Hello everyone,

I finally played my first games of Runewars yesterday, and a situation came up regarding damage application. Here goes:

• Oathsworn Cavalry (2 full trays) are engaged with Reanimate Archers (2 full trays)
• Oathsworn have Melee Attack + extra Hit dialed in, they roll 3 Hits on the die
• 3 + 1 Hits = 4 Hits x 2 Threat = 8 Damage
• Reanimate Archers have 1 Defence and 1 Health. 1 Damage is applied to each figure = entire unit is wiped out

Is this right? It seems ludicrously overpowered to wipe out an entire unit of 2 trays in one lucky, but not so unlikely dice roll.

At first I thought we had got it wrong, and you're supposed to apply Hits, not Damage, figure per figure. So that would mean 4 figures get assigned a Hit each, and they all suffer 2 Wounds so one is wasted each time, and in the end only 4 figures get killed.

But re-reading the rules, they clearly say to apply Damage, not Hits, figure per figure, so all 8 get killed.

What is the correct interpretation? Does it seem right that the Oathsworn can wipe out the Archers so easily?

Thanks a lot!

1 hour ago, Kookanoodles said:

Hello everyone,

I finally played my first games of Runewars yesterday, and a situation came up regarding damage application. Here goes:

• Oathsworn Cavalry (2 full trays) are engaged with Reanimate Archers (2 full trays)
• Oathsworn have Melee Attack + extra Hit dialed in, they roll 3 Hits on the die
• 3 + 1 Hits = 4 Hits x 2 Threat = 8 Damage
• Reanimate Archers have 1 Defence and 1 Health. 1 Damage is applied to each figure = entire unit is wiped out

Is this right? It seems ludicrously overpowered to wipe out an entire unit of 2 trays in one lucky, but not so unlikely dice roll.

At first I thought we had got it wrong, and you're supposed to apply Hits, not Damage, figure per figure. So that would mean 4 figures get assigned a Hit each, and they all suffer 2 Wounds so one is wasted each time, and in the end only 4 figures get killed.

But re-reading the rules, they clearly say to apply Damage, not Hits, figure per figure, so all 8 get killed.

What is the correct interpretation? Does it seem right that the Oathsworn can wipe out the Archers so easily?

Thanks a lot!

You played it right. 8 damage kills 8 1-armor, 1-wound figures. So 2 trays of archers.

Cavalry tend to hit hard with the 3rd dice they get. They pay for it by generally being harder to maneuver. An average roll would have been 6 damage (2 hits rolled plus modifier), so you did swing a bit above average.

It it always feels bad when a melee unit catches one of your ranged units. Ranged units are abysmal at melee. For the next game, try to make a point to get your carrion lancer in front of your archers. It is a single tray model, so your archers will have line of sight around it. The oathsworn would need to spend extra turns going around or spend extra turns killing the lancer while your archers get shots in. Archers don’t operate well solo, they need to be supporting other units.

5 minutes ago, Church14 said:

You played it right. 8 damage kills 8 1-armor, 1-wound figures. So 2 trays of archers.

Cavalry tend to hit hard with the 3rd dice they get. They pay for it by generally being harder to maneuver  . An average roll would have been 6 damage (2 hits rolled plus modifier), so you did swing a bit above average.    

 It it always feels bad when a melee unit catches one of your ranged units. Ranged units are abysmal at melee. For the next game, try to make a point to get your carrion lancer in front of your archers. It is a single tray model, so your archers will have line of si  ght around it. The oathsworn would need to spen  d extra turn

Yikes, that does hit hard... Thanks for the tactics!

2 hours ago, Kookanoodles said:

Yikes, that does hit hard... Thanks for the tactics!

Yeah, heavy knights vs archers never goes well for the archer in combat.

Carrion Lancers are built to murder knights. Since archers shoot at initiative 5, and Lancers fight at initiative 5, it's really easy to combo a blight token with the lancer swinging for mortal wounds.

Had those knight hit the lancer instead, 8 damage would have only done 2 wounds (armor 3 lancer).

With a red and 2 blue, and being able to dial in a hit; it's pretty easy for the lancer to kill 2 knights. Once they have lost their threat, knights don't have an easy time generating the 3 hits then need to wound the lancer.

If they swing late for the extra hit, the lancer will get another round of pounding on them at armor 2. If they swing early and armor up, they do less damage and still could die for the lancers surge ability.

Archers and Lancers are a very good pair as they cover each other quite well.

On 5/2/2019 at 4:23 PM, Darth Matthew said:

Had those knight hit the lancer instead, 8 damage would have only done 2 wounds (armor 3 lancer).

Wait... isn't that 5 damage? The armor sponge the first 3 damage, then the other 5 "pass"? Or i always understood armor wrong?

1 hour ago, swarmer said:

Wait... isn't that 5 damage? The armor sponge the first 3 damage, then the other 5 "pass"? Or i always understood armor wrong?

Damage points 1 to 3 reach the armor threshold and cause a wound.

Damage points 4 to 6 reach the armor threshold and cause a wound.

Damage points 7 and 8 do not reach the armor threshold a third time and do not do cause a wound.