Hello all! I'm a new member here, and recently purchased Battlelore 2nd Edition and am thoroughly enjoying the game. Battlelore also ultimately led me to this site. Anyway, before purchasing Battlelore I had extensively looked in to Runewars Revised Edition and had my purchase narrowed down to those 2 games. I ultimately decided on Battlelore as the rules are less extensive and I figured it would be a good intro back into competitive fantasy themed board gaming after a long hiatus.

I'm now in position to buy Runewars and broaden my horizons so to speak. I've looked at BGG and noticed that it's been a while since Runewars has had an expansion released. I also noticed in the "Summer 2013 Catalog" that came with Battlelore, Runewars had a small blurb at the back of the catalog, while FFG's other headlining games had full featured advertisements taking up a whole page. So, my question is whether Runewars is nearing the end of it's cycle, or, if in your opinion there will be more Runewars content to be released in the future. I will most likely purchase Runewars regardless, but this question is still in the back of my mind. Thank you for your input!

welcome!

I wouldn't call it "dead" just because there are no new expansions. it already got one and FFG's first expansions usually fix/improve/extend the base game - so the game is already "complete" if you want to call it that

you have to consider it was the last of the coffin games with a pretty hefty pricetag which probably deterred some folks from buying it (hence the revised edition, but dunno how successful that is).

I would take a look at it "as is" and decide if you want to buy it, and if you should get the expansion as well (if it's really dead/on the backburner it might go out of print and the price will skyrocket before FFG reprints it - I also like to have my stuff complete, but that's just me. )

runewars is part of the terrinoth family of games, there is always a chance FFG releases a POD expansion for heroes from descent 2nd ed. as crosspromotion (just like they could for rune age and android - speaking of dead game *cough*) or another box. rune age has plain orcs and dwarves (although I could swear there were no dwarves in terrinoth before that point, where's steve-o when you need him? ^^) as 2 new factions which could show up at some point - if it's feasible for FFG. TI3 got a second expansion years after the first one, otoh TI3 is probably a bit more successful.

and there's always boardgamegeek which probably has fanmade stuff & variants.

Thank you for your quick reply! About 5 minutes after typing up my initial question, I went ahead and ordered it, haha. I've been wanting the game, and as you said, if it were to go out of print the price would soar. So, I figured now is as good of a time as any to purchase it. This is probably a dumb question, but is the Banners of War expansion 100% compatible with the revised edition? I've read conflicting posts regarding this on BGG.

looking at http://fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=3575 the major changes are the smaller box and smaller pieces to fit into it, rest is updates rules, so it shouldn't really make a difference which version you use.

the support section under http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp?eidm=96&esem=4 has the rule changes in detail and how to use them.

although I own the expansion and the old box I haven't played it together yet, so I don't know if there are issues not mentioned in the documents.

can't remember if there is a quick-start setup like in TI3, if not I'd suggest to preassemble the map for the first game - it's quicker and less prone to error considering all the rules to follow. else have fun

Upon further digging it looks like the incompatibility issues that people were bringing up were in relation to some of the card stock thicknesses. It sounds like it's limited to the "faction sheets" and not the hex tiles. Can anyone confirm this? It wouldn't bother me if the faction sheets or any other cards were of different thicknesses, but if the hex tiles were of different thickness, I could see that being annoying.

I wish I could confirm for certain, but I don't have the revised edition. I'm pretty sure, from what I've read from others, that the map tiles are going to be the same thickness (which is the thickness of FFG's typical cardboard punchsheets).

With regards to Runewars being "dead," it's also worth keeping in mind that this is a Corey game. Like TI3, Corey's games don't usually get 1,000 expansions, however, they will occasionally see a new expansion after several years of inactivity.

As long as Runewars remains in print, there's a chance of another expansion coming along. Corey's games don't usually add expansions just for the sake of adding more of the same, though. If RW is going to see a second expansion, it will be after they've assembled enough entirely new material to constitute the addition.

Upon further digging it looks like the incompatibility issues that people were bringing up were in relation to some of the card stock thicknesses. It sounds like it's limited to the "faction sheets" and not the hex tiles. Can anyone confirm this? It wouldn't bother me if the faction sheets or any other cards were of different thicknesses, but if the hex tiles were of different thickness, I could see that being annoying.

I own both the revised edition and banners of war. The only game pieces that changed thicknesses for the revised edition are the faction sheets, which became thinner, but in my opinion still durable within reason.

There are only two "incompatibility" issues between the revised edition and banners of war, and both are minor.

1) You'll end up with a duplicate set of victory cards for each race.

2) The expansion units for each faction are printed on the old, thicker cardboard, rather than the new, thinner faction sheets.

Otherwise, in terms of card sizes, map tiles, heroes, etc, everything is exactly the same. I highly recommend the expansion.

rune age has plain orcs and dwarves (although I could swear there were no dwarves in terrinoth before that point, where's steve-o when you need him? ^^)

After Rune Age: Oath and Anvil was released, I went back to the Runewars rule book and was stunned to see that the flavor story at the beginning of the rule book actually mentions how the orcs and dwarves were persuaded to unite with the humans and elves to overthrow the Uthuk Y'llan during Menara's first darkness. So dwarves and orcs are as old as the first edition Runewars rule book.

Whether we'll see orcs and dwarves in a future expansion is anybody's guess, but I'd be surprised if there weren't copious notes and ideas about dwarf and orc factions for Runewars floating around the offices of FFG's game designers.

For what it's worth, Runewars is kind of a "sequel" of sorts to an older FFG game called Battlemist, which I believe is kind of in the same setting as Diskwars, which is where the Uthuk were first introduced. Battlemist has "barbarians", but they were kind of generic Barbarians, although they could represent the Uthuk then, too.

So when it comes down to it, the Orcs and Dwarves are much older than Runewars in terms of history in the games.

Orcs and dwarves have been a part of the Terrinoth setting since the original Runebound (AFAIK the first game in the setting.) Even that game featured several orc heroes. I don't recall if there were any dwarf heroes in RB1E, but there were certainly dwarven encounters, and the city of Forge. Dwarves are notably reclusive in Terrinoth.

The "Broken Plains" are a relatively new addition to orcish culture, but I get the impression that the orcs of the broken plains are an amalgam of more savage orcs, as opposed to the civilized orcs of Dawnsmoor and the Free Cities in general.

I just got RuneWars and I think it is awesome. I would definitely recommend it if you already like FFG games and you like Battlelore. I know the original OP already got it, but I am just chiming in for anyone else reading. It is a blast. It has roleplaying, battling, resource gathering. So cool..!

Definitely a very fun game, and very solid. The expansion makes it even better, but even just the base game is very solid and feels very complete!

My favorite game of all times! there are just so many ways to win, Lots of politics involved, treason, war. If I don't play in 2 weeks i feel something is wrong! we really love this game! It also helps to build a more strategic mind set!

best regards

The original game was great but the revised edition + expansion did ruin it a bit for me.

The new tiles in the expansion are smaller, which leads to smaller boards.

This caused an increase in illegal setups which is why the revised edition reduced the distance between home realms by 1.

Armies now clash a turn earlier and a early rush can catch you before you've established defences and secured resources.

If armies clashing earlier is a problem then heroes really have it bad, not only do they start closer but now there's more of them and they move faster. Instead of sending hero's on quests it's more about ganking other hero's as fast as possible.

I find that the balance of the game was spoiled by the new units, the unit cap (available miniatures) no longer limits the winning faction. When a faction gets enough resources it starts building large units, the limit of 4 made them very useful but not overpowered and not prevalent enough to take part in every skirmish. Now that the number of large units has doubled once you have enough resources you just keep producing these... It's now more likely that the faction that gets the early lead will stay there, before games were a lot more swingy.

The expansion is just too awesome not to use though.

The original game had perfect balance, now I need house rules to keep the same balance.