you say, "Oh, it's a shame Ardus and Kari don't have that simply because they were the first heroes before this mechanic was even imagined." No, this will be for specific units, and won't have to be retroactively applied to other units.

Normally I dislike big huge units, but Runewars can handle it so smoothly it won't bother me one bit. Put them on 1x2, 2x2, whatever, throw in brutal and precise to taste, and you're good to go! I expect there will be some mechanic to reduce combat effectiveness, but try this on for size:

Barrow Wyrm, Waiqar monster, 60 pts
2x2 is the only size
Defense 3, 12 wounds
While this unit has fewer than six wounds, it gains Brutal 1
While this unit has fewer than nine wounds, it gains Precise 1
While moving as part of an [advance], you may ignore any number of friendly units
[Ranged attack] You may only target enemy units at range 1-3. After resolving, this attack, immediately make an additional [ranged attack] against another enemy at range 1 of the first enemy (once per turn)
Melee attack: WRRB Ranged attack: WRR

So it's probably horrible for its cost right now, and who even know where to start on the dial, but that's about the idea. Everything works within exactly the existing framework, with keywords added to make it feel right. Ignoring allies when moving seems like a low-effort way to distinguish flight from incorporeal wraith movement, and the ranged attack is like a breath weapon. It would probably also want some neat stuff with blight or shadows or whatever, but it's just to illustrate the way it integrates.

27 minutes ago, Bhelliom said:

Barrow Wyrm, Waiqar monster, 60 pts
2x2 is the only size
Defense 3, 12 wounds
While this unit has fewer than six wounds, it gains Brutal 1
While this unit has fewer than nine wounds, it gains Precise 1
While moving as part of an [advance], you may ignore any number of friendly units
[Ranged attack] You may only target enemy units at range 1-3. After resolving, this attack, immediately make an additional [ranged attack] against another enemy at range 1 of the first enemy (once per turn)
Melee attack: WRRB Ranged attack: WRR

Very nice. The only thing you forgot is "Resilient: Blight". Resilient is a keyword that's in the rules reference, but hasn't made it onto any units or upgrade cards yet. It makes the unit immune to the type of bane listed, such that if they would receive that bane, the unit does not receive it. I think it makes sense for Barrow Wyrm to be immune to blight, even though it basically only counters other Waiqar armies and Latari armies with Blackthorn Assassin. Chaos Lord will totally be Resilient: Panic. Can't wait!

A concealed boon or condition would be pretty sweet:

Concealed: This unit cannot be targeted by ranged attacks. If this unit moves more than distance 1 while in line of sight of an enemy unit it must discard this boon/condition.

I would personally love to see some upgrades that play as "Secrets".

It wouldn't necessarily have to be a new upgrade slot, but basically it would work the way secrets do in Hearthstone.

As an example:
You could have 3 'secrets' in the training slot and each one costs five points. The equal cost is important not to give away which card is which in your list and so your opponent can verify the cost of your list without knowing the upgrade. They start facedown and would be revealed either as reactions to specific events or by choice based on player decisions depending on the secret.
Here are 3 zero-balance ideas for secrets (seriously, these aren't meant to be balanced at 5 points, it's just to illustrate my idea):

1. Traitorous Informant. You may reveal this card during any command phase, choose an enemy unit within range 1-2, your opponent must set that unit's command dials immediately and show them to you. Those dials cannot be changed until the enemy unit activates. (keep it faceup or something). Discard this card.
2. Scroll of Speed (I know this doesn't make sense for the training slot, but just focus on the concept here). You may reveal this card after you activate this unit. During this activation, you may increase the speed of any march or shift this unit performs by 1. Discard this card.
3. Hidden Pyromancer. You must reveal this card when this unit is charged by an enemy unit. Roll 2 red dice. The engaged enemy suffers [red runes] damage for each hit rolled. This unit suffers half that amount of damage. Discard this card.

You wouldn't have to make them all discard themselves on use either. Some secrets could have a persistent affect.

It's probably a silly idea, but as long as it was well designed it could work. One area they'd have to be cautious with though, is that you don't want to design the secrets such that it's obvious which secret is being run before the game even starts just because there's only one good secret in a given slot for certain units.

5 hours ago, Bhelliom said:

Normally I dislike big huge units, but Runewars can handle it so smoothly it won't bother me one bit. Put them on 1x2, 2x2, whatever, throw in brutal and precise to taste, and you're good to go! I expect there will be some mechanic to reduce combat effectiveness, but try this on for size:

Barrow Wyrm, Waiqar monster, 60 pts
2x2 is the only size
Defense 3, 12 wounds
While this unit has fewer than six wounds, it gains Brutal 1
While this unit has fewer than nine wounds, it gains Precise 1
While moving as part of an [advance], you may ignore any number of friendly units
[Ranged attack] You may only target enemy units at range 1-3. After resolving, this attack, immediately make an additional [ranged attack] against another enemy at range 1 of the first enemy (once per turn)
Melee attack: WRRB Ranged attack: WRR

So it's probably horrible for its cost right now, and who even know where to start on the dial, but that's about the idea. Everything works within exactly the existing framework, with keywords added to make it feel right. Ignoring allies when moving seems like a low-effort way to distinguish flight from incorporeal wraith movement, and the ranged attack is like a breath weapon. It would probably also want some neat stuff with blight or shadows or whatever, but it's just to illustrate the way it integrates.

So the cool thing about a 2x2 unit that is only one fig is the base game mechanics already have it Threat 2 with a reroll that cannot be removed until you kill the whole fig. That's pretty awesome, and makes me happy about the possibility of them future-proofing the base mechanics to allow greater design space

Executioner would have a field day against big units.

Unless they put a rule saying that it was immune to opponent's removal effects or something similar. I think it is a cool enough idea and a lot of people would probably be excited for it that it would be worth exploring - which the designers at FFG probably already are doing.

It's also pretty reasonable that large units would have some method of sniping out figure upgrades, which is sad, but probably necessary. It would be devastating to lose a Chaos Lord to a block of Reanimates led by an Executioner. You'd never live that down.

Whilst I agree that more factions/mechanics/conditions/ etc is a good idea, you need to also avoid serious power creep because let's be honest here, Rune Wars wouldn't survive an X wing 2.0 refit. . .

The more units you develop that have new conditions or mechanics dilutes the power of the original core units unless there is a way to buff them without turning this into a collectible card game. This is what happened with X wing, the mainstay and iconic ships became so laughably bad that if you even mentioned them in conversation before a game you lost the event. I think this is what the dev team need to focus on more than anything else. That fine line of new and exciting but also not giving the middle finger to anything (Rune Golems already feels bad.)

Also you need to be careful about faction identity and faction dilution. Warhammer has so many factions (which is great) but loads are just reskins (bad) and also from a competitive stand point, some are completely redundant and auto loss. I know this is a fairly casual game but no one likes a no win situation, especially when you have dropped some near £200 on your little force. So with this being said, adding Orcs would step on the Ulthuk toes, adding Dwarves would just be really small (and likely better) Daqan. Therefore I think it's more likely you will get Units within the existing factions, but maybe not new Factions themselves.

As for the game mechanics, whilst unique, they are also seriously restricting when it comes to game types beyond the standard 200 death match. You can go the normal route of Escalation (first round armies are 150 points, second round 200, third round 250, etc) but those are really difficult to balance. I mean, just think about how many Death Knights or Spined Threshers you could fit in to a 300 point army. You could go "Epic" and allow a whole new unit type like 40K did with the Gargantuan monsters etc, a Mumakill that is nine trays big and has something like 12 wounds would be quite cool but I don't see it being used for Organised Play.

Also because of the path system, having a "siege" mode is not possible. Having part of the board obscured with a board length castle wall would make moving exceptionally restricting so I can't see any Helms Deep style game types any time soon. You could potentially get away with a Saga style water board edge and one is the raiding party but then really it's just the standard game type. Maybe a non unique Caravan unit that always moves three forward (possible to modify with a bank) and one player has to ensure it reaches a certain destination but again, balance is difficult.

Flying Units would be good as well, no doubt but then you have the question of balance. At the moment, every unit can hit everything but if you add flying units, then it's reasonable to assume that a Dragon that is in the air would be immune to all melee attacks which then causes about 90% of units invalid against it. If you bring in "anti air" units, those become useless against ground units and therefore moot from a competitive standpoint OR auto-include if you allow them to do everything (Looking at you 7th edition Hydra Flakk Cannons). Unless they have to land to attack but now you are in 40k 7th edition Swoop + Hover situation.

Unless the ffg designed runewars as a whole snd are now revealing it bit by bit In x wong they started designing next waves after the sucess of the beginning because they did nkt expect it to be such sucess. Runewar and legion i believe was designed as a whole and is now slowly revealed (alex davy confirmed that for legion that they already had a lot of stuff ready designed but the game wasnt even released so he couldnt talk about it and still a lot ofit isnt revealed.)

7 hours ago, Viktus106 said:

Whilst I agree that more factions/mechanics/conditions/ etc is a good idea, you need to also avoid serious power creep because let's be honest here, Rune Wars wouldn't survive an X wing 2.0 refit. . .

The more units you develop that have new conditions or mechanics dilutes the power of the original core units unless there is a way to buff them without turning this into a collectible card game. This is what happened with X wing, the mainstay and iconic ships became so laughably bad that if you even mentioned them in conversation before a game you lost the event. I think this is what the dev team need to focus on more than anything else. That fine line of new and exciting but also not giving the middle finger to anything (Rune Golems already feels bad.)

Also you need to be careful about faction identity and faction dilution. Warhammer has so many factions (which is great) but loads are just reskins (bad) and also from a competitive stand point, some are completely redundant and auto loss. I know this is a fairly casual game but no one likes a no win situation, especially when you have dropped some near £200 on your little force. So with this being said, adding Orcs would step on the Ulthuk toes, adding Dwarves would just be really small (and likely better) Daqan. Therefore I think it's more likely you will get Units within the existing factions, but maybe not new Factions themselves.

As for the game mechanics, whilst unique, they are also seriously restricting when it comes to game types beyond the standard 200 death match. You can go the normal route of Escalation (first round armies are 150 points, second round 200, third round 250, etc) but those are really difficult to balance. I mean, just think about how many Death Knights or Spined Threshers you could fit in to a 300 point army. You could go "Epic" and allow a whole new unit type like 40K did with the Gargantuan monsters etc, a Mumakill that is nine trays big and has something like 12 wounds would be quite cool but I don't see it being used for Organised Play.

Also because of the path system, having a "siege" mode is not possible. Having part of the board obscured with a board length castle wall would make moving exceptionally restricting so I can't see any Helms Deep style game types any time soon. You could potentially get away with a Saga style water board edge and one is the raiding party but then really it's just the standard game type. Maybe a non unique Caravan unit that always moves three forward (possible to modify with a bank) and one player has to ensure it reaches a certain destination but again, balance is difficult.

Flying Units would be good as well, no doubt but then you have the question of balance. At the moment, every unit can hit everything but if you add flying units, then it's reasonable to assume that a Dragon that is in the air would be immune to all melee attacks which then causes about 90% of units invalid against it. If you bring in "anti air" units, those become useless against ground units and therefore moot from a competitive standpoint OR auto-include if you allow them to do everything (Looking at you 7th edition Hydra Flakk Cannons). Unless they have to land to attack but now you are in 40k 7th edition Swoop + Hover situation.

Power creep is tough to avoid, but new mechanics doesn't mean better mechanics, or cheaper mechanics. Look at Grotesques - another big beefy Siege unit with an interesting and unique special ability, but if Spined Threshers are just more efficient fighters then they won't be outclassed. Assuming that Orcs and Dwarves need to toe into existing faction identity is pretty unimaginative; a minis game absolutely has room for more than 6 unique feeling factions, especially when the dial system means two units with identical options but juggled initiative values feel completely different in play.

Why is 200 points not good enough? And why couldn't massive monsters be played? It's all built into the dial system, so mechanically, a dragon or mammoth or what have you need operate no differently from a large unit of infantry. I see these things as inevitable, since the market segment of tabletop gamers seem to love them. My only hope is that they don't get too tall - anything higher than the tip of a Carrion Lancer's spear starts to get obnoxious.

FIRM disagree on siege mode. It's not going to be a good fit for standard tournament play, but there's absolutely no reason you couldn't have an asymmetrical force with a big old wall - just handle it with terrain! Each section of wall or tower or what have you is a piece of terrain, with x capacity, mix of cover and fortified, maybe elevated, etc, and rules that you can't enter it from the outside unless you have a ladder or something. Moving units around within the walls would be as simple as shifting out and moving to the next piece; you'd have to stay organized to keep units from moving into each other, but that seems reasonable in a siege!

I can't think of a fantasy minis game that has treated flying units as always in the air, and I can't imagine Runewars would try. The hassle of having units occupy the same space on the table is too much to deal with, so "flying only while moving" is a very sensible concession to gameplay. Maybe they introduce a boon or condition to give it additional defense against melee attacks, but honestly I'd be surprised even at that.

Runewars has very robust bones, and they can take it in all kinds of directions.

53 minutes ago, Bhelliom said:

...

FIRM disagree on siege mode. It's not going to be a good fit for standard tournament play, but there's absolutely no reason you couldn't have an asymmetrical force with a big old wall - just handle it with terrain! Each section of wall or tower or what have you is a piece of terrain, with x capacity, mix of cover and fortified, maybe elevated, etc, and rules that you can't enter it from the outside unless you have a ladder or something. Moving units around within the walls would be as simple as shifting out and moving to the next piece; you'd have to stay organized to keep units from moving into each other, but that seems reasonable in a siege!

I can't think of a fantasy minis game that has treated flying units as always in the air, and I can't imagine Runewars would try. The hassle of having units occupy the same space on the table is too much to deal with, so "flying only while moving" is a very sensible concession to gameplay. Maybe they introduce a boon or condition to give it additional defense against melee attacks, but honestly I'd be surprised even at that.

Runewars has very robust bones, and they can take it in all kinds of directions.

In this regard, I was a part of a large format skirmish where we had 8 players at 200 pts each, on about 6 mats (iirc).

One area was a river/stream, where there were 3 parts to the stream. 2 of them were taxing 1 or 2, one of them had a bridge, which allowed a single unit of any size to occupy it without taxing. It was a good barrier, and showed that there can be a lot of options with terrain for unique scenarios.

Addendum: I do not believe that we had to change any core rules to make this work. The only real changes were a 10 round game, and you deployed roughly 33% of your total points per round in rounds 1, 2, and 3.