When coming up with a new idea I first announce the goal. For these ideas it is to bring strategy back into Battlemist combat, war, using the components from the box.

I am an opponent of luck. And Runewars is full of it. I love war games, however Runewars doesn't feel like one. In fact it feels like a FPS match instead of RTS. Enemies die and respawn just as quickly. Heroes play to large of a role in the game and make me wonder why I need to worry about territorial conflict. I think combat needs less luck and more choice and units should cost more or something....(that change will be the hardest).

First Combat:

When I read the first article that explained combat, my eyes went 0o because it was random card drawing. One card per unit type. Meaning some turns my necro wouldn't be able to raise dead or my demon berserker would forget how to get mad. This set off lights and immediately I jumped on the forums not so much trashing the idea (i respect Corey) but voicing my concerns. Sadly the product was already at printers...but I still attempted to get the combat changed.

Well time continued and I saw more and more evidence that combat was going to be random card draws. When game released I decided not to buy it. Instead I bought it when I get the Jungle expansion to Runebound. During my first game I played the Urthuk and my opponent played the Waiqar dead.

Lack of Stronghold Importance:

We had the rules pretty much down from vid demos and youtube examples. So we were studying the game. We had our doubts going into it. His concern was that the conquest was going to seem like a never ending struggle because units were easy to make and could come out in droves. He was right. Out of the many games we have played (both of us have separate groups we play with) we have yet to wipe out a race. My concern with the strongholds was that they were just going to push the spawning point closer to the enemy. I was correct. Helm's Deep was a stronghold...shouldn't strongholds feel just as crucial in Runewars? Instead when a stronghold goes down I think to myself, "bah got to build a replacement hold next turn".

To change these "flaws" to fit better with the war theme, I feel that borrowing from the old warcraft rts style or training up and then releasing onto the board is a must. I mean is this idea of war strategy not borrowed from games like warcraft and age of empires in the first place? The original Battlemist had warcraft: board game written all over it.

One of the reasons the term "zerg" came to be was because of how fast the zerg could train and march to war in Starcraft. It was a unique thing for RTS games.

Changes to Strongholds and Training Units:

I think building should take time to build. This is a simple change. When building a stronghold, first flip it on the "damaged" side. If it is attacked while "damage" then it will be destroyed after any combat takes place in the region, regardless of the result of battle. We started to play this way and it has done wonders to the pace of the game and importance of losing a battle, because now it takes time for units to move into the front lines (IE no more "zerging"). I should note we play this way with damaged strongholds period. The was of the hold can only take so much war before they come crashing down. Finally this stops players from build strongholds as walls on the front line.

For units we place our unit pool to the left of the army board and units being trained are place to the right. It take a season to train units. At the end of the season players may place any of their trained units on home or stronghold.

Simple Fix for Combat:

Finally we made a chart for the different icons found on the combat cards. Each symbol is replaced by a number. I borrowed this mechanic from Corey's WoW Adventure Game. Each unit ability now cost energy. When you reveal a combat card, instead of it telling you what you do, now it tells you how much energy you have for those units. Each unit can use its special once per combat. Energy provided by the card can be used for damage, activating special (once per unit), or forcing routs. It cost 1 point of energy to deal on damage. 2 energy to rout. And each units special cost a certain amount of energy.

For the most part without using a chart you can play so that a damage result grants energy equal to the amount of damage. A special (orb) result grants 3 energy (this is how much MOST specials cost). And a rout result grants 2 energy.

These are a few changes we have made. I will post more later.

Please don't be too critical. These changes saved our games and made the 100 bucks well worth it. So I don't really care for criticism unless it is constructive. Please if you have questions feel free to ask. And if you HAVE to complain please give a well thought out reason behind why you feel the need to be vocal.

Thanks. Hopefully I have increased amount of future plays for some of you.

I really like your idea about using energy in combat so you actually have choices in combat. I don't care for the current runewars card combat one bit. I may have to try your energy system.

You say that most special abilities cost 3. which ones do you play as costing less and which ones do you play as costing more?

also I forgot to ask does this energy system make circle based units overpowered? since the circle based troops get special orbs often couldn't they turn that 3 energy into 3 damage or 1 rout and 1 damage? this seems to make circle based units very powerful and it also make combat between heroes very deadly and makes some of the reward cards pointless.

just wondering what you did to counter this problem or let me know if circle based units haven't been a problem at all

A miss is still a miss. IE No energy. Circle Units miss about 40% of the time. Just like Triangle. However Circle units are most costly and limited. The 3 and also I like a Necromancer should be powerful. I doubt they just know "raise dead". They most likely have fear effecting spells and negative energy bolts. You are limited to 8 caster figures.

"Less wasted attacks and more strategy in the combat."

Without my training rules you are correct in that casters would be overpowering. For some reason they aren't though with the training rules. Also keep in mind you can only train a max of two casters per turn and that is only if using a supremacy bonus. Since units do not enter board until end of a season, players tend to be less hasty, not to be confused with aggressive. You can't recruit with the soul purpose to create a wall of units as cannon fodder anymore. Now if you recruit you have to hope your current units can defend the strongholds or risk not being able to place ALL of your recruits when the end of season happens. I actually thought turtling would happen more with that change, but it happens less. Now you have to expand faster and more carefully by turn 6.

"Now, deciding to recruit just to provide fodder is not always wise."

Strongholds now require two seasons to complete. When you build a Stronghold you place it in the friendly area with its "damaged" side face up at the end of the season. It still will provide some use for winning combat, but to see full might it must be fully repaired. It made no sense to me for a stronghold to go up in one season. When I think of a completed Stronghold I think of a barracks with stone walls and towers. Incomplete Strongholds are just the barracks and some towers. There is no way you can build a fully functional Stronghold in 3 months! So, fluff was one reason for the change in mechanics, but the true reason was the way Strongholds are abused. Basically you build a stronghold then units at the stronghold. This makes Strongholds spawn points with high defense at front line of battle. I always though you built a Stronghold so that it was hard to attack and easy to defend.

"Strongholds should be used for defense not offense."

A "damaged" or "incomplete" Stronghold is destroyed at the end of a battle that took place in the same area as the Stronghold. This change makes Strongholds serve as a better defensive purpose. One use that I find players using this change for is to move the dragon runes back to an area with a Stronghold. Before the change players would use Strongholds as spawning points that switch player control from turn to turn at the battle line while heroes quested for runes.

"Strongholds are destroyed faster and take time to build, so they are used to win combats over important areas rather then just to spawn units.'

We also removed the diplomacy option for neutral critters. These "critters" are never friendly or willing to take to my heroes in dungeonquest, runebound, or descent...SO WHY START NOW!? Now when a unit encounters a neutral "critter" they know that they must deal with them in combat. This will change how players move about the board. FFG was smart and put the tougher "critters" in the more desired areas, now it becomes risk for reward.

Besides I feel kind of upset that plastic was wasted on giants and dragons instead of 2 races (zul orcs and dunwar dwarves). They could have at least made thos ethe allies. An area with units allied to one race (orcs or dwarves) could not attempt diplomacy for units of the other race. Dwarves come across to me as nomads and merchants in Runebound related games. Orcs come across as more intelligent being than how usually depicted. Also the orcs are heroes/good guys in a few of the Runebound related products.

TheKingOfBlades said:

Except for unit combat, the rules pertaining to the fate cards remain unchanged. If you want, just use a marker and draw the amount of energy each icon grants next to the icon. It is only in battle between units (including neutrals) that energy is used. Also with exception of "grouped attacks" see below, each unit can only choose one result. So a caster that draws an orb can choose 3 damage, activate special, or rout a unit.

Hero combat remains unchanged.

A few special rules.

Back to casters real quick. I should also point out that they have 1 health. I think when you read the changes below that I made to triangle units you will see where it all balances out.

Triangle Units have the option reduce the amount of energy required to activate their special by 1 (min of 1) for each for every 3 Triangle Units of the same type attacking. When taking this option all units grant the energy for the special and may not choose to use the energy for other results. I never liked to think of units as one guy. I thought of the figure representing an actual unit. The one men you have focusing fire or swarming a battlefield the better chance there is of finding weak points and openings.

For example if I bring 3 Archers into battle, then I would only need a single energy to kill your caster. But since they all worked together to grant this bonus they may only use the combined pool of energy for activating their special. Had I brought 8 Archers then I could use this option twice to deal 1 wound to a unit for the 6 Archers and then use the energy generated by the last two archers for 2 other results. Or I could choose just to take the option with 3 Archers and leave the other 5 to determine 5 other results.

A player MUST announce they are using this option before flipping results for their units. Units taking this option of a "grouped attack" MUST check their result first. Then "non-grouped" units flip their results. It is important to clarify that a combined result of more than 1 energy is still counted as just one energy. In other words a special ability may only be activiated ONCE for every three units of the same type participating in the "grouped attack".

This reads more complicated than it is without the use of diagrams.

With such changes especially training and stronghold build you gave the best race undead very big boost. If they attack with 20 units enemy stronghold it will be destroyed. Opponnent can't build fast defence and undead doesn't care about some units lost. You can't even recruit guys fast to defense. With such changes undead race is unbeatable. By removing diplomacy again the weakest races Elves and People will have even less chances to defend and influence will loose as a resource with tactic cards.

Yep I saw this in undead...Wow! people are actually reading this.

Just make it so ALL reanimates die at the end of a battle. Meaning now the necro will be the weakness to undead but they are very powerful because of how fast they rez.
In other words the reanimates remain on the board until after a battle that they participated in. The undead will win many battles over the strength, but they will have a hard time holding the territory. Bowmen and Elven Archers can gang up to pick off the necro's before they even get to resurrect.

Still, how are you getting 20 units to attack in 6 years using the variant for training? If the answer was resurrecting reanimates then that is my fault for not going into detail on the specific changes. I don't want to overload.
.................................................................
"Neutrals are now useless and make some tactics useless" ` paraphrased.

You need to remember the universal game law. Cards almost always override the rules in the book. So just because I say neutral units can't be convinced to join an army through diplomacy, doesn't mean they can NEVER join as allies.

So Band of Brigands now gives off a unique ability to acquire neutrals. Think of Aragorn's truce with the Army of the Dead. For cases like getting a dragon, in Runebound a few Dragon encounters became allies. This card shows how badass the heroes are. Heroes are not a bunch of troops walking into a dragon's cave and asking it to join them.

When looking at the cards that force the movement of neutrals try to see them as a way to impede the progress of opponents. Road blocks if you will, like in the WoW Board Game.

...................................................................................................

"Influence is less important" ` paraphrased

You say influence won't be as big, but in the games i have played, with my changes it becomes more important. All of the battle related cards are still useful. Cards like Pillage, Battle Cry, Scorched Earth, Rally Cry, and Call Lightning, are all very powerful. I should also mention that Scorched Earth is now not as over powered because it only comes to use when an opponent attacks a fully built Stronghold. I played one game where I had a scorched Earth and built a Stronghold off to the side so that I could use Scorched Earth after they wastes the time to get to the hold.

Titles still play just as large of a role in the game so influence is still big. Lord of the Commanders Guild allows you to look for areas to grant your units extra strength. I use this title to determine where my strongholds should go, my opponents have caught on so we constantly use influence to try to keep this title.
Acquiring the Captain League title now allows heroes to impact battles by allowing the titles owner to create good spots to use the commander's guild title's benefit to full extent.
Finally in order to keep the titles you need a ton of influence and that is why you want to get the Primarch of the Wizards' Council. All of these titles are very powerful, but can win the game when all 3 are controlled.

Influence may not be useful in the neutral allies part of the game, true, but now you will have more influence for the more political side. With cards like Pull The Strings, Proof of Goodwill, Blackmail, Favorable Alliance, Exploit Goodwill, Coercion and Political Control all playing a larger role in acquiring those titles that were once so powerful in Battlemist.

.....................................................................................................

"Tactic cards are not important" ` paraphrased

If my above points have not proved that wrong then I guess a few more examples will suffice. Take cards like Hidden Pass. Okay so I can cross mountains cool, but I can go around it just as easily and have enough influence to convince Mr. Dragon to join me. Heh. Moutain Pass was very limited for its uses. Now with the ability to move neutrals as road blocks (because you must combat them) players may use the Pass to avoid neutrals and avoid a planned pincher or gauntlet the opposing player thought they had them in. Think of how easily the Persians defeated Leonidas after they were shown a Pass to get behind his human wall.

Same can be said for a card like Teleportation. Allowing 4 units to avoid a dragon seems pretty useful to me. I will use teleportation to send 4 units over a wall of neutral units and weaken the opposing player so that he has to think twice before engaging those neutrals or choose to go the long way around them.

Tactical Retreat is unique in that it is the only way a player can acquire an unfinished stronghold. A big loss for the player if he wants to live to fight another day. An even bigger gain for the attacker.

With titles setting up battlefields for the +2 str bonus, I find players using Favor of the Thieves to force an opponent to move the rune token (most likely a Dragon Rune) for an area that he was massing troops on. This not only weakens the troops, but also shows me where to move for the Dragon Rune. All that is left is acquiring the title.

Oh, and not to mention the tactic cards that move neutrals.

.........................................................................................................

"Stronghold and training changes make bag guys OP" ` paraphrased

You will need to explain how in more detail for me to gauge this statement. I am willing to test this once I know what I need to focus on.
.........................................................................................................

"Good guys depend on influence and tactics and the changes make them weaker" ` paraphrased

Using the energy variant for combat you will notice:

Bowmen can gang up to hurt the larger units that the opponent normally would avoid harming. The Death Knight and Chaos Lord have 4 health. 3 Bowmen can "gang up" to take ONE down. How? Because with 3 bowmen ganging up they only need 1 energy to activate their special to target a Death Knight or Chaos Lord. Specials happen before damage. When applying damage you MUST assign it to a previously damaged unit. Bring 3 Bowmen (draw anything but a miss) the rest of the damage any units deal in the combat go to the meaty enemy.

Think about it...why can my Bowmen randomly learn how to concentrate fire?

3 Footmen deal 2 damage for 1 energy. Now look at the old ways of doing combat. 3 Footmen and draw 3 cards. I just did. and drew a blank, special, and 1 damage. That totals for 3 damage, not bad. Taking that example and using the energy form I look at that and see I drew 4 energy. I can use this to activate my special to deal 2 damage for 3 energy and spend the other 1 to deal just 1 more damage for a total of 3. OR I can use the 4 energy to deal 4 damage. Not much of a difference but it provides options missing in the random card drawing mechanic.

Now say I drew two misses and 1 damage for 3 footmen. They could just deal 1 damage OR they could gang up and use the 1 energy to activate their special and deal possibly 2 damage.

Knights are not triangle units so they can't use the gang up option. However a square unit only needs 2 energy to activate special (forgot to mention this). So almost all of their cards give them 2 energy. They could use this to Command and draw useful tactic cards while the bowmen and footmen take care of the front lines, or they could use the 2 energy to deal 2 damage if they are needed on the front lines. Remember how medieval war works? Send in militia and then if needed the calvary.

If you look at the hexagon units you will notice that their special do go off a lot more than is useful. Siege towers grant str instead of damage, death knights require different units, and the chaos lord routs...yet goes last in battle. These are useful in certain situations, but I would rather be able to choose when to activate these situational benefits.

Siege Towers go last and by that time in the battle I will know if I need to get that +2 strength or not.

Moving on to elves.

3 Archers being able to choose where damage goes is pretty darn good. Elves are the best archers and it reflects in the game. Using my energy variant 3 Archers pretty much either kill a circle unit or determine what opposing unit will be first to die.

Pegasus Riders in an army with a warriors that then can out right kill whatever the 3 archers damaged should put elves back on top of the balance chain. (maybe I shouldn't have lef tou tthe rectangle units only require 2 energy for specials part)

Sorceress now sends Death Knights or Chaos Lords packing because if they have 1 damage on them and warriors are up next....yeah better to retreat with that costly unit and make the damage on them wasted.

On the flip side when you look at the bad guys,

Berserkers kill themselves for more damage...

Warlocks remain okay...

And flesh Rippers gain health...not very effective against Bowmen, or the Elves.

Skeleton Archers force me to discard a unit of my choice rather than the opponent's choice.

Really if you are concerned with nercos even tho they can be sniped, just make the change to reanimates needing to be discarded after tally combat winner.

Reanimates have an ability called overrun...shouldn't this take place automatically when you have a ton of them? Just saying.

In the end now that good and evil are balanced it forces both to get influence and tactic cards to turn the tide of war.


MAN that was A LOT to type.

To sum this wall of text up:

Training Changes

• During setup and the game session units not in use should be placed to the left of the faction sheet.
• When training units (through the Recruit Order) use of DO NOT place them on the board right away, instead store trained units to the right of the faction sheet.
• Trained units will instead be placed on the board (as pertains to normal unit placement rules) at the end of the current cycle in player order.

Stronghold Changes

• When building a stronghold (through the Fortify Order) place a stronghold token in a friendly area with its "damaged" side face up. To flip the stronghold token to the "undamage" side the play will need to use another Fortify Order to repair it. Rather than damaged and undamaged, I like to think fortified and unfortified...kind of like the card implies.
• Unfortified or damaged strongholds are removed at the end of a battle that took place in the same area as the stronghold.

Neutral Unit Changes

• Diplomacy checks are no longer made for neutral units. Instead combat is always carried out between neutral units.

Combat Changes

Fate cards symbols are now used for an energy mechanic during combat and ONLY during combat are the following changes made.

• When drawing fate cards for a units combat result use the following to determine the amount of energy provided.

• # of Damage = # of Energy
• Rout = 2 Energy
• Special Ability = 3 Energy

Energy may be spent in the following ways.

• 1 energy = 1 damage
• 2 energy = 1 rout
• 3 energy = 1 special ability*

*Special rules:

Up to three triangle units can commit to a unique "focused attack". A focus attack allows groups of three of the same triangle unit to reduce the cost to activate their special ability to 1 energy. This option must be declared before the flip of the fate cards. In the case of drawing more than 1 energy, any excess energy is wasted.

Rectangle units can activate their special ability for 2 energy.