I'm new to the game and managed to purchase a core set, Lord Hawthorne, Ankaur Maro, a Carrion Lancer Expansion, a Rune Golem expansion, and the Daqan Command expansion at a pretty deep discount. I've played a couple of the skirmishes to learn the game, but need some more units to fill out the two armies to get to 200 points. I am supplying both armies and for now I'm going to stick to Daqan and Waiqar. For balance purposes, I plan to get a Waiqar Command expansion, but what other expansions should I get? I know the most efficient way is to buy another core set, but I'm interested in the expansions for completionist purposes for the upgrade cards.

I can get reanimates and spearmen for about 16 dollars each on Amazon right now, which would allow for more interesting upgrades with larger units. I could also get crossbowmen and deathknights for more unit variety (without quite the same bargain). I'm not looking for optimized lists, just something that will be fun to play, reasonably balanced, and allow some variety.

As you say the core box is the best value. A box of oathsworn is always good as its a versitile unit for different strattegies. As for Waikar deathknights are quite nice. But i would argue for one more base box

Don't forget that Scouts and Wraiths are coming out in a couple days!!! They should give a good variety of new support units to your larger units.

Another base box is always good, but if was going to get anything from your list, I would do the Death Knights if you like Waiqar, and Crossbowmen if you like Daqan. Death Knights can do a lot of cool stuff, and Crossbows are probably the best pure damage that Daqan have right now - but I would get two boxes of either if you do those.

Yeah, that's the thing. If you go Death Knights and Crossbowmen, as @FranquesEnbiens says, you'll want two boxes each. As a Waiqar player, I think Reanimate Archers is a really good buy because of Combat Ingenuity. Dumping blight on things really helps Waiqar to survive.

Personally, Reanimates are my favorite, but the only thing that box has for you is Lingering Dead, so your Reanimates hit just as hard during a round in which they lose trays, and keeps those trays around for regeneration, which is nice. It's a game changing upgrade for Reanimates...but Reanimates are slow and generally not thought very highly of. They can do work, however, so it depends on if you want the shambling horde, or if you want something swift like Death Knights.

Spearmen...I would skip that box if you think there's a chance that in the future you might buy another Core Set. Because with just 2 core sets, you can stick a Golem in the front and have a 9-tray, and there are no stellar upgrades in the Spearmen pack (correction: Raven Tabards is good, but it comes in the Waiqar Infantry Command pack; Tempered Steel is great for Reanimate Archers, but also comes in the Reanimate Archers, so buying the Spearmen helps there, but I don't know if that's a good enough reason to buy a box of Spearmen).

I'd recommend 3 boxes of the crossbowmen so you can run two of their 3x1 formation! That's what I have enjoyed anyway

If you get Crossbowmen, you'll almost certainly want to run them with 3 trays, so you'll want to get two boxes of them. They're a solid unit that brings ranged damage into the game (Reanimate Archers, while fine, aren't really punchy), which is a big deal. The Reanimate Archer box is good for the upgrades and extra models, Death Knights really help Waiqar out on a couple fronts and can work fine in a small unit, so they're a good box. Buying one box of Reanimates will get you the uprade Parakitor rightly points out, and since Reanimates top out higher than Spearmen and don't *always* run their heavy upgrade, it's still money well spent if you decide to pick up another core box for bulk value later. On the flip side of that, you can probably skip the Spearmen expansion box for the opposite reason. Lots of people love running big blocks of Carrion Lancers, so another box or even two could see play if you fall that way.

And then, of course, we're all waiting to see how Wraiths and Scouts are going to shake things up. Both look like fun units with interesting tactical options, though. Wraiths look the most exciting at 3 trays, though, like the Crossbowmen, so would probably be a two-box purchase, too.

The safest, blandest recommendation is probably to suggest two boxes of Crossbowmen, and then either (Reanimate Archers and Reanimates), (Reanimate Archers and Death Knights), or (two boxes of Wraiths) as your next 4 boxes. That would be 188 points of Daqan and either 190, 205, or 187 in raw models before upgrades, which should give you some room to fiddle around the edges with different builds of upgrade distributions as you figure out what you like.

Given what you describe you're looking for in the first post, I'd just start with an expansion each. Sure, the core is the most cost effective way of getting trays, but buying one expansion of each unit isn't going to create a bunch of inefficiency in your buying. The upgrade cards will create a lot of variety and possibilities, and you then leave yourself the chance to pick up a second core, which when added to these expansions, will take you up to being able to field the largest tray sizes if you desire. This represents a good casual introduction to the game and gives you a lot to experiment with, without either breaking your bank, or leaving you having spent inefficiently.

1 hour ago, Vergilius said:

Given what you describe you're looking for in the first post, I'd just start with an expansion each. Sure, the core is the most cost effective way of getting trays, but buying one expansion of each unit isn't going to create a bunch of inefficiency in your buying. The upgrade cards will create a lot of variety and possibilities, and you then leave yourself the chance to pick up a second core, which when added to these expansions, will take you up to being able to field the largest tray sizes if you desire. This represents a good casual introduction to the game and gives you a lot to experiment with, without either breaking your bank, or leaving you having spent inefficiently.

I'd just like to add that if you play 150 point games, you get a good flavor with your units, and it's not wildly different from a 200 point game. As you pick up packs, you'll inevitably get to 200, so I don't think there's a point in rushing it unless you're planning to go to a big tournament soon. Which would be impressive to buy a new game and jump right into high level tournament play like that, but definitely out of the ordinary.

Thanks to everyone who chimed in with their opinions. I really appreciate all of the advice. For the Daqan, the Spearmen expansion seems like a good one to skip since there are no unique upgrade cards and somewhat redundant with another core set. This is definitely the one expansion that I was really unsure if it was worth it, so thanks for steering me away from this one. Plus, since I'm currently painting Spearmen, the thought of adding eight more is tough to stomach right now. So Crossbowmen it is. With one box that gets me to 180-186 points in base units depending on the formation of the Rune Golems (Spearmen 30, Cavalry 20, Kari 32, Hawthorne 34, Crossbowmen 19, Golems 17 and Golems 28 in a 2x1). Getting to 200 points seems pretty doable with still being able to try a variety of upgrades as mentioned by kaffis above.

For the Waiqar, a big block of Reanimates is thematic and fun and seems somewhat necessary to make Maro more effective, plus Lingering Dead is a unique upgrade to the box. That is 172-175 points in base units depending on the formation of the Carrion Lancers (Ardus 37, Ankaur 40, CL 15, 2x1 CL 27, Reanimates 35, Reanimate Archers 18). With a heavy dose of upgrading, getting to just under 200 points shouldn't be that hard.

As an unrelated aside, what game shops in the Twin Cities sell Runewars? It seems like there are at least a handful of Twin Cities people on these forums. I've been into a couple in the past 2 or 3 months on the Minneapolis side and they don't carry Runewars, despite carrying most of FFG's other products. I'm sure the FFG event center does, but anything on the Minneapolis side? Death Knights are full price or more online and I'd rather support a local store if I can.

@tgall probably knows where to get Runewars stuff.

9 hours ago, milesrad said:

Thanks to everyone who chimed in with their opinions. I really appreciate all of the advice. For the Daqan, the Spearmen expansion seems like a good one to skip since there are no unique upgrade cards and somewhat redundant with another core set. This is definitely the one expansion that I was really unsure if it was worth it, so thanks for steering me away from this one. Plus, since I'm currently painting Spearmen, the thought of adding eight more is tough to stomach right now. So Crossbowmen it is. With one box that gets me to 180-186 points in base units depending on the formation of the Rune Golems (Spearmen 30, Cavalry 20, Kari 32, Hawthorne 34, Crossbowmen 19, Golems 17 and Golems 28 in a 2x1). Getting to 200 points seems pretty doable with still being able to try a variety of upgrades as mentioned by kaffis above.

For the Waiqar, a big block of Reanimates is thematic and fun and seems somewhat necessary to make Maro more effective, plus Lingering Dead is a unique upgrade to the box. That is 172-175 points in base units depending on the formation of the Carrion Lancers (Ardus 37, Ankaur 40, CL 15, 2x1 CL 27, Reanimates 35, Reanimate Archers 18). With a heavy dose of upgrading, getting to just under 200 points shouldn't be that hard.

As an unrelated aside, what game shops in the Twin Cities sell Runewars? It seems like there are at least a handful of Twin Cities people on these forums. I've been into a couple in the past 2 or 3 months on the Minneapolis side and they don't carry Runewars, despite carrying most of FFG's other products. I'm sure the FFG event center does, but anything on the Minneapolis side? Death Knights are full price or more online and I'd rather support a local store if I can.

FFG Event Center will be your most consistent place to find inventory. I've seen them stocked at The Source, I've seen a few core sets at the Gaming Goat / and Tower Games. Those latter 2 may be able to order expansion sets for you and get you the 10-20% discount, but I haven't seen them stock them.

Also -- if you're looking for games -- we have Twin Cities Runewars group on Facebook you should join (possible this links works? Twin Cities: RuneWars Miniatures Game ) . We do a 'seasonal' league were we get in 1 match a month against other players. It's a fun time.

A good general rule for a basic collection is to get just enough of each unit to field one max size formation. You can short on the siege units a bit as not all of them work well maxed out

55 minutes ago, Church14 said:

A good general rule for a basic collection is to get just enough of each unit to field one max size formation. You can short on the siege units a bit as not all of them work well maxed out

I do not have nearly enough figures to do that, even with my main army. I think you can get a fairly decent army without buying that much stuff. Not that this is a bad plan, but one shouldn't feel like if they can't do this then they can't build a good army.