Just played my 3rd game tonight, and have a few questions.

1. Is it just me, or are large monsters extremely vulnerable to being routed before they get to draw fate cards? It seems like dragons and giants should be pretty scary to face, but all you have to do is swarm them with a bunch of triangles and you can probably route them before they get to do anything.

2. Rally Support order: If you have more than one city, you can pick different bonuses for each one? The description on page 36 seems to say that, but it could also be interpreted that each city has to give the same bonus category ( only influence tokens from all cities, etc). My opponent tonight had two cities to my one, and we both thought that gave him a HUGE advantage and made rally support a no-brainer order for him to use each year.

3 Dueling : can you tag-team duel in the quest phase? You have 2+ heroes within 2 spaces of an enemy hero. You move one hero and duel the enemy and your hero loses. Can you then keep moving heroes in and duel him one at a time until you win or all of your heroes have lost?

4. Unit Special attacks : Human footmen : How does this one work exactly? Your opponent just has to put the first damage on a 1 HP unit and the special is pretty much negated, right? It just becomes a regular 1 damage result.

5. Fulfilling Objectives : When a player fulfills an objective, he then draws a new one; correct? I thought that was the case, but it isn't mentioned under Objective cards on page 30.

6. Placing Map tiles : During board set up, it makes sense to me that cities should be spread out, though the rules don't specify this. Do many players have house rules that city hexes cannot border each other?

Thanks for your feedback!

Ubercat said:

Alone, yes. The neutral units on the board don't strike me as intended to be uber-defense, even the big ones. However, a Dragon or Giant in your army, when protected by cannon fodder units that can absorb routs, can be extremely nasty if used right. They are much better in your army than they are alone. But even unallied, neutrals can often clump together, where they get nastier and nastier.

Ubercat said:

Correct, you can pick a different icon for each city. Having two cities IS a big advantage in many cases, though it largely depends on which cities they are.

Ubercat said:

Yes, you can do that. Each individual duel is one vs one, but you can bring in multiple heroes in succession if you want; eventually, one should hopefully kill the enemy.

Ubercat said:

It forces your opponents hand a little bit; if they have higher-HP units, they have to choose to either take TWO damage to those units, or kill off a weaker unit. If it was just one damage, they could potentially risk putting it on higher-HP units to reduce the number of casualties. Often it will be put on the 1-HP units, yes, because it's the THREAT of what it can do that can be just as powerful.

Ubercat said:

No, you do not draw a new one for fulfilling an objective. However, there are two Spring season cards which allow you to draw another objective. If you still have your old one, you then choose one to keep. If you already completed your old one, though, you can just keep the new one. (The card is called Prepare for the Coming Year - there are two copies of it).

Ubercat said:

Not really needed, in my opinion; you don't know what the cities will be, and clumping them too close together isn't always good, because cities also have less resources. Most people I've seen play tend to naturally spread them out.

7. If you move an army into a hex which only contains an enemy settlement (damaged or not), there isn't any fighting during the battle. You just need to be certain that your army strength is greater than that of the enemy settlement; otherwise you'll just retreat your army for no gain, correct?

Ubercat said:

Sort of. You do need to make sure your army strength is GREATER than the enemy stronghold, but it was clarified from the designer that even if there are no units there, it DOES count as a battle. This means:

- You still draw cards for your units. (For the most part, this just burns through cards, but for the Daqan Knight and Waiqar Necromancer abilities, drawing the cards is still useful for the extra effects).

- Your opponent can still play combat-related Tactics cards. For instance, he can play Summon Lightning to toast some of your units before the fight, or Scorched Earth after the fight. Keep that in mind when planning the move; I've lost one of these before by not bringing enough units in, getting Lightning'ed, and not having enough strength left.

- If using Mobilize, it counts as your one battle; thus, if this was your first move, your second move could not involve any kind of battle, and if this was your second move, your first move cannot have involved a battle.

Moving into a unitless enemy Home Realm area is very similar to the above; it counts as a battle for all purposes. The only difference is that you will "win" the battle as long as you have at least 1 unit left (unless there is a Stronghold in that area).

Thanks again for feedback.

So, the mobilize order allows your second move to include an attack as long as your first one didn't?

Ubercat said:

Correct. Only one battle per turn, but it doesn't NEED to be on the first move.

I'm seeing an apparent contradiction in the battle rules. On page 22, the explanation for rounds of combat indicates that for each type of combat effect (specials, routes, damage) the attackers are carried out first, which can lead to some defending units of the same initiative not being able to complete theirs; This is confirmed in the errata which uses the example of pegasus riders attacking berserkers. The pegasus riders special would preclude the berserkers special, even though they're both part of the same initiative round.

The concurrent attack rule, also on 22, seems to directly contradict this however. ". .. if fate cards have already been drawn for a unit type, then all of the cards will be resolved regardless of whether those units are later destroyed or routed . " Both players draw all cards for a specific round before any take affect, so it seems that this will always be the case. Which is it?

I would also like to clarify some things about strongholds and developments

Strongholds are damaged in 2 primary ways. 1. Attacker captures defenders stronghold, and replaces it with a damaged one of his own. (What if it's already damaged? Same result as if it were undamaged?) 2. Defender with full strength SH wins battle, but attacker still has standing units remaining (before retreating); defenders SH is damaged in this case. I imagine that there are also tactics cards that can damage SH's, though I don't have them sitting in front of me to check ATM.

Can developments be built on damaged SH's?

Thanks again, guys.

Ubercat said:

On the surface, it seems like a contradiction, but it's really not.

In the situation described in the FAQ, all cards ARE being resolved. However, some special abilities have additional requirements in addition to just drawing an orb.

For instance, in the situation you describe: The Uthuk Berserker special ability requires there to be a "standing" Berserker. If there is no standing Berserker, the special ability is still resolved - it just has no effect.

So, for the full situation, if there is a Pegasus Rider and a Berserker in battle, and both draw Orbs, both cards WILL be resolved. However, the order of resolution is important - the attacker goes first. Thus, the Pegasus Rider ability causes the Berserker to rout. Then the Berserker ability is resolved... but now, there are no standing Berserkers left!! Thus, while the orb is resolved, it has no effect without destroying a standing Berserker, and it must be standing at the time it's resolved. (NOTE: If the Berserker had drawn a "rout" or "damage" symbol, those would still be resolved as normal; the only reason the ability has no effect is because of the additional requirement of a standing Berserker).

For MOST matchups, this kind of thing isn't going to matter too much, but there are a few where this matters. It doesn't cause cards to not be resolved, but rather, it just occasionally makes the ability have no effect. Here are a few other pairings that having the attacker go first can matter:

- Latari Archer vs either Flesh Ripper or Sorcerer.

- Latari Warrior vs 2 Reanimates

- Chaos Lord or Giant vs Dark Knight

Ubercat said:

Regarding #1 - if the Stronghold is already damaged, it just stays damaged when Attacker captures it. Basically, if the attacker captures it, it always becomes damaged. The only exception is if the defender used Tactical Retreat when in an undamaged Stronghold; in that case it stays undamaged.

There are no cards that damage a Stronghold (unless I'm completely forgetting one). However, the Lost City card allows you to place a new Stronghold which STARTS damaged.

And yes, you can build developments on a damaged Stronghold if you want. (And damaging a stronghold does NOT destroy already-built developments; they are only destroyed if captured).

I hope this helps!

Yes! Big help, thanks. Just to confirm, a defenders stronghold is always damaged even if he wins the battle, as long as the attacker still has standing units left before the retreat step.

Edited to add: Is there any rule keeping players from discussing influence votes before carrying them out. Agreeing for example to each bid nothing in cases where the total bid has to be over a certain amount? This came up a couple times in my last two games. We wanted the bid to fail because neither of us wanted the effect that would result.

Ubercat said:

Correct.

Ubercat said:

You can discuss it all you want; nothing is binding, though. I've seen games were players, for instance, WANTED it to be bid over a certain amount, but one player betrays the rest and doesn't bid his part; thus, all the other players lose their bids, the effect doesn't happen, and the betrayer laughs evilly!

But yes, you can talk about it and try to convince others to bid certain ways.

Question: does a damaged unit become routed?

as i read they dont the become routed only in special ability or in retreat

thank you

Rommel1 said:

You are correct. Damage != rout.

As you play, it can be important in battle to determine the right time to start assigning damage to the higher-health units. If your opponent has draw the cards for their last unit type, for instance, and deal 3 damage, if you have a fully-healthy 4-health unit, it's a good idea to assign all 3 to that unit since it will be healed at the end of battle.

Ubercat said:

This seems to be a common complaint about the game, from a thematic perspective. If you want to add some house rules to fix this, I'm pretty sure there are one or two variants posted over on BGG. Personally, I don't have a problem with it, though.

The thing to keep in mind is that each plastic figure represents more than just one person. A footman is actually a whole regiment of soldiers (maybe a thousand strong, or more.) Three or four people fighting a dragon is scary business, but three or four THOUSAND men fighting a dragon (or two) is not so much. Overwhelming odds can go a long way towards assuring victory. So I don't really have a thematic problem with 3 or 4 triangle units taking down a giant or a dragon myself.

Greetings again this is my 3rd time i play runewars and i have tow questions:

1-can i move more than 1 unit from different areas into one single area to start a battle?

2-in battle i (attacker) drew 2 fate cards with a special ability o deal 1 damage which will result in killing one unit from the defender will the defender use the fate card drew for that unit which is dead?

3- if in entered an area containing routed units (knowing that routed units CAN NOT draw fate cards) how do i kill them?

Rommel1 said:

Yes. Each individual unit that moves must be able to reach the destination hex, but there is no requirement that they all come from the same origin hex.

Rommel1 said:

I'm assuming both your unit and the enemy unit which was killed were acting on the same initiative value. The answer is yes. All fate cards that get drawn will get resolved, even if the unit they were drawn for is dead by then. This is because thematically the units are all acting simultaneously.

Note that there are a couple of situations where a unit getting killed or routed can interfere with its fate card resolving (see the whole pegasus/berserker situation, which I believe was raised earlier in this thread.) All fate cards will be resolved, but a select few Orb abilities - generally those that explicitly require a "standing unit" to be present during resolution - can fizzle under the wrong circumstances.

Rommel1 said:

If you start a battle in a hex that already contained routed units, those units will not participate in battle. However, all such routed units will be destroyed automatically when the battle ends. You still draw fate cards for your attacking units in this case, but most of the time you'll just be burning through the deck.

Perhaps you meant "how do I kill the invading enemies in order to defend my hex full of routed units?" The short answer is: you don't. A hex full of routed units is very vulnerable and you generally want to avoid leaving such a hex open to enemy reprisals. There are a couple of tactics cards that can help you fight back despite not having any standing units to fight with, but the odds are certainly against you.

thank you so much steve :D:D

as for question one if i used mobilize order can i move 3 units form different hexes into the enemy hex?

and if i have 2 units in 2 different hexes can i move them both at the same time using a movement order or i can only perform 1 action (i.e moving only one unit)

Rommel1 said:

In simple words, the Mobilize and Conquest order cards let you take all the units (heroes excluded) you want within 2 hexes (or 3 hexes for the units with the fast ability) of the hexe that you activate with the order card and bring them all into the activated hexe. You cannot, however, move routed units or units that are already in an activated hexe.