Not sure if anyone has posted any details about the tiles so far, so I figured I just put up some observations here. This is an interesting picture to work with http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/581629 As you can see, hexes have a number icon, one or more resource icons and a silhoutte Icon with a numeral to their right printed on them. The resource icons have been previewed already and are pretty evident. We know they can increase your respective dial when a certain order card is played. The number Icon will probably be used together with the Fate Cards ( which also have a number on them ) to create a random map for every new game as evidenced by these hints : "Building the map is only one part of beginning Runewars," "Fate Cards serve as a sort of all-purpose randomizer, and are used in battle, hero duels, diplomacy, and even setup! " My guess is you'll have to draw a Fate Card ( one of those numbered from 1 - 13 ) and use that tile to start building the board. Then draw a second fate Card and attach the corresponding tile to the first one ( in a way that the area's make sense ) and so on until you have a certain amount of tiles/hexes in play - depending on how many players will play the game. ( You may want a smaller board for two players than for four players. ) Interesting to know there are 30 Fate Cards, and only 13 tiles so far, so we can have up to 17 more tiles in the expansions ... The Silhoutte Icon and the numeral besides it indicates which neutral units control this area at the start of the game. Take a look at the silhoutte in hex 4B http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/581629 and then compare to the gray figure in this picture http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/581633 As, you can see, they look identical. There are apparently 3 of those figures in this area at the start of the game. Which is further indicated by these preview comments "After positioning the tiles and forming the map, players will distribute the neutral monsters (who roam the untamed lands between the starting areas) and set up their home cities. " So get ready to crush the neutrals, or enlist them in your army ( diplomacy ) and create a path towards the runes. You may even leave a few neutrals in place as a buffer between you and your opponent. ... starting to look very good ...

Steve-O said: I think your numbers favour the special ability a bit too much. I wouldn't be surprised if a triangle unit had 10% or even 5% odds on an Orb, giving circles 10-20%. Circle units are supposed to be the wizard/sorcerer/necromancer/hero types. They should have the best Orb percentages in the game IMO. They are the "specialists" of the "special abilities" I would reckon. If they would trigger an Orb only 10-20% of the time they would be near worthless and other unit's Special Abilities would trigger even less ? I honestly don't think so. Steve-O said: At the least I would expect an Orb draw to be less likely than a regular Hit. Circle units are not "hitter" types, but "magic" types, so I doubt very much that their damage percentage will be higher than their orb percentage.

From what I've read in the previews so far their seem to be 4 possible results in combat. Either you Hit for Damage, you Miss, you make one or more opposing units Rout or you may use your unit's Special Ability ( Orb) I was wondering how ever what the odds would be of each of those results happening. This is my guess so far. Triangle Units Miss 40% of the time ( confirmed in the previews) which leaves 60% for the other three results which will break down IMO like : Rout 10% - Orb 20% - Hit 30% ( for 1 confirmed damage, no more ) Circle units are described as being as fragile as Triangle Units - meaning they'll usually have just 1 HP as well but " their special abilities are triggered twice as often". Circle units also seem to be more of the wizard - priest - hero type units, so my guess is they'll break down like this Rout 10% - Hit 20% - Miss 30% - Orb 40% "Rectangle Units successfully attack more often than Triangle Units" which leads me to Rout 10% - Miss 20% - Orb 30% - Hit 40% There are quite a few Routing effects among different units' special abilities that's why I figure the "base" routing percentage will be low. " Hexagon units succesfully attack more often than rectangle units " leads to Miss 10% - Orb 20% - Rout 30% - Hit 40% All of this is just wild speculation of course and just goes to prove how much I'm looking forward to this promising game PS I think that a figure that is "routed" remains in the same area as the battle but is put "on its back" ( flat ) indicating it cannot participate in the battle anymore. This would make some of the wording about " standing units" meaningful.

Bleached Lizard said: Didn't it state in an earlier article that it didn't matter how many units of one type you had in a battle - if the fate card says they deal just 1 damage, then it's one damage for all those units as a group (not 1 each). As mentioned above already, I really can't see this making any sense. What would be the point of building an army if 1 unit can do as much damage as 100 of those units. Moreover, giving all (100) units the same Fate Card result also doesn't look very appealing. There you come with your 100 Archers and you Draw .... a miss - everybody fails his shot ??? - How does that sound for a game mechanism, pretty bad, doesn't it ?

broken said: What you are referencing is this: "When any number of Skeleton Archers attacks, the player controlling them draws a Fate Card from the appropriate deck. Fate Cards serve as a sort of all-purpose randomizer, and are used in battle, hero duels, diplomacy, and even setup! Take a look at the fate card to the right; if a Skeleton Archer were to draw this as his combat card, we would look at the quadrant of the card that shows a triangle (the upper left, since that is the shape associated with the unit in question). There, you can see an icon indicating that one point of damage has been inflicted." As you can see, it goes from plural to singular, and the one damage example is for the singular. Things they said in the third article would not make sense if 3 archers did the same damage as one: I think you are right. I think people are "misreading" this part for exactly the reasons you mentioned here. broken said: "The Knights may not get a chance to fight, however, if the quick and deadly Bowmen take out the enemy first. With their Concentrated Fire special ability, they can bring down large units with haste." This insinuates that the archers can deal enough damage to take out an army (or at least one large unit) before the next initiative round. They couldn't do that if they only ever did one damage, especially to a unit with more than one health remaining (meaning one damage would not kill it). Correct again IMO. I think it would be absolutely ridiculous to have a group of let's say 10 archers be able to deal only 1 measly damage. A huge battle between tens of units on both sides would never see any serious damage and casualties if so few damage would be dished out. broken said: Disregarding "When any number of Skeleton Archers attacks, the player controlling them draws a Fate Card", I would say it makes infinitely more sense if you draw a card for each unit rather than unit type. This way not only would all 10 of your archers not miss on a single bad draw, but also Waiqar the Undying's Reanimate unit's ability would make much more sense: "Deal [2 damage] if you have at least 2 standing Reanimates in the battle." In this way you would deal that damage once for each orb icon you draw for the Reanimates as long as you have more than two in the battle, and not draw one orb, then deal 2 damage for each reanimate you have, as long as you have more than 2 of them. Again, I think you're correct. When you go over all the possibilities, drawing 1 fate card per unit makes the most sense. Drawing only 1 fate card per unit type makes it a very "luck based" game, especially with triangle based units which miss 40% of the time. This makes it very much a hit or miss game - I wouldn't like that at all. But ... when every unit in battle gives you a Fate Card, then the odds really start kicking in. Those 10 Archers would draw 10 Fate Cards and would miss about 40%, and do something else for about 60% of the time ( Hit / Rout / Orb ) This would give you a real Strategy / Tactical game and not a luck driven game anymore. Since the Fate deck contains 30 Fate Cards, you can easily have battles involving up to 30 units, which I assume is going to be a rare sight. Shuffle the Fate deck after each battle. I like that, I'm going to edit my opening post accordingly. Thanks for the input.

From what I've been reading in the previews so far, my guess is the combat system will work somewhat like this : EDITED 25.11.09 - When the active player moves one or more of his units into an area that contains enemy units, a battle takes place. - Each player that has one or more "Initiative 1" units in the battle draws 1 Fate Card per unit ( probably attacker drawing first ) and resolves the result(s). Example : the attacker has 3 archers and draws 3 " 1-damage" result Fate Cards : this means his archers inflict 3 damage altogether.The defender has no "Initiative 1" unit(s) in the battle, so he doesn't draw a Fate Card. - Then, each player that has one or more ( surviving and standing ) "Initiative 2" units left in the battle draws 1 Fate Card for each of those units and applies the result(s). - Continue this way until you've gone through all 5 Initiative levels. - After five rounds of battle like this, the battle is over and the remaining figures are counted on each side to see who lost the battle - the player with the least remaining figures has the "least strength" and thus loses the battle and must withdraw ( if possible ) ( If he can't withdraw, my guess is his remainig troops are destroyed, ... so better keep an escape route open at all times. If the battle is a draw, my guess is the attacker has to withdraw. ) - During each Initiative round during combat, Tactics Cards can be played to influence the outcome of the battle. - After each battle the drawn Fate Cards go back into the Fate Deck and the deck is reshuffled. This is just a guess, of course, but I like it so far. I especially like the fact that battles will most likely not rage on until one side is completely destroyed as indicated by the "Strength count" mechanism. This potentially allows the loser of a battle to recover faster and a lost battle doesn't necessarily means a lost war. It also means relatively fast gameplay, no time consuming battles and possibly rather tactical battles. This combat mechanic reminds me somewhat of the battles in the A Game of Thrones board game where losing a battle most often means losing just one or a couple of units and then withdrawing the rest of your army.... which makes the game much more tactical IMO.

Steve-O said: The expansionist in me also notes that there appears to be free space below those four which could conveniently be covered by a tile from an expansion providing more unit types though. =) I don't think the free spaces indicate that there are expansion figures on the horizon. There simply seem to be 5 different levels of Initiative and the Elves have a unit in each of the first four initiative levels. Take a look at the picture of the back of the box ( gamegeek ) there you can see the Human ( I guess ) and Undead race sheets. The Humans have a unit in the Initiative 1,2,3 and 5 slot and the Undead seem to have a unit in the 1,2,4 and 5 slots. It's a great mechanic IMO which can lead to all kinds of different battle results depending on who battles who and who gets to strike first.

I like the Grim Reaper because he can put some added pressure on characters and potentially speed up the game. I get the impression though that he's not active enough. The reaper only activates when a character rolls a "1" on its movement die, so the reaper will activate on average only once in six movement rolls, that's only 16.66% of the time. If you consider the fact that some characters do not roll the movement die all the time ( because they may Teleport or move under the influence of a Poltergeist etc ) that 16.66% drops even further. And if you consider that the Reaper doesn't necessarily land on a character each time he's moved ( especially if you play with just 2 or 3 players ) his effect becomes very minimal. For that reason, I'm inclined to make 1 house rule concerning the reaper : instead of activating him when a player rolls "1" on the movement die, I suggest activating the reaper every time a characters moves only 1 space. This way the reaper will activate (among others) : - when a character rolls "1" on the movement die - when a character with a Poltergeist moves - when a character uses a raft - when Blizzard is in play ( everybody moves only "1" for 2 rounds ) - when a character moves in the inner region - etc... I especially like the inner region effect. As soon as somebody reaches the inner region and moves only 1 space at a time, the reaper becomes much more active, not to mention when two or more characters are in the inner region it sure becomes "hell" in the outer and middle regions for those still out there.