Dear RWM community.

This time I would like to ask which of deploying units ways do you prefer:

1. the one from rulebook, Starting Player Places First

2. the one from tournaments, MSU player places first excess units, then SPPF.

I had 5 units, my oponent had 7 so I asked him to place 2 first, but feel really bad now about strong advantage I had from beginning, probably that is why there is not so much MSU on tournaments

Tournaments. I don't think there is a "strong advantage" from the beginning. Every little bit of knowledge helps, but the most important units that I want to see are my opponent's bigger units. And if he's fielding MSU, chances are, some of those units really are and can be placed inconsequentially. It is his responsibility to figure that out for his list.

I prefer #2. Flank charges and flank attacks are potent. Letting MSU have a distinct deployment advantage amplifies that.

Padding your list with otherwise useless crap to get deployment and activation advantage is one of those things that irks me in Armada. Runewars deployment removes some of the incentives for that style of play.

thank you and thank you. ;)(btw my list was embedded maro2*2, two 2*1 R Archers (one CA, one TS and CQT) Ardus and 3*3 Deathcaller Marching Vexilium Worms SimOrd deathstar.

OFC that was placed last and this machine destroyed everything. I think I had more figures at the end than at the beginning.

I like the 2nd way. As someone who enjoys msu builds, I dont mind putting a few units down first. Usually a build with a lot of moving parts has some pretty specific strategies, so I dont feel like I'm giving much away with some support deployments.

We play with option 3.

If you've got more units, you place 2 instead of 1.

Edit: We place 2 each deployment until you no longer have more units. Example, I've got 12 units, my opponent has 7. I place first and place 2, he places 1, I place 2... and so on.

We also tend to play 300 points, so 7 units is fairly normal, and 10-12 units is usually msu.

It seems to balance out msu better than a total nerf.

For 300 pt games that sounds like a good way to do it. I've never actually tried a 300 pt game, that needs to happen soon.

We've done two weeks in a row of 300 points, but both times we each brought seven units, so normal deployment worked.

One thought: Is MSU really the right concept for the way Runewars plays? In much older games, you'd call it a swarm style list, and as I understand the origins of the term MSU, it was supposed to mean a bunch of independent and equally effective units, but each unit needed the potential for a lot pop. Most 2x1s seems to cap around 6 damage, and the ones with higher caps tend to suffer from no access to rerolls. So I could see Thresher spam as MSU or 2x1 Cav with Rank Discipline, but a 7 activation Latari list with a bunch of Scions and Archers is really just a swarm list that blocks, chips, slows/stuns, and then chips some more until a whole unit goes down. Or have we gotten to the point where in most games, people have largely forgotten the origins of how MSU developed as a term, and now it is just the new word for a swarm?

7 units in RWM is defitely msu. 4 is rare but those are usually powerful hitter. 4 1worm units and two BIG blocks Will make "secondary swarm". Still these are not official names So you can call anything any name. As long as receivers understand

12 hours ago, Darth Matthew said:

We play with option 3.

If you've got more units, you place 2 instead of 1.

Edit: We place 2 each deployment until you no longer have more units. Example, I've got 12 units, my opponent has 7. I place first and place 2, he places 1, I place 2... and so on.

We also tend to play 300 points, so 7 units is fairly normal, and 10-12 units is usually msu.

It seems to balance out msu better than a total nerf.

Thems Battletech rules.

It actually continues where it goes 3-1 if you outnumber them by that much.

That being said, that’s also a good way to do it

10 hours ago, Vergilius said:

We've done two weeks in a row of 300 points, but both times we each brought seven units, so normal deployment worked.

One thought: Is MSU really the right concept for the way Runewars plays? In much older games, you'd call it a swarm style list, and as I understand the origins of the term MSU, it was supposed to mean a bunch of independent and equally effective units, but each unit needed the potential for a lot pop. Most 2x1s seems to cap around 6 damage, and the ones with higher caps tend to suffer from no access to rerolls. So I could see Thresher spam as MSU or 2x1 Cav with Rank Discipline, but a 7 activation Latari list with a bunch of Scions and Archers is really just a swarm list that blocks, chips, slows/stuns, and then chips some more until a whole unit goes down. Or have we gotten to the point where in most games, people have largely forgotten the origins of how MSU developed as a term, and now it is just the new word for a swarm?

My understanding of MSU was that it describes any list that uses the smallest (or at least small) units and is designed to take advantage of game mechanics favorable to having many units.

In Armada an MSU is to gain deployment and activation advantage usually in order to last-first an opponent. TR90 spam works to override the effectiveness of defense tokens.

In runewars, the most damage efficient units are usually the smallest formations available. So an MSU in Runewars I s trading durability for increased maximum potential damage. Especially given that MSU more likely to pull off flank charges.

I’ve always heard of any list the has a main unit and then a horde supporting it as a “1+X” list where “X” is some sort of shorthand. But I don’t have decades of gaming behind me to know what it may have been called.