Recently, I played my first game of Runewars by Fantasy Flight Games.
At the peak of the action, the Waiqar (Undead) Leader, Ardus, takes on the Daqan (Human) Spearman and Rune Golem simultaneously. Ardus proved to be a melee monster in this game!!! |
Now let’s go back to the start of this action. Before this final (and desperate) fight, we had both sides set up the board. The box comes with some area terrain, but chose to use some other terrain instead.
For the mission, we went with the complete and total elimination of the enemy’s army.
Below is an image of how the field looked after deployment.
My opponent played the Waiqar on the opposite side of the table and I played as the Daqan on the side closest to the camera. |
Once you deploy, you use the dials to “program” what each of your units will do for the round. On the left side of the dial is the action and to the right is the bonus or adjustment to make to that action.
Above is a picture of the two armies with the action dials behind each unit on the table. |
After the actions are “programmed,” players go through the action dials in order from low to high. In this game, both sides advanced their forces right off the top with the Daqan Cavalry rushing in perhaps a little too quickly.
The Daqan Cavalry go deep on the right hand side of the table to just inches from some enemy units. |
Have they taken on more than they can handle? |
On the other side of the table, the Human Leader (Kari) takes a shot with her bow at the Carrion Lancer but fails to damage the creature.
Kari takes a shot at the Carrion Lancer with her bow but fails to cause any damage. |
Back to the other side of the table and the Cavalry charge the enemy.
The Daqan Cavalry now charge in on the Waiqar Archers. |
They kill two soldiers and cause some fear. The fear cards drawn have no discernible effect on the unit. |
The Daqan Spearmen Charge into the Carrion Lancer. The Carrion Lancer retaliates killing a couple of infantry men. |
Over on the other side of the table, the Daqan Cavalry continue to push hard into the Waiqar Archers.
The Cavalry kill four more archers and cause a ton of fear. |
The Archers slide back from the Cavalry. The Golem charges the Reanimates (Undead Soldiers) from the side flank and Kari joins in the fight with the Carrion Lancer. |
On the next turn, my Cavalry mopped up the Archers and the Waiqar Hero (Ardus) slams into the rear of the Cavalry.
Ardus slams into the rear flank of the Daqan Cavalry. |
Heroes hit very hard in this game. Ardus kills 3 of the four horsemen in just one attack. |
On the other side of the table, Kari hits the Carrion Lancer hard. |
The Golem continues his onslaught. |
The Human Spearmen finish off the Lancer. |
At this point, the game is not looking good for the Waiqar. At the same time, I was a little nervous because my Cavalry was near dead.
Predictably, Ardus killed my Calvary. I maneuvered Kari and the Spearmen so that they could engage Ardus in a turn or two. |
Kari fires an arrow at Ardus and Ardus then charges her. The Spearmen are in behind trying to figure out how two charge Ardus with Kari in the way. |
The spearmen slide over while the Rune Golem eliminates the Reanimates that he was fighting. |
Kari and Ardus continue to trade blows while the Golem and Spearmen maneuver to charge in on Ardus. |
The Heroes in this game are super strong and durable. The two exchange blows and eventually Ardus defeats Kari. Not to give up, the Spearmen and Golem charge in on Ardus!
The Rune Golem charges into the flank of Ardus. |
Ardus turns to face the Rune Golem and the Spearmen charge into Ardus’s new flank. |
On the next round, Ardus kills the Golem and the Spearmen continue their attack. |
Ardus turns and meets his new attackers, but it is too late. |
The Humans take him out. |
The Daqan win this hard fought battle. Near the end, when I had three units left to my opponent’s one, I thought the game was mine. The degree to which victory changed during the last rounds of the game surprised me. Ardus is truly a monster in hand-to-hand combat. He bested Kari, killed my Golem, and eliminated my Cavalry. He took out every unit in my army except for the Spearmen.
Overall, this was a fun battle and I like how the rules work. For those wondering, the terrain I used for this game are TerraTiles by RAINN Studios. The Blue Rune Star in the middle of the board looks great for Runewars, but is a Kickstarter exclusive – it is not in the retail version of the box.
Special thanks goes out to Asmodee for sending me Runewars. I plan to publish one more Battle Report of the game before posting my review.
Until next time, Happy Gaming Everyone!!!
More Runewars Posts
If you like this post, be sure to check out my Article Round Up for Runewars.
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Discloser: Asmodee provided Must Contain Minis with an Copy of Runewars for Review Purposes.
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