Hi. I have long wanted to get into a miniature wargame. I know a little about the Warhammer fantasy universe and like the setting. But as I have to pay for, paint and collect 2 factions it just seems too overwhelming with 2 player starter sets that has only the factions I’m not interested in ? No gaming groups near I live in Norway. So after investigating a little I discover Runewars. The lore and universe don’t seem too interesting or immersing but it looks interesting anough. So my question is this:

1. What do I need to build a nice base game for two players. Non competitive just casual’ish. Not necessarily interested in buying everything but enough to get some fun and entertaining armies. Is it enough if I buy

1x core set

1x essential box

1x Elven delux expansion

1x Ugly-big-boys-Ythul-something delux expansion

2. Anyone know if there’s plans for dwarfs?

Ill take every advise you guys can give me.

That collection would give a very limited taste of the game. If I were in your shoes, I would focus on building up two factions. I got one "starter" for each army, thinking I could combine different armies for casual 200-point games. Unfortunately, the undead legion of Waiqar the Betrayer doesn't really work well out of the starter box. I feel like it needs more pieces to really shine. I would be more inclined to get two core sets and the infantry command expansion for Daqan and Waiqar. That's assuming you want humans vs. skeletons.

It's a little more expensive, but I think I would actually recommend 2 boxes each of Latari Elves and Uthuk Y'llan along with their infantry command packs and the Essentials Pack. Those armies just feel more fun to me than the two from the core set, but that's just my opinion. I like that they have more maneuverability and maybe even more upgrade options.

In either case, you'll realize that there are upgrade cards you want for your units by only buying the unit expansions for the units you already get in the core. If you're just playing casual games, then just proxy those, I would say. Otherwise, its $60 USD for a core army and $115 USD for the same number of units. If you're not competing in tournaments, it's hard to justify a 50% markup just for the cards. But if you have the means, it's a great way to show support for this great game.

My recommendation would be pick 2 factions, and do 1 core plus 1-2 of each expansion. The core armies (and especially the core set factions) are rather bland and will not portray how intricate this game gets. Runewars is extremely tactical and involves a lot of trying to read your opponents moves without knowing for sure what will happen. Definitely recommend the Latari faction and Uthuk faction. Plus, this fall the game is getting a lot of units added so now is the time to buy in and not have a mountain of meta to catch up with.

Also check the global players map, might be some people closer to home than you know.

I think the best value is two core sets with command packs. I use (gamezone.no) for buying think one box is 500?

Where do you live? Im in Stavanger and would like a casual opponent got daquan a bit of latari and some waiquar.

Standard game size is 200 points for an army. The core box can give you two pretty good armies at about 110 points each. You can have some fun games at this level, but the experience will feel pretty limited. The cheapest way to get to 200 point armies is with 1 core box and expansions for Waiqar and Daqan. This also gives you more flexibility with upgrade cards.

I recommend reading army lists on this forum and playing around with table top admiral to figure out what you want to buy. https://tabletopadmiral.com/ rune wars

You can get Latari and Uthuk with the essentials box for only a little bit more than you can build Waiqar and Daqan. This is because even though the price of those boxes together is higher, each box contains more points.

I don't recommend getting 2 core boxes as it's pretty limiting in terms of play style and you'll still need expansions because you can't get to 200 point armies with 2 boxes because you can't duplicate heroes.

The previous answers are good, but starting with just one core box isn't a bad way to test the waters. It doesn't really give the game a chance to shine, but it's extremely good value, and every additional box you buy will change things up.

I started with 1 Core Set, Infantry Command for Waiqar and Daqan, and some units for Waiqar because I knew they would be my faction if choice. After several months, I picked up another Core Set and some more expansions on sale at my local store.

If you aren't playing in competitive tournaments, I think it's more fun to buy one Core Set or army box, and then add expansions. You can set the point level to whatever you feel makes sense for your collection, and you get to try out all the cool upgrades. Siege units are especially cool as expansions because they come when an alternate sculpt.

As to your question, I agree with others that a single army box is lacking after a few games. You'll want some expansions. The easiest way to get too 200 points (if that is your goal) is to buy the other hero for your factions, because you can have up to two heroes in your army at once, and they're worth a lot of points.

1 hour ago, Bhelliom said:

The previous answers are good, but starting with just one core box isn't a bad way to test the waters. It doesn't really give the game a chance to shine, but it's extremely good value, and every additional box you buy will change things up.

A lot of what you want to get depends on what your approach and needs are.

If you want to try the game out before sinking a lot of time and/or money into it, see if anyone near you plays. Check the player map, stickied to the top of the forums. Then check nearby game stores, to see if there are regulars who show up at the stores.

If you don't have any success with those, then you can dip into the waters with only a core set. It will be enough to show you how the game plays, but as was mentioned earlier, it won't show you a lot of the depth in the game. On the other hand, you can probably find one for a very reasonable price, and if you don't like the game, you'll still have ~50 figures you can use for other games.

If you want to see a bit more of the intricacies of the game without committing fully, consider a Latari and an Uthuk core set plus the essentials pack instead. The Latari and Uthuk both show a bit more of what you can get out of the command tools in their base sets. You still won't see much of the character upgrades (those are in the command packs), but at least you'll see a greater spread of abilities in the basic units.

If you're willing to play Daqan and Waiqar, then two core sets gets you really close to a 200 pt game, and you can generally find the original core sets marked down quite a bit since they're the entry point and want to get you hooked

Thanks guys. Helped me out a bunch. But let me frase the question like this: if I just wanna have a game and go 1,2,3 here’s two armies let’s play. How du I get the best verity? Can I then go with just the core, the essentials box and the delux expansion for each of the two edditional factions? I’m not really into getting into the more complicated strategies. Just wanna have a game where I can pitch two armies against each other. Like BattleLore but I want the casual wargame feeling I you know what I mean?

8 minutes ago, mr.thomasschmidt said:

Thanks guys. Helped me out a bunch. But let me frase the question like this: if I just wanna have a game and go 1,2,3 here’s two armies let’s play. How du I get the best verity? Can I then go with just the core, the essentials box and the delux expansion for each of the two edditional factions? I’m not really into getting into the more complicated strategies. Just wanna have a game where I can pitch two armies against each other. Like BattleLore but I want the casual wargame feeling I you know what I mean?

The best way to play with two armies is the core set. The essentials box is needed if you *dont* buy a core set and start with elves or uthuk. So to be clear. If you want Daqan or Waiqar get a core set. Elves or Uthuk get an essentials pack.

The fastest and cheapest way to play with two nearly full 200 pt armies is 2 core sets, 1 Daqan commanders and 1 Waiqar commanders set. You can however play a skirmish game with a single core set. Worth trying that as well.

19 minutes ago, mr.thomasschmidt said:

Thanks guys. Helped me out a bunch. But let me frase the question like this: if I just wanna have a game and go 1,2,3 here’s two armies let’s play. How du I get the best verity? Can I then go with just the core, the essentials box and the delux expansion for each of the two edditional factions? I’m not really into getting into the more complicated strategies. Just wanna have a game where I can pitch two armies against each other. Like BattleLore but I want the casual wargame feeling I you know what I mean?

1 core set gets you playing right out of the box. Everything is push-fit even, so you don't need to glue. For more variety, either of the Latari or Uthuk Army Expansions will give you a whole new faction to play with, but you (mostly) can't mix and match factions, so to explore more of the depth of the game you'll probably want a second core set, so you can actually start experimenting with different army builds (3x2 Reanimates vs 2x2, 1 2x2 Oathsworn vs 2 2x1's, etc). That said, you can always proxy minis! 2x2 Oathsworn using the Latari Leonx riders as the back rank, 3x3 Uthuk Berserkers with spearmen to fill them out, etc. It's just the dials that are tough to experiment with.

6 hours ago, mr.thomasschmidt said:

Thanks guys. Helped me out a bunch. But let me frase the question like this: if I just wanna have a game and go 1,2,3 here’s two armies let’s play. How du I get the best verity? Can I then go with just the core, the essentials box and the delux expansion for each of the two edditional factions? I’m not really into getting into the more complicated  strategies. Just wanna have a game where I can pitch two armies against each other. Like BattleLore but I want the casual wargame feeling I you know what I mean?

I see what you are saying, and that BattleLore feeling of just put something down and play is what prompted me to get one core of each army before focusing on my Uthuk Y'llan (main faction). But it hasn't worked out for me. I played quite a few core set games while waiting for the Uthuk to drop, and in that time, I came to feel very limited with the core undead army. Ideally, I wanted to be able to pit any of the four core armies agaibst each other in a 100-point skirmish match, but Waiqar feels left behind. I did have one skirmish game (that means 100 points per side) with the BattleCast guy (sorry I forgot your screen name) and it was actually quite fun to build custom lists at that point range. However, he had several expansions which made his undead army able to hold its own against my Daqan lords.

It's really just Waiqar that holds everything up, in my opinion. The other three factions seem fine to throw at each other at 100 points (though the Uthuk core units are actually 108 even without upgrades). And even then, people had success with Waiqar from the core. As a new player, it should be fun to play around with. Picking up the core set, Uthuk Y'llan Army Expansion, and Latari Elves Army Expansion is a very appealing way to go.

Actually (sorry to ramble), I have one other issue with my collection. This game has several sources of variety to make each battle feel different, and army-building is only one. The terrain, deployment, and objectives also mix things up. However, when playing 100-point skirmish games, you do not pick a new deployment - it is the same deployment each time. Now, with the variety of objectives and terrain you get from buying multiple armies, you should have each game feel pretty different, but somehow I didn't feel satisfied. I couldn't shake the feeling that by playing without deployment cards I was only playing a lesser version of the game. You might feel the same way, but you might not.

14 hours ago, Budgernaut said:

I see what you are saying, and that BattleLore feeling of just put something down and play is what prompted me to get one core of each army before focusing on my Uthuk Y'llan (main faction). But it hasn't worked out for me. I played quite a few core set games while waiting for the Uthuk to drop, and in that time, I came to feel very limited with the core undead army. Ideally, I wanted to be able to pit any of the four core armies agaibst each other in a 100-point skirmish match, but Waiqar feels left behind. I did have one skirmish game (that means 100 points per side) with the BattleCast guy (sorry I forgot your screen name) and it was actually quite fun to build custom lists at that point range. However, he had several expansions which made his undead army able to hold its own against my Daqan lords.

It's really just Waiqar that holds everything up, in my opinion. The other three factions seem fine to throw at each other at 100 points (though the Uthuk core units are actually 108 even without upgrades). And even then, people had success with Waiqar from the core. As a new player, it should be fun to play around with. Picking up the core set, Uthuk Y'llan Army Expansion, and Latari Elves Army Expansion is a very appealing way to go.

Actually (sorry to ramble), I have one other issue with my collection. This game has several sources of variety to make each battle feel different, and army-building is only one. The terrain, deployment, and objectives also mix things up. However, when playing 100-point skirmish games, you do not pick a new deployment - it is the same deployment each time. Now, with the variety of objectives and terrain you get from buying multiple armies, you should have each game feel pretty different, but somehow I didn't feel satisfied. I couldn't shake the feeling that by playing without deployment cards I was only playing a lesser version of the game. You might feel the same way, but you might not.

Long-winded, but accurate. The game makes a solid out-of-the-box boardgame experience, but has sooooo much more to offer when you really dig into it

It makes my head spin a little bit, all the different army builds that Scouts and Zachareth are going to enable.