RUNEWARS
MINIATURES GAME
In all, this core package gives you the beginnings of two opposing armies, featuring two standard types of unit and two individual characters for each race.
The Daqans are essentially the humans, with 16 spearmen and four cavalry and their two individual characters are a Rune Golem and a Wraithstalker. Opposing them are the Waiqar Undead in the form of 16 Reanimate infantry and 8 Reanimate archers, plus for their individuals, a Carrion Lancer and an Ardus Ix'Erebus.
[Here are just the first two pictures to wet your appetite. I'll seed more photos through the review. The terrain I've placed them on is part of my substantial collection of Kallistra hex tiles]
In terms of numbers of figures, this is a reasonable quantity for the average price of the game [£80-£85], but in game play terms it gives you only two units and two individuals on each side. The limitations of this will be discussed later when I consider game play in more depth.
The models themselves I do like, especially the Undead archers, both for the detail on them and the four poses. This variety of poses which is a feature of all the groups of figures is a definite plus and adds considerably to the effect on the tabletop.
Along with each unit and character figure comes the other essential piece of hardware - what they've chosen to call the Command Tool. Those familiar with X-Wing, as I am, will have no trouble in recognising the mechanism for giving each of your forces its orders. It's a development moving from a single dial to pre-plan a unit's move to a double dial that combines the effect of the essential move dial with the second dial's modifiers. All is done by symbols, many, though not all, being fairly self-explanatory. Among the changes that I like is the fact that the choice of move has an accompanying number that determines play order rather than the fixed initiative rating in X-Wing.
If you feel that this disrupts the aesthetics of the battlefield, then it's very easy to set them at the rear of your playing area, as the picture of your unit on the Command Tool makes each easily identifiable.
Should you be fielding more than one unit of the same type, a simple corresponding numbered marker is used to identify each one. However, for that, you're going to have to invest in the additional packs of figures, stands and Command Tools that should soon be available.
Above, in its entirety, is what you get to fight with in the core set - attractive, but very limited. My immediate reaction was barely enough for a Skirmish game and certainly not a battle. That reaction was spot on, as I later read in the Rules Reference booklet [one of three booklets in this core set], where you are introduced to what is described as "a faster, smaller alternative to a full battle." This is - a Skirmish. This limitation is the major uncertainty that I have with the package. Once inside the package, it is made perfectly clear that to play a "standard" game expansions sets will be necessary.
The creators obviously envisage that you may be playing with a friend who also owns a copy and so, between you, there will be enough for a standard game. Their intention too is that this first purchase will be part of an army building process where individual players will tend to focus on one race and enjoy expanding their range of units and characters to support that race. So, be advised of these limitations of play, if you are thinking of venturing in to the world of Terrinoth. You will initially be able to play only a small skirmish game.
In all honesty, this is highly typical of all figure-based games that I know and so perhaps the key question is whether this new entry into the field of fantasy army figures offers at least as good an experience as what is already out there and perhaps better.
Before giving my personal judgement, let's look at the rest of the contents, some minor, some major. As always there are tokens - in this case a fairly modest number, but certainly adequate for the number of units in the game.
There are the inevitable wound tokens [the purple tokens with red crosses in the picture above] and another item that I warm to are the five Energy tokens that represent magic in this game [bottom left of the above picture]. These are double-sided and randomly thrown at the end of each Turn, to form a pool ready for use in the next turn. The symbols on them match with ones in some of the rules or on some of the cards and components in the game. Each identical symbol in the pool increases the effect of the symbol that you are using. So, if you were using a card with a symbol that caused damage and there were 3 matching Energy symbols in the pool, then you would cause 3 damage.
Equally to be expected are the dice used in combat.
Differing numbers of dice and colours are thrown depending on the type of unit attacking. The symbols are easily learned as there are only five - Hits [the starbursts], Morale [the coiled circles], Surges [lightning bolts], Mortal Strike [left hand symbol on lower white die] and Accuracy [visible on top white die - on same face as Hit symbol]. Nearly all are self-explanatory and the Surge symbol, which has become fairly familiar from games like X-Wing, allows a unit or character's special ability to be activated, as noted on the card associated with the piece.
Equally familiar from X-Wing are the different measuring sticks for movement, such as those below.
First of all, the double dial caters for the much wider range of movement actions that land-based figure gaming demands with none of the ambiguity that so many rules systems seem to stumble into. Secondly, one of the reasons that there are relatively few tokens in this game is that the second dial fulfils the task that multiple tokens often did duty for. What's even better is that to be able to employ a particular modifier on the second dial, it must match the colour of the order given on the first dial. No more having to remember a wide range of exceptions/limitations to what this type of unit can or cannot do [a drawback, not just in the figure gaming world, but with many, many sets of board wargame rules]. Instead, if the colours match, then they can be combined.
High on my list of likes in this booklet is the ability to customise different sized formations for your various types of figure. The more stands in your formation obviously the more costly in points to spend [e.g. the smallest formation of Spearmen costs 18 pts, while the largest costs 59 pts]. Nothing out of the ordinary, you might say, but the important corollary is that the size of formation also increases the number of types of possible Upgrades that you can purchase for the formation. Neat idea.
I sincerely hope too that it will be possible to buy additional Command Tools, so that you can field different sized formations of the same type of unit in your Army. What I find disappointing is that, continuing to use the Spearmen as an example, even with two core sets of the game you don't have enough figures and stands to field the largest formation. In fact, if you have only the core set, you would have to buy three expansion packs in order to have the largest possible Spearmen formation in your Army.
After this introduction to Army building, the rest of the booklet is essentially an excellent alphabetical glossary. Each entry significantly expands in detail on concepts/rules introduced in the Lets Play booklet and in a few cases introduces new ones. For gamers familiar with figure systems, you'll probably not need to refer much to these entries, but for those less familiar they really do spell everything out and for those "argumentative" gamers out there, it should stop a few squabbles before they start!!
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