When retreating neutral units, do you have to favor a hexe that contains other neutral units over an unoccupied hexe?

Maerimydra said:

Neutral units can retreat to any uncontrolled hex, regardless of whether there are other neutrals there; they are never forced to retreat to an area with other neutrals. Neutrals aren't really "friendly" to other neutrals in the same way player units are friendly to each other.

Only PLAYER retreats have the requirement that you retreat to a friendly area if possible.

Thank you! This is how I played, but I was uncertain since the rules are not explicit on the subject.

Maerimydra said:

It may not be as explicit as saying what I said, but the rules do discuss it:

On page 22, it says, under Retreats, for Unallied Neutral Units: "The player to the left of the current player chooses an adjacent uncontrolled area for these units to retreat into."

And on page 15, it says an Uncontrolled Area is "Any area that is not controlled by a player (it may contain neutral units and/or cities). This category includes both neutral and empty areas."

Thus, by the rules, unallied neutrals can retreat to either areas with other neutrals, or empty, since both are considered "uncontrolled", and that's the only requirement for their retreat.

And I stand corrected.

Maerimydra said:

Well, while Runewars is one of the cleaner FFG rulebooks, there are still times where it takes a few readings to put all the pieces together.

Also, if you haven't seen it yet, on the Boardgamegeek page for Runewars, in the files section, I have a document for this that has a bunch of rulings from the designer compiled and organized into an easy to find format (I hope). It's called "Rulings from Corey".

Thanks, but I already printed this document and it's lying safe in my Runewars box.