Spill some out for Runewars. I still love this game and am generally said it never lived up to its potential. 😞 I still have a few unit types to buy. May be on discount now.

3 hours ago, frankelee said:

The gameplay got mixed reviews. Forums for players, where the top 1% of most interested players go to talk, probably gave it overwhelmingly great reviews, I cast a wider net and saw a lot of people who were unimpressed. The miniatures aren't bad, but so what? "Well these aren't terrible, here's hundreds of dollars!" said no gamer ever. The IP is basically irrelevant to the tabletop community at large. And the price was waaaaaay too high. $3 for PVC minis? If you want to sell your game expansions at board game values, sell board games. $3 for a PVC mini is more a less a nonstarter for the vast majority of tabletop wargamers. You have to be convinced to go in on that price. Meanwhile Runewars was looking for it's first superlative quality that would cause someone to want to buy it, let alone overcome negatives. I was really disappointed when I saw all this, because I knew they had released this game with a guarantee to fail. And it floundered out of the gate.

If they're going to sell tabletop miniature games they've got to start giving people a better reason to buy it than simply existing. All the things I mentioned above needed to be selling points, not negatives.

Well, you may have a point. It's got a pretty good review on Boardgamegeek, but I imagine lots of the people who were less than enthused about it didn't waste their time rating it - it is a miniatures game, after all; not a boardgame.

But to me, the dials were the selling point. It's what made X-wing so enthralling, and it's definitely a strength of Runewars, in my opinion. I can see where some people might not like it. The other thing I heard people complain about was that it looked "too kiddie." I think a combination of the theme, which up until Uthuk was kind of fantasy-lite, and the maneuver templates that made it feel boardgamey rather than a "real" miniatures game. That's fine, people can feel that way, but both of these things were a + in my book. Maybe consumers like me are few and far between.

3 hours ago, Hos said:

IMHO what hurt this game was the two factions on launch, and the price. There should have been 4 factions on launch, one of which should have been Elves - so many people I demo-ed the game to when the game launched said game looks nice, but I'll wait for the Elves.

Yep, I heard this one a lot, too. I totally agree.

I saw Frankelee's post and immediately decided to go read some reviews. I never did that originally, as i think the big thing that encourages people to get into a game is word of mouth and friends who play a game. And yeah, he was right that they were mixed. The gameplay came out excellent in all of them, which is what most of the people in the thread are commenting on. Miniature quality was middling, but not terrible. The setting took some criticism, and the price/value was also criticized frequently.

For most games, there's a combination of gameplay, setting, and just finding other people who play that create the "magic" of success in a game. And sometimes there is the collector value. I know some of what makes the Star Wars games successful is the number of people who buy simply to put models on their shelves.

8 hours ago, kaffis said:

But the samurai theme is much narrower ... and it's less visually diverse than traditional fantasy races and creatures. (I primarily know L5R from limited exposure to the card game a few times, but I've NEVER seen what I'd consider a fantasy creature depicted. ...

Well, you've got:

Ogres
Trolls
Goblins
Wyrms
Zokujn (kobolds)
Oni ("demons")
Kappa (turtle people)
Ki-Rin (fire-horse)
Dragons (elemental gods, basically)
Nezumi (rat-people)
Orochi (sea serpents)
Kitsune (trickster spirits, foxes)
Kenku (bird-people)
Kitsu (lion-people)
Kumo (spider-people)
Naga (snake-people)
Ningyo (merpeople)
Great Sea Spiders (giant spiders)
Clay Soldiers / Living Statues (Golems)
Baku (like a Rhino + Lion)
Garegosu no Bakemono (giant squid-like monsters)

With regards to "undead," you've got
Spirits
Gaki (malicious ghosts)
Skeletons
Zombies

It's basically all there

Got to play at Gencon 2017, finishing 9th place. Think we got 18 players. It was the best gaming experience I've ever had! But I was just hoping the game would live on til I found time to fully invest. My partially painted Waiqar army will forever lack a true opponent now, even when it's time to teach my sons. I realize I'm part of the problem more than a solution, but they still made $200+ off of me. More than I spend on most other games/hobbies. Not sure how the price point would have changed, but I think selling the pieces fully painted (i.e. X-Wing) would have helped build the community. The true hobbyists still would have repainted their armies!

RIP Runewars Miniatures

RIP Warhammer Fantasy

I think Terrinoth will evolve as a setting- FFG have only recently started growing it in terms of bringing together and building on the lore with Realms of Terrinoth and some aspects of RWM, the realm does seem slightly in wind-down at the moment but it's still getting sales and a following, especially Descent-wise. If RWM does drop down it will be a missed opportunity for some amazing legendary figures and creatures (I was hoping for dragons and a pegasus). The wind-down may be as some sort of Terrinoth 'refresh' is in the wings, and FFG have claimed to be working on 'stuff' for Descent (unless that ended up as LOTR Journeys of course). Games do go through dormant periods then suddenly come back- even some of the Terrinoth games vanished historically but then there was a surprise new edition. It can be the nature of games- they hit critical mass then slow down sales wise (or fail to hit the needed peak), then get eclipsed by the currently peaking games, perhaps going out of print, but often if the game was very popular it may eventually return when it's had enough of a breather to potentially hit critical mass again (or if it didn't quite work sales-wise to try a new strategy). And the biggest games can have quite length development and playtesting and production periods even if they're based on an earlier version. It's not a 'fast' industry due to its heavily creative nature (you know that creating fan stuff such as campaigns and adventures- it's a lot of slog even though it's worth it for the finished creation, which many might see as akin to an artwork, if you've hopefully created something good!)

I like that Terrinoth's partly generic (which is especially useful for RPG'ing and other areas where familiarity with something is helpful) and that it also has some unique ideas like Skarn. I still really love it as a setting and there's also enough lore to pick the bits of interest. I think it's undervaluing it somewhat to say it's not a great and well developed fantasy setting, however...

I do think they need to get more creative with it now and come up with some new ideas, new approaches and new aspects that make it feel like they've built on the world creatively, perhaps part of the reason it may feel a little stale is how much the competition's ramped up recently from other games alongside the fact it has now been around for a while and perhaps evolved a little less than some of these rival games- the new RPG launched with Eliza Farrow, Heroes of Terrinoth with Splig which isn't a bad thing as such - one of the things I love with the fan projects I'm working on is using such 'expected' established characters (sometimes with a twist), but using them in the first of a new release may have the downside that a lot of people might think it's a bit 'nothing much new', it's a hard circle to square as ditching stuff, especially favoured characters, can go down badly too, I miss some of the things that never made it over from first edition Descent to second edition Descent, but some of the abandoned things were the more unique things, so maybe sometimes generic has more appeal, if that's why they never made it to second edition. Generic stuff isn't an entirely bad thing for a fantasy setting- many of the things like dragons are much-loved staples of the genre, and generic didn't harm the popularity of a certain boy wizard too much because it had that wow / draw you in factor. Yeah, not much new, but it was done well enough to be a winner, especially for a certain author!

My view on Terrinoth is similar, there's a lot to work with with the lore and it's broader than some people realise.

People have mentioned Warhammer and the like which do have lots of unique units, some of these are great but others are just too weird as they've tried too hard to be different, likewise there are great units but they're still inspired by fantasy generics, they've just got really good at adding their own little details, but these other big names are largely rooted in generic fantasy too (dragons, vampires, undead, trees, monsters....), so sometimes new and innovative does/doesn't work, sometimes generic likewise.

Now they've seeded some new interest in Terrinoth the positive way forward for FFG is how can we fine-tune it and build it and get the best out of it as our own IP? What do we do with it to make the most of it?

The 'oh, fantasy's too generic thing' is no excuse- lots of things built from fairly generic start points do really well because they're developed and built up in a way that makes that particular take on them really alluring- it's unfair to say FFG haven't done this with Terrinoth- I really love a lot of what they've put into that world, but I think it's evolved in a rather haphazard way as it was I feel previously on a game by game basis rather than a holistic view of the realm as a whole, I think this will change going forward..

Post- Realms of Terrinoth there's a really strong opportunity for FFG to say OK, this is our IP, it's good, sometimes great, but how do we make it really shine for the next stage of its evolution as a game world.

From a business and PR angle I'd be asking 'fantasy worlds are so common how do we make our fantasy world THE best fantasy world? Ours is very good but what does it need to be brilliant? Inspiring? Exciting? Impactful?..... What would make its games a 'must have' rather than a 'might buy' or 'not sure' for fantasy game fans?' Would love some thought on this from any of you who are fantasy fans as it could drive the quality of my fan-made projects and hopefully FFG will read it and get ideas for their commercial ones- what would make a fantasy setting the best and stand out from the rest yet have that familiarity and the things people love in fantasy?, how would you evolve the Terrinoth setting if you were thinking about it in such overall terms? what great creative sparks has it got and what's it maybe lacking currently? (maybe answer that in one of my Genesys Terrinoth threads as it fits better there)

I just remembered how bitter I was when L5R was announced and they had lore articles for that game, but not for Runewars. I'm not sure how much it would have helped the game, but it would DEFINITELY have been appreciated.

On 1/14/2019 at 8:56 PM, kaffis said:

While "it's too generic" was always a criticism of Terrinoth, it was also close to being a strength. While it doesn't come with built in fans who just gotta have the latest thing related to their favorite setting, it also is relatable, recognizable to newbies, sets expectations easily, and is unlikely to outright turn people off by being too niche.

L5R is the flip side of that. It comes with some baked in fans who gravitated to it over years back in the day and carry nostalgia for that. But the samurai theme is much narrower and divisive than generic fantasy a it doesn't do a good job of quickly establishing expectations and s gameplay language by leveraging common understanding of popular tropes as well as fantasy factions do, and it's less visually diverse than traditional fantasy races and creatures. (I primarily know L5R from limited exposure to the card game a few times, but I've NEVER seen what I'd consider a fantasy creature depicted. So in addition to all the factions being infantry in samurai armor instead of some skeletons, others elves, with some humans and dwarves over there... I also lose the carrion worms, treants, golems, and demon crabs that make Terrinoth stop passers-by despite the lack of familiarity. At least, as far as I know.

My experience only comes from the first edition of the l5r roleplaying game in the 90s so much may have changed.

But its absolutely a fully fledged fantasy setting, with monsters and demons and magic. But based on japanease culture and history i presume.

But each of the Clans are widely different, and in typical fantasy style to very exaggarated proportions. This is a perfect setting for a fantasy wargame game since each clan has its own units, culture, fighting style, magic and can be given very different statlines and game mechanics. Imagine Space Marine chapters in 40k but with even more variety and difference.

come to think of it, i really wanted to get into Clan Wars back in the day but never did. If FFG adapts the Runewars ruleset and makes a L5R game...i dont think i could resist!

I think one of the underrated reasons this game failed is that it wasnt prepainted. I think alot of the initial buzz died down after it was revealed that the miniatures were not prepainted. I think this also goes hand and hand with the pricing issue. If these had been prepainted the price point probably would have been correct but since they were not and since the overall miniature quality was sub par by today standards the price point was probably a bit aggressive. Here is an old post thar kind of illustrates my point:

I dont think this was the main pitfall but I think it is one of the many major problems that unfortunately led to the death of this game.

On the other hand, painting does build up a personal connection with your army that, I think, goes a long way to explain the passion the core players here in the forums feel for the game. The fact that every single army I saw at GenCon had significant paint on it, and many were completely painted and based, really speaks to how energized and engaged we felt by the game.

I don't get that from X-Wing, and I don't get that sense from most of its players.

38 minutes ago, kaffis said:

On the other hand, painting does build up a personal connection with your army that, I think, goes a long way to explain the passion the core players here in the forums feel for the game. The fact that every single army I saw at GenCon had significant paint on it, and many were completely painted and based, really speaks to how energized and eng  aged we felt by the game.

I don't get that from X-Wing, and I don't get th  at sense from most of its   players.

I started my FFG games with X-Wing, and still play. I will say in my experience that X-Wing is all about winning. The community is great locally and the regionals I have attended, but winning is the focus. I don't get this from Armada or the SW:LCG events I attended and now it is too late for me to see how RW community is/was.

44 minutes ago, Cusm said:

I started my FFG games with X-Wing, and still play. I will say in my experience that X-Wing is all about winning. The community is great locally and the regionals I have attended, but winning is the focus. I don't get this from Armada or the SW:LCG events I attended and now it is too late for me to see how RW community is/was.

Don't count us out yet! That's how good we are as a community. We love this game, we love playing it, complimenting each other's paint jobs, discussing it... It's not just about winning and organized play for bragging rights and FFG swag. That's why we're gonna fight for our community and to grow it as long as FFG will print the game.

8 hours ago, Cusm said:

I started my FFG games with X-Wing, and still play. I will say in my experience that X-Wing is all about winning. The community is great locally and the regionals I have attended, but winning is the focus. I don't get this from Armada or the SW:LCG events I attended and now it is too late for me to see how RW community is/was.

The SWLCG events I went to were split pretty much down the middle between those who were there for a good time and those who were there to win. I never felt that away about the Runewars events I went to. I definitely felt it with X-Wing.

16 hours ago, kaffis said:

Don't count us out yet! That's how good we are as a community. We love this game, we love playing it, complimenting each other's paint jobs, discussing it... It's not just about winning and organized play for bragging rights and FFG swag. That's why we're gonna fight for our community and to grow it as long as FFG will print the game.

Agreed! I'm still buying and painting for my army.

1 hour ago, Hepitude said:

Agreed! I'm still buying and painting for my army.

I am still adding as we speak. I have some of every faction, will eventually have one of everything. My next buy is the Elves starter set, and then I will be able to field at least a small army of each faction.

People prior have mentioned about Rune Wars being generic and there are pros and cons to that. Here is how I would have done it:

Year 1
Third Darkness -
Get all four main armies up to speed ASAP.

Advance story based on World's rankings

Year 2
The Land Endures -
Increase the point size of the game, release a new campaign box which has modified unit cards for older units and new terrain.
Release 3D models of the terrain.
Release one new faction and use this year to bring it up to speed competitively.

Advance story based on World's rankings

Year 3
An Age Undreamed of -
Add a new game mechanic, rune magic
Release one new faction and use this year to bring it up to speed competitively.
Release rules to allow models to be replaced with custom heroes from the RPG or from Descent (not tournament)

Advance story based on World's rankings

Year 4
The Desperate Gambit -
Release "neutral allies"
Release Legendary Units
3D terrain pieces of the card pieces from the last two years.

Year 5
The second Darkness - A prequel
Introduce Waiqar himself as a Legendary Unit

Year 6
The Price of Existence -
Go back to the current time period and put it in a state of collapse due to the Runes going nuts thanks to actions taken in year 4, The Desperate Gambit.

In tandem with this, release Terrinoth RPG and Descent content with the same names or something along the same lines. Whilst the massive armies fight on the battlefield, Descent and the RPG tackle the small skirmishes, the infiltration, the court intrigue. Use all the different formats to advance the story.

USE THE WEBSITE TO WRITE A PERSISTENT NARRATIVE.

Honestly, no other game has an interactive, persistent narrative that people can influence. You cannot do that with Star Wars or Star Trek or even Warhammer . . you CAN do that with your own IP. It would make it unique.

Imagine that, a pen and paper RPG, a skirmish game AND a massive battle game, all linked? If that's not marketable I don't know what is.

****, I would even write the thing. .

and the beauty of it all is that it IS GENERIC. It's not D&D, it's not Lord of the Rings, Its not Conan, it's not anything. It's their own IP.

You want to have Elves that are super strong and poor Dexterity? Go for it. Charming Orcs? That's a possibility. A mono sex Cat like race that are all female but can genetically breed with anyone? Go nuts. Dwarves that DON'T LIVE IN MOUNTAINS. Why not. .

You could of had:

Human - Generic
Human - Variant - Depends on their Barony
Human - Variant - Raised by Latari

Latari - Generic
Latari - Exile
Latari - Raised by Humans
Lartari - Pureblood

Uthuk - Generic
Uthuk - Bloodborn (Just made that up)

etc, etc

But no. Why break the mold, why release something new and exciting.

You know . . if I could actually make models I would do it myself.

On 1/14/2019 at 8:25 PM, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

In fact... now that I'm thinking about this... didn't RuneWars release before FFG had the rights to LR5? Maybe... once they got the rights to L5R they planned on switching RuneWars over to an L5R-Wars (like the old "Clan Wars" miniature game of the late 90s?). And I'm not just thinking about all of this because I loved Clan Wars and would play the **** out of a RuneWars-like Rokugan game...

FFG and AEG announced sale of L5R IP at 11th September of 2015. Then started to design LCG game that got premiere at Gencon 2017.

@Viktus106

This is similar to my thoughts- if FFG continued to build up the world - that they own - and made it what it could be then I don't see why it couldn't be as alluring as the IP worlds they seem to be a bit over-focused on at the moment, yet somehow there's a constant niggling thought that they're not quite selling it as well as they could.

I do sometimes wonder about FFG's promotional skills mainly on the excitement/following building front- there are brand new games on KS that generate lots of hype, established rivals that have big followings- yet FFG seem to have something that doesn't quite cut it, they somehow seem to run out of steam, only an impression from the conversations other people in my gaming community don't start about FFG games vs those they do start about other games, but there's just that subtle hint that somehow FFG aren't quite generating the excitement about their games (even the IP ones).

Maybe not quite exactly as per your ideas but if they were very clever - they'd have to get this just right so people got on board with it - why not be really brave and ditch the standalone games (not exactly, I'll come back to this) - put everything under a new game line entity 'Legends of Terrinoth' or something like that.

Use the overlaps.

I know some forum posters have said how things like overlapping figures haven't worked in the past (although I don't know how true this is) but if FFG got it right there's no reason why it wouldn't work- I know several people who have crossed over the different Terrinoth games or even if they've not mixed them in that way have got into more than one of the games, and there have been some things that could have been better this way- instead of having x different versions of a piece in different games (or even sometimes the same piece in different games- I think I now own three Zylas!) there is a way you could bring Terrinoth under one umbrella, with common pieces such as quality sculpts, alongside separate modules for different gameplay environments (RWM, Descent.....).

You could even do really clever stuff with terrain tiles that work across different games, if you think of the evolution of tiles for LOTR Journeys why not expand on that varied type idea- starting with landscape mapsheets, then larger area possibly hex tile maptiles down to close up maptiles (the sort you have now in Descent 2) and expansions that have new options for not just one game format.

I'm sure if done really well this could be one way to tick that how do we make our fantasy world THE fantasy world.

Battlelore ending doesn't matter as there's a Battlelore-like way to play the 'Legends of Terrinoth' offering

Runewars could still exist within this.

Runewars Miniatures could still exist within this (with a high quality benchmark standard of figures, although this is the only difficult choice from a dev angle- some like me would want paintable, others may want prepainted, some may want cheap instead or even card tokens, so deciding what to offer that worked for all games and preferences could be tricky as my idea would be that there's one set of figures/equivalent that cover all the game types), perhaps there are card tokens and figure alternatives, not sure what would be best but common figures help on sales risk to a degree- each game along with tabletop RPG'ers is a market.

Descent could be part of this and finally 'complete', however it evolves keeping the best of 1 and 2 (some of which- even 2 as the quest vault's out of date- is still lacking)

Maybe there's an amazing suite of apps too, ideally optional although it may be essential for certain types of gameplay, even better it has built in workshop ability- players can not only create their own adventures but make the app work with them.

One game world brand could offer many types of gameplay options from card to app driven adventure to miniatures battle, in some cases solo to multiplayer, fully co op or with overlord (it's a way Descents overlord could be kept for those who like it or replaced through the app or other means for those who don't)

Being really clever (although you'd have to work through a few headscratching how-do-we-do-thises to get there) you could even find a way to make one set of core hero/ adversary cards work for all games, each game would need I'm thinking some unique cards too, or something that made such a system work, possibly pairing a game-specific card with the generic character/entity card - you could still have a card only game in the setting.

Over time you can build up the range to get more sales - scenery, terrain tiles etc, if it grows, or just keep releasing the lines if they just level out.

So so many possibilities if you just thought outside the (yes I am going to do this and yes you'll hate me for it) game box

Terrinoth is currently NOT used as much- or as well- as it could be which seems crazy for something FFG own, it's not going to be lost as an IP isn't renewed or becomes too expensive (which could easily happen with IP things- a certain digital pinball company has just taken a massive hit from losing a major IP- and a rival company now has that IP) so it surprises me that FFG don't make more of that which is their own, especially when it's fantasy and people LOVE fantasy (even the generic staples of fantasy like dragons, wizards, undead are familiar things people love to latch onto).

FFG seem to underestimate the potential value of something they seeded and own.

Doing something clever like this and messing it up, it's worth mentioning, could be a disaster.

But imagine doing something clever like this and getting it REALLY right.

That could be seriously awesome. And it CAN work as I'm already getting some epic fanmade ideas from mashing up content and kit from different Terrinoth games.

FFG have fallen behind a bit versus some of their rivals whose product output has moved on in leaps and bounds so FFG need to catch up and retake the lead their already awesome games deserve.

They COULD do something that really innovates and amazes.

FFG I lay down the Gauntlet (sorry wrong game, watch out for all them ghosts)

As a tremendously slow painter, I will be collecting and painting Waiqar and Daqan for years to come. And playing, too, as long as I can find an opponent!

20 minutes ago, escutcheon said:

As a tremendously slow painter, I will be collecting and painting Waiqar and Daqan for years to come. And playing, too, as long as I can find an opponent!

That's kinda the boat I'm in. My only concern is whether I'll be able to find the expansions I want when I'm finally ready to paint a second army.

2 minutes ago, Budgernaut said:

That's kinda the boat I'm in. My only concern is whether I'll be able to find the expansions I want when I'm finally ready to paint a second army.

Me too, sometimes FFG things don't hang around for long enough for people to actually save up for them, which may be another weakness in their strategy (I was going to complete my 1st edition Descent, then it got scrapped for 2e, RWM seems to be vanishing from UK shops, when I purchased Runewars you couldn't get the 'Banners of War' expansion anymore.... Completing RWM (even based on only getting what one would like) is pricey so I can't just go out and get it all in one go (hence the fact breathers between new releases are sometimes a good thing) but there is that worry will it be like first edition Descent again- hard to get hold of.

If Fantasy Flight wasn't so busy milking that ATAT then RWM may have gotten the traction it needed to survive. They've pretty much turned the corner from being a game company to an IP farm.

True. So many subtle ways to turn fans into fanatics. GW did them all with tinkering with their setting. Ffg practically none of them. Just like dwarves from moria (Hill in Jeruzalem BTW) they dug too Deep.

My biggest problem with this announcement is how vague it is. They ended organized play, but didn't say if they were going to continue to support the game or not.

All three of my local stores have now clearance out runewars with no intention to restock.

Wither or not they intended to completely kill the game, or just end organized play, the lack of statement about still producing and selling existing kits has killed off the game.

3 hours ago, Darth Matthew said:

My biggest problem with this announcement is how vague it is. They ended organized play, but didn't say if they were going to continue to support the game or not.

All three of my local stores have now clearance out runewars with no intention to restock.

Wither or not they intended to completely kill the game, or just end organized play, the lack of statement about still producing and selling existing kits has killed off the game.

FFG never say they stop a game. they stopped battlelore, runewars board game, descent, etc but never said a word. they want to sell their stock. now see the facts :

Holiday selling

CHristian Petersen left

Organized play ended

There is no place for hope of new releases = dead. sorry but true, all Terrinoth is dead. And the last who would pick it up is Asmodee. Fantasy gone.