In our last Runewars-session, a few questions did arise:

1) exploration tokens: The rules say that an exploration token is revealed whenever a hero ends his movement in the quest phase on an area containing it. Does this imply the hero has to choose a "Move"-order in his quest phase in order to reveal an exploration token?

What if a player uses a strategize-order to move a hero on an exploration token and than chooses a heal- or a train-order in quest phase? Will this token be revealed (as the movement did not take place in the quest phase?)

2) Title-card "Commander of the heroes league": Just to get sure: The three rewards that are given away for a dragon rune don't have to be owned by one single hero. They can be collected from all heroes the player controls, right?

3) Map setup, placing home realm tiles:

This question may be sounding strange, but reading the concrete wording of the rules, you will see this question is plausible:

Is it allowed to place a blue or red border of a home realm next to a blue or red border of a map tile?

Of course, you will say "no". But look carefully on the wording: The rules for placing map tiles explicitly forbid to do so. But this paragraph is not written in the rules for placing home realm map tiles. Instead, the rules say that "a home realm may be placed in any orientation of its controller's choice."

Especially with the undead's home realm, it would be possible to create a nice mountain barrier with only one entrance if you would place it next to a red or blue border.

4) The entry concerning the "tactical retreat"-card in the current FAQ confuses me: It says that if this card is played and the attacker has more than eight units in the area, he may "retreat his additional units as if he had won the battle." But: The winner of a battle NEVER does retreat any of his units at all, only the loser retreats his units. Is this a wrong entry in the FAQ or did I miss a ruling?

I would be glad if you could give me some hints what is the correct ruling in these questions.

Graf said:

Personally, I would say "yes"; the intent seems to be that if a hero ends his movement there (if any), it is revealed; even if the movement is 0. Corey has ruled that if Sir Valadir moves with his power, he reveals the token, even though it's not a quest movement. I would say that if a hero doesn't move, it is still revealed.

I think it's a good one to ask Corey; I'll put it in my next batch of questions.

Graf said:

Correct, they can be from separate hereos.

Graf said:

No, blue and red borders can NEVER touch another parallel red or blue border. This includes Home Realm placement. This was confirmed in an email from Corey (and can be found in the document I created on BoardGameGeek in my Rulings from Corey document).

Graf said:

The winner retreats any excess units in the battle also, if you happen to have more than 8 units. For example if the attacker brings in 12 units to the battle, after the battle, if he still has more than 8, those extra units retreat.

This excess-units-in-a-battle rule is an exception to the normal rule about destroying excess units, and is found in the rules. I will have to look in my rulebook to find the exact location.

Wow, what a fast response! Thank you!

Especially the last concern will change game-play seriously. I have read the rules several times, but I must have overseen this. From now on, I think my group will be more willing to risk big-army-attacks as the losses won't be such devatating. Moreover, the Rally Cry tactic card is getting more important: If you can retreat these supernumerous units after having won a battle and if you can bring them out of the activated area doing so, you are able to attack twice with the same unit in the same year by un-routing them with your tactic card.

Hmm, I'm not completly sure if I'm happy with this ruling as it breaks a little bit the conception of activated areas, but I think it's a better ruling than just letting those supernumerous units die.

Graf said:

For what it's worth, it's not just a ruling - the rulebook does specify this directly, on page 18:

"The only time a player can exceed this number is when he is starting a battle in an enemy or neutral area, in which case he may bring nay number of units into the area. If he wins the battle, any excess units must retreat to a single area."

Note, though, that this does mean that they must retreat to the SAME area; you can't split them up when retreating. And if there is a friendly area nearby, you MUST retreat there; you can only retreat to empty areas if there are NO friendly areas adjacent. This means that retreating the excess units might still cause you to overstack in the area you retreat to, and you'd have to destroy excess units in that case.

Yes, there are the Rally Cry cards, but there are only 2 or 3 of them in the deck; don't rely on them as a means to move the excess units again that year, as most of the time you won't be able to.

The rule is indeed there to make the game an attacker-friendly game; allowing the attacker to overstack the area means that NO area becomes impregnable (without that rule, Daqan strongholds with the +2 development would be very, very hard to take over if fully staffed).

Thank you, again!

Without any doubt, it is better that an attacker may overstack when attacking. But I think it would have been OK even if he would have lost the exceeding units (as we played the game in my group until this day). Doing so, you simply have to consider carefully if the sacrifices are worth the area you are taking.

But in future, I will definitely play it in the correct way. Well, I think this will cause more player vs player battles, and I think this will make the game more interesting. So I agree this is the better ruling. And I agree that it is better to design these games attacker-friendly. It is always a very boring game result if players don't dare attacking each other and simply doing nothing but blocking ways and collecting ressources. If you ever played the quite familiar strategy game "Tempus" from Martin Wallace, you will know what I am talking about...

One last thought on this: Having read your BGG-document "Rulings from Corey", I think his rulings about overstacking are inconistent in one concern: A winning attacker may retreat his overstacking units, but a winning defender who exceeded the stacking limit (by summoning Reanimates) would have to destroy his exceeding units. Why is the same possibility to save exceeding units not given to the defender as well?

No big deal, but I think both sides should have the same rights.

(In your document, the wording is:

Q: Is the defending player in a battle bound by the 8-unit stacking limit (such as from use of the Necromancer 's Raise Dead special ability)? A: Any player may exceed the limit of 8 units during a battle. At the end of the battle, the defender would need to destroy any units in excess of 8.)

The ruling is not inconsistent; since the rules explicitly only give the ATTACKER the ability to retreat after an overstacked battle. And the only reason the attacker gets that advantage at all is because the rules directly give it to them - and ONLY the attacker. IE, based on the rules, and the clarification from the ruling you quote, the attacker was INTENDED to have the advantage in battle, and attacking is the ONLY way to overstack units without having to destroy the excess.

In any case, the only way a Defender can do this is with Waiqar the Undying, as the Necromancers are the only way to bring units into a battle after the battle has started. And to be frank, Waiqar hardly needs any more advantages

It is a quite paradox argument to say that a rule is not inconsistend because it is written exactly that way in the rules (no offense). Thus, a rule could never be inconsistend at all. The cat seems to bait into it's own tail. ;-)

My argument was about how rules should (or could) be to be more fair.

But I see your point and all in all, you're right. As I said before, this concern is no big deal, but a little detail that should not be taken too seriously. I was just wondering why just one side gets that right to retreat overstacking units. (And I think that case has less to do with advantages for the attacker to win battles as this right does not touch the battle itself, but only it's consequences.)

Thank you again for your response. And thank you very much for this wonderful collection of rulings at BGG. THIS should be considered as the official FAQ (or should be implemented into it).

Graf said:

This is one of several ways in which the game is balanced to favor offense over defense. FFG has shown a preference to discourage "turtle" tactics in their games, particularly recent games. They want players to actually DO stuff to each other instead of sitting around building up power for six hours. Given how long most of FFG's Epic Box games can be, I hardly blame them. The attacker can retreat his forces if he fails, so he still has them to try again. The defender must destroy excess forces (in the exceedingly few situations this can occur) so he can't build up reserves. As such, the player who sits still and defends will find himself limited in the number of troops he can keep on the board, the player who attacks and conquers new territory will expand. The point is you should be attacking with your armies, not just leaving them around to collect dust.

Steve-O said:

Hehe, sometimes this dust is called "Dragon Rune", and we all now they are sometimes falling down out of the sky (called "influence bid") ;-)