A few days ago, we had a runewars game that showed pretty well how different the tactics may be and how clever the different mechanics are interlaced.
The map was some kind of a right-angled triangle with a large hypotenuse in the south. The whole middle of the map was settled by a wall of the most powerful neutral units.
The elves started far in the west and took care to stay isolated there for nearly the entire game. The Uthuk started on the opposite pole, far in the east, right next to a town. The undead had to bite the sour apple, starting at the northern top of that triangle, right in the middle between the Uthuk an the elves. Nevertheless, what noone had imagined, the undead did win the game with a massive advance.
Nothing influenced the game‘s course more than the Uthuks powerful start: The demon hordes advanced to the top of the triangle in their very first year, conquering two towns (one ofg them was pretty close to the undead player). Using their ralley support oder to gain neutral armies, they were able to recruit an impressive army in the first year and to threaten the undead‘s position heavily. It was evident: If they were able to build a stronghold next to that town, the undead will be rushed by a flood of demon and neutral forces.
The undead player himself had a bad start. He lost some troops in struggles with neutrals and could not trigger the necromancers special ability for a long, long time. Now, he had to conquer the Uthuks second town fast in order not to get squashed. Thus, a long see-saw-battle started between the undead and the Uthuk forces.
Perfect for the elves: They didn‘t intervened militaricaly, but they supported the Uthuks with political means. The used influence bids and tactical cards to allow the Uthuks to establish their place right next of the undead‘s home realm.
Moreover, the elves stayed behind the protective barrier of neutral units and explored the south-west. They had the goal to ally with two giants (objective card). As the giants habitat was in the south and the center of the map, they tried to sneak from the south to the north. No other fraction could explore such a large amount of areas, but nonetheless, the elves didn‘t came close to victory.
In the meantime, hard battles between the heroes started. Two heroes were killed, one hero deserted. The Uthuk hold the majority of heroes, but the undead played most efficient with a hero-killing and nearly invincible Varikas.
The undead were embattled by the uthuks and hard-pressed by elven policy – why could they win? Well, they did win because of a very clever game play combined with a lucky draw of cards. With a combination of several tactic cards, they were able to weaken the Uthuks ressources and to maximise their own ore to produce heavy units. They could steal a timoran shard with Varikas and could gain another dragon rune via politics very early in game, so they could reach the lead nonetheless they were threatened from two sides. Two additional dragon runes gained, two dragon runes last to win the game.
The undead had the goal (objective card) to gain two titles, so they used their influence to get the priarch of the wizards council early. Later in game they catched their second title that increased their strenght on battle ground with rune token on them – pretty perfect in their situation.
So there was only one dragon rune left to win the game. Moreover, the hard-pressed undead had only five areas, each one covered with a real dragon rune – so they had to conquer an additional area to be able to place a dragon rune.
This is the time when the wind of fortune has blown a very interesting opportunity to win the game in the lands of Terrinoth. An influence bid came up, the loser of that bid has to place a dragon rune in one area of every enemy. The undead couldn‘t get a direct benefit from that bid as they had no additional area where a dragon rune could be placed. So they bid zero, as well as the Uthuks who had no influence left, AND THEY USED THEIR TITLE TO DECIDE THEY LOST THE BID THEMSELVES.
(This is the only part of the session from which I don‘ know if it is played properly and if it is allowed: The Primarch Title allows to choose the winner of an influence bid in case of a tie – but does it allow as well to choose the loser of an influence bid if only the loser does matter? Everyone of us players decided that this should be possible, so we played it this way).
Thus, the undead lose the bid and had to place two new dragon runes in enemy territory. So they placed the Uthuks new dragon rune at the town the undead were battling for the whole game – the town they would attack with all their forces in the upcoming year. What a treachery!
The elves recognized they played too passive and dicided they had to attack the undead immediately to stop them from conquering that Uthuk territory. They used a mobilize order to open a threshold in the neutrals barrier and to attack the undeads front stronghold with everything they had (Keep in mind they had not lost any units in battles for the whole game, so this army was pretty impressive.) And again, the wind of fortune was blowing. I think it had been about 14 attacking units, most of them were elven rectangle-warriors. Moreover, the elves did use a battle cry to increase their strengh. But because of unlucky draws, they couldn`t even diminish the undeads troups. The elves got pressed back by hordes of freshly summoned reanimates and defending dark knights, in combination with the undeads title card that advanced their battle. And then, the undeads invasion began: They overrun the uthuks town and conquered their las dragon rune, winning six to four to two.
Beeing asked what decided the games outcomes, I would say it was the undeads clever ressource-play. They optimized their ore via tactic cards and decreased the ressources of their closest enemy. So the undead could recruit their heavy dark knights pretty fast while the Uthuks player was dependent on rally support-units.
Moreover, the elves should have attacked earlier in game. They were happy not to be threatened at all while the other armies were wasting their forces in expensive battles. Under normal conditions, they should have prospered and won the game, but I think it is a remarkable feature of Runewars that exactly this passive strategy did not rise to supreme. No, the winner was the player who was threatened most right from the start of the game and who had to struggle the most – I think this is a pretty fair result. A very, very intense game.
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