While Tuesday night is usually X-Wing / Star Wars Destiny / Imperial Assault night, I’ve been bringing Runewars for those that want to try it out. As such I’ve managed to get in several games over the past few weeks with various people as we’ve been getting to know the rules.
This Tuesday, Chris and I played with 150pts a piece pulling from my 2 core boxes, I was Daqan and he choose Waiqar. The system of pulling the deployment, objectives and then terrain for the table just works well. Between the two of us we pulled the Standoff, Demoralize Their Foces and then 3 pieces of terrain, Forest, Wall and Rocky Outcrop to round things out.
In order to establish all this, 3 deployment cards are drawn, 3 objective cards are drawn, the first player, established by point bid, decides which of the two types they want to determine and picks from the 3 choices. The other player then picks from the remaining category. The terrain is a function of what the deployment card specifies, so those cards are drawn at random and the terrain placed.
For forces we each decided to integrate a ‘hero’ of sorts into the rank and file. In my case I did a 3×3 block of spearman and dropped in a golem. Chris threw in Ardus to the reanimates, again a 3×3 block.
We deployed, and the game was afoot. A 2×2 block of Cav, Kari, a single golem, and then the massive spearmen unit with the golem to hopefully really deal some damage.
Chris across from me had his Carrion Lancers as two individual units, the 2×2 block of archers and then the reanimates.
I was hoping my Cav would take out the Carrion Lancer quickly, then get into the flank of the reanimates, with Kari and the Golem holding them for a moment or two, while on my other flank the spearman would be able to take out the weaker unit and then get into the flank.
Early on I decided to hold back on my left flank and go aggressive with my right. Kari could hold and throw down arrows, taking out some reanimates. At this point we were a little unclear about how damage was distributed with a hero attached to a unit. Does the attacker decide how to spend damage and how do accuracies fit in? As before hits are hits to the unit unless you have an accuracy in which case you can spend against the hero in the front rank, but you’re not required to do so.
The initial engagement between the spearmen and the Carrion Lancer went well, he was defeated in one attack. My Golem suffered a similar fate, taking a crazy amount of damage. On the downside my spearmen had taken a blight and a panic. My Cav as it turned out, didn’t get their charge in and thus didn’t get anything accomplished save for losing one figure.
With the next turn, my Cav suffer another loss, but manage to drop 2 wounds on the Carrion Lancer. They were needing to win this battle much faster than that and as a result my center was crumbling.
Added to the bumble, Chris’ reanimates surged forward and contacted Kari, inflicting 3 wounds. Next the archers getting a flank shot in because my spearmen missed the mark to hit the reanimates in the flank suffered not only a loss in men but also a panic result where I lost my golem! What awful timing for that kind of morale result!
I decided that given the now weaken state of the spearmen, I’d go after the archers and …. missed. Kari fell this turn and the Cav wasn’t getting much accomplished either.
Last picture, the Cav would defeat the Carrion Lancer and change into the reanimates, valiant but stupid. They would barely survive the day.
The spearmen would likewise hit the archers and inflict a lot of damage taking it down to one tray.
The victory went to Chris. The loss of the golem on my main unit was positively deadly. Given a powerful unit like that, you really have to go for combined arms if you have several weaker units. Kari, I shouldn’t have put on the front lines and she should have done her best to evade.
All in all another great glimpse into what is coming when we’re all able to field 200 pts a side for organized play. Thinking about it, that’ll prompt some choices, field more Cav? Field more spearmen? Field more golems… depending on the point cost of the other ‘hero’ additions that we know are coming, that’ll factor in as well. For the Waiqar, one is a necromancer who can add in to reanimate units. Get your gold pieces out! Given at 200 pts, you can have but 2 heros max, this creates some very interesting choices.
Another piece is all of this is the idea of ‘epic’ play where say 400 pts on a side with a vastly larger surface. I can totally see it. There is nothing saying that the deployment cards have to be mapped to a 3×6 surface, nor that there couldn’t be another set of deployment cards for that kind ‘epic’ play.
Very good report thank you
Nice AAR and review. We’ve only tried the introcuctory scenario but since we both have 2 boxes of our chosen faction, trying out somethign like this is in the cards. Liking the red paint scheme also.
As for larger surfaces, I’m looking forward to bigger tables even before the points values get there, just to have the opportunity to add more terrain.