There are many guides out there for video games like Starcraft Strats etc. As a beginner myself, I was enlightened recently by a fellow member, Sigmazero13, on the depth of strategies in even boardgames. I was very impressed by what he wrote on how Title Cards should be viewed instead of going for them blindly, and when to go for them, rather than a general 'having a title is better than not having one'.

To this end, I am requesting for ALL Runewars players to chip in one or two strategies/ advices that true blue noobs like myself can read and learn from. In time to come, we noobs will eventually become veterans ourselves, and I promise to chip in my own advices and strategies. I wish to give back to a great community here (started in Descent and all the way down to here) and I hope to draft out a truly beautiful compendium of strategies and tactics from the very players themselves. I will not take ANY credit, and will give all due. My joy in this is to achieve a guide for everyone, and I hope you can all give something, however small in one way or another! Sigmazero13 I was hoping that you could start the ball rolling since this is gonna be pancake for you, judging from how deep you know the game. (Of coz for u i would be hoping for more den juz 2 or 3 simple advice )

I myself promise to commit many strats in the coming days, as I will be playing the game HEAVILY with my gang.

Cheers to all Runewarriors!

When playing as the Daqan Lords, remeber to use the knights a much as possible for the chance of getting free tactics cards and also be flexibel in your play style, the Daqan Lords are especially adapt at changing from all out warfare to influence hording.

Along those same lines, when playing as Waiqar, Necromancers are your most important unit. They don't fight well, so make sure you protect them with other units, but get your Necromancers in lots of fights - they will spawn a LOT of reanimates in the process. They only have one power-unit (the rest are pretty weak), but their real strength comes from overwhelming numbers - exploit that.

As Uthuk, always have a few warlocks at the front lines, they're good at clearing out the small units and can be really hurt full to the Daqan Lords and Latari Elves since they booth rely heavily on triangel and square troops. And if you want to join the influnce race as the Uthuk, go for cities, it's one of their best ways to get influnce.

Is there no one else willing to contribute with some tips???

anyway, Cities are very important in the beginning, you can use them to boost your ranks or get the extra influnce/tactic cards you need. Don't let any player get controll of to many cities or you will go bleak every time that player plays Rally Support. Cities is also one of the few ways to get more heroes and one way to gain victory is through heroes.

MeisterH said:

Cities don't really do anything with regards to getting more heroes. Cities only provide neutral units, influence, tactics cards, and quest cards. The cities don't directly provide any way to get heroes.

Even if you don't have any cities at all, you can still use the Rally Support supremacy bonus to recruit some.

As for cities themselves, some cities are more important than others. The 3-influence and 3-tactics cities are definitely worth having. Some cities aren't really worth spending a whole Rally Support order for, and they can actually be a DISadvantage because you can't build strongholds there (thus, leaving them always somewhat easy to take). But if you can grab 2 or more cities, it's usually much more beneficial to use Rally Support often, especially if you can get a lot of influence or tactics out of them. Just don't get TOO attached to them, because they can be razed.

sigmazero13 said:

They don't?!?! O.o

I fail

Nope The only real "connection" between Heroes and Cities is the Rally Support order, but even then, they aren't really related to each other except that you recruit Heroes with the same order that you collect from your cities with (but again, even then, you could use Rally Support even if you had no cities, just to use the Supremacy Bonus to recruit a new hero, though that may be a waste of an order in most cases).

A bunch of neutrals in your way and you don't want to use to much of your army to get rid of them? check through the fate-card discard pile, if it's full of red ones, then it might be worth to use influnce to either make them retreat or if your lucky make them join you.

When playing runewars, never neglect the creation of a strong army, I for one have more then one time lost a game horrendusly because I thought a wall of neutrals would keep me safe long enough to build up an army if anything would happen and insted just went for hoarding loads of influnce. And now some people might say that armies aren't really that important since you don't have that many battles (which isn't true in our games) might want to reconsider that statement when someone elses army is knocking on your door. Also, don't forget to put up a second stronghold early, you won't regret it.

Three strats I use:

The Diplomat: This strat is all about influence. It works best in an easily defendable area, when cities are available. 6 of 8 winter cards will provide a rune. Get the "Wizard Council" card, and use orders "Rally Support" and "Aquire Power" whenever you can before winter. Helps to have cities. Build fortifications and an army to wall off your area but dont be too agressive. Pick up nuetrals whenever you can (it reduces the cost of the hard to get runes, and lessons the time spent recruting).

Play the Hero Game: This strat is just plain fun. It works best when your not in a good position for the diplomat. Rally Support in spring to make sure you have 2 heroes for the first summer. The goal is to always have 3 heroes. Get the "Captain of the Heroes League", it allows you to trade in rewards for Runes. As a bonus find shards and hurry back to a stronghold for more runes. The best part is keeping your heroes close in a gang to kill and loot everyone elses heroes. Try to corner em 3 against 1.

The Warrior: This one is tough. The last title card gives you +2 to streanth in an area with a rune. So build your armys and go get em. This is a strat I always switch too if I am behind another player. It works well for giving you an edge when taking runes away.

Go for your objective card early. At least keep it in mind. Compleating it early gives you a much better chance of getting a second.

The biggest thing I've found to help. Always asking myself "Where is my next Rune coming from?" If I can't answer that question then I know I am playing without focus, and wasting time. Don't be afraid to switch between strats throughout the game if something isn't working or an oppertunity presents itself for easy runes. Most games won, come from gaining runes by working multiple angles. Witch is best depends on starting position and resources as well as what your oppenants are doing.

wow I wish there was a spell check option. Good Gaming yall!

I am.... deeply impressed. Honest.

I hope there will be yet more strategies pouring in? So far the strats are all super-good! Alas, I haven't yet seen any specific strat for certain races other than the one or two lines so far. If there are any experts out there on a single race, please do contribute! (Yes I know u guys are out there! Those with great skills in specific races)

I will compile them after some time and come up with a proper pdf or something, so that everyone will be able to download and enjoy the fruits of our generous veteran RW players.

Back to the Warrior card.

I like also like this card when I am fighting FOR spaces with Dragon Rune tokens. Remember, blank runes count for purposes of the card...I really like this strategy as the Daqan lords.Between a fortress, the card and the occasional siege tower globe, you can really hold onto or take spaces with inferior forces. Don't neglect when playing the lords to play up the fact that the siege tower adds +2 STR. Even though globes are unreliable, it is after all, a mental game you can make your opponent take that into consideration!

Uthuk...Hey, Flesh Rippers are your bread and butter. A Globe trigget on initiative 1 and they are all 3 health. You know have a good damage absorber allowing your bezerkers and warlocks to maybe kill some stuff.

Think the Latari elves are push overs...??? NEVER TRUST AN ELF!!!!

Don't forget that accomplishing the supremacy bonus is nice, but getting a supremacy bonus is not as important as accomplishing your goal.

One of the reasons why tactics cards can be so crucial in a game is when a zero defender battle happens. A battle in which the defender has no units like in an empty stronghold or empty homerealm hex, and since a battle occures in thes instances you can use tactics cards. Sometimes you can have really usefull ones like lightning storm or churned earth or have some not so usefull for the situation, but even if you don't have any good ones you can allways pretend that you have.

MeisterH said:

Not only that, but having certain cards in your hand is nice because you know your opponent does NOT have them. In a recent game of mine, I had BOTH Coercion cards. Thus, I knew that my heroes could go wandering in enemy territory all they wanted, because I didn't have to worry about them being press-ganged into the opponent's service.

Board setup:

If you‘re the second player, try to force extreme results during map setup. As you are the first one to choose your start corner, you should get sure there is one area that is significantly better than the others.

The first year:

Slowing down your enemies in early game might be crucial for a victorious game result. The „hordes of the things“-tactic-card (or „horrific rumours“) is a great method for this aim. If you start the game holding that card, you should fortify the area your opponent wants to conquer in his first year (or block those area with activation tokens) using your tactic card. This might ruin his early-game development.

Build a second stronghold early in game, at best during winter of the first year. This is crucial for your logistics as it‘s hard to get your troups from your homerealm to the frontline without a close stronghold.

In most cases, you don‘t have to harvest in your first year (especially if you build a stronghold later in that year). That few extra ressources (and extra-units) aren‘t worth burning an order, so better save that „slot“ for another order.

Try to focus on two ressources. Keep in mind that you can only recruit from up to two ressource dials, so it‘s better to get two high-ressource dials and neglecting the third one than having a mediocre result on all three dials.

In most cases, noone will focus on getting title cards in the first year – maybe you should. Getting the „Primarch of the Wizard Council“-title early in game offers great advantages.

Defense:

In many cases, your best defense is delaying your enemies. Keep in mind that every army has only two orders per year to attack – so an attacker is much more limited by his order cards than by his amount of units.

Your enemy will always attack with a majority of units, so there is often little use in protecting your borders with lots of troups (as your enemy will bring in more). Often it is better to occupy border areas with only one single triangle-unit. Your enemy will conquer that area, of course, but he will lose his order card for defeating one lousy unit while you keep your big army behind for the great backstrike.

Clever blocking your enemies‘ path with cannon fodder might be wiser than accumulating troups in one area. Always try to forsee where your enemies‘ activation tokens will be in the current year so you can plan which areas will be blocked for your opponents for the rest of the year.

General advices:

Save influence for winter. Most important influence bids will take place in winter.

Reflect carefully which areas you really need. If you can‘t see any important reason why you should conquer an area, you simply shouldn‘t do it and save your order card for something more usefull. Always keep in mind that this game is about gaining Dragon Runes, not about conquering territory.

Most new players just conquer area for area without a plan behind it – and lose the game because they neglect the more important factors.

Keep in mind that your most important (and rare!) ressources are your order cards. You can only play four per year, so don‘t waste them for conquering unimportant areas.

Attack in winter. Your units will be un-routed and un-activated immediately when spring comes.

If you can‘t have more that one city, it might not be worth holding it. Let your enemies battle for it while you focus on areas that are more worthwile for your strategy.

For experienced players:

You don‘t need as much food as you might think. Clever movement management prevents starving out your army. Attack in winter and spread your units afterwards in spring or summer.

If you‘re a coordinated player, 5 food will be enough for the mid-part of the game.