I'll be keen, haven't been to that store tet. - I think my friend is too.

I'll be keen, haven't been to that store tet. - I think my friend is too.

I'll be keen, haven't been to that store tet. - I think my friend is too.

Ayy I won finally!

2 units of 3x1 Heavy Crossbowmen with Tempered Steel and Rank Discipline, a unit of 2x1 spears with a Rallying Conicern deployed in front to both block for them and refresh tempered steel.
Then a 2x2 Unit of Spears with Dispatch Runner running alongside a 2x3 unit of Oathsworn with Hawthorne upgrade and Column Tactics.

He switched up his list a little - he ran 4x3 Reanimates, Maro with Fortunas Dice and Violent Forces, two units of 2x1 Archers with Combat Ingenuity and a unit of 2x1 Carrion Lancers.

We deployed aggressively facing each other after I chose the 'long edge facing corner' deployment, playing the minefields mission, he denied a flank with mines and terrain but I wanted to line up with him because I was much more confident. Basically the Crossbowmen melted the lancers / Maro after they rushed forwards turn 1, oh god ranged damage in this game is insane, 1 shotted Maro with 3 hit results (+1 from Tempered steel!) for 12 damage. They then went on to move into the two reanimate archer unit's range and very easily out-trade them - the 2x1 rallying spear unit doing it's job blocking the carrion lancers and dying valiantly to the archers.

The Hawthorne Cavalry Column took a huge amount of blight, but instead of doing the move / dispatch trick or rallying I opted to line up a charge with both the Cav and the spears - the four dice charge attack was completely nullified by blight but it didn't matter, attacking at Initiative 3 combined with dispatch runner and a very lucky morale card which let me reform the reanimates meant they got minced and I only lost 3 trays of spears and 1 of cavalry. A complete route by turn 7!

Thank you for the advice everyone!

 

Ayy I won finally!

2 units of 3x1 Heavy Crossbowmen with Tempered Steel and Rank Discipline, a unit of 2x1 spears with a Rallying Conicern deployed in front to both block for them and refresh tempered steel.
Then a 2x2 Unit of Spears with Dispatch Runner running alongside a 2x3 unit of Oathsworn with Hawthorne upgrade and Column Tactics.

He switched up his list a little - he ran 4x3 Reanimates, Maro with Fortunas Dice and Violent Forces, two units of 2x1 Archers with Combat Ingenuity and a unit of 2x1 Carrion Lancers.

We deployed aggressively facing each other after I chose the 'long edge facing corner' deployment, playing the minefields mission, he denied a flank with mines and terrain but I wanted to line up with him because I was much more confident. Basically the Crossbowmen melted the lancers / Maro after they rushed forwards turn 1, oh god ranged damage in this game is insane, 1 shotted Maro with 3 hit results (+1 from Tempered steel!) for 12 damage. They then went on to move into the two reanimate archer unit's range and very easily out-trade them - the 2x1 rallying spear unit doing it's job blocking the carrion lancers and dying valiantly to the archers.

The Hawthorne Cavalry Column took a huge amount of blight, but instead of doing the move / dispatch trick or rallying I opted to line up a charge with both the Cav and the spears - the four dice charge attack was completely nullified by blight but it didn't matter, attacking at Initiative 3 combined with dispatch runner and a very lucky morale card which let me reform the reanimates meant they got minced and I only lost 3 trays of spears and 1 of cavalry. A complete route by turn 7!

Thank you for the advice everyone!

 

It sounds like you're chasing a white rabbit if you think CC was a thin backdrop or too forgiving. Great design is achieved not when you have no more to add but when you have nothing left to remove.

It sounds like you're chasing a white rabbit if you think CC was a thin backdrop or too forgiving. Great design is achieved not when you have no more to add but when you have nothing left to remove.

I think it would be very cool, and could have multiple factions at war.

Added to Tabletop Admiral

Game design nut here (and actual graduate haha).
 
Been messing around with some simultaneous play rules to speed up the game and make it more of a broadside exchange rather than piece by piece chess-like activation. Takes away activation order dynamic/shenanigans which adds as much as it detracts.
 
It's interesting that's for sure, when ships are in range they are going to both exchange fire as opposed to currently where a ship from each side usually gets to slip out of arcs once each round.

The site just updated with a bunch of fixes for mobile some nice list printing features as well as adding the Latari Elves and the new Daqan and Waiqar units. 
 
http://www.tabletopminiatures.com/Runewars/

So, had my first battle using the new expansions last night with @Hos fielding his Daqan and myself Waiqar (well, most of them - I don’t have the Archers yet and no time to print some proxies).
2 x 2 Oathsworn with Moment of Inspiration is beyond amazing and if you’re flanked - oh boy!
Rallying Cornicen is a phenomenal upgrade especially for readying Moment of Inspiration. Having a unit of Cavalry “attached” to your unit of Waiqar with a freaking extra white die every round is as bad as it sounds.
Deathcallers are amazing especially when paired with a Support Carrion Lancer and Simultaneous orders. Managed to one-shot a passing Rune Golem while in combat with a unit of spearmen. I realised it too late, but they’re deadly to Cavalry units at a potential one tray a pop. Approaching Kari level awesome.
Executioner FTW! I managed to one-shot a Rune Golem with a 3 x 2 Reanimate unit, causing a wound then finishing him off with Executioner in the same attack. The dice were freakishly in my favour, but still - wow.
If I had to make a call based on this single game it would have to be that I NEED (not simply want) another Infantry Command pack. Funnily enough not so much for the chance to run multiple Deathcallers or more than one Melee Champion (which would be nice), or for multiple drummers (one seems to be more than enough for now) but for multiple Standard Bearers. I could quite happily find a use for both a Raven-Standard and a Blighted Vexillum Bearer (or two of either) in any given force.
Overall - apart from already loving this game, it truly is so exciting to have more options to bring to the table.
Love. This. Game.

Just like the title suggests, I threw together a spreadsheet that shows the probabilities of specific outcomes. Each row is a combination of dice thrown together indicated by the Dice column, ex: 2R1B = 2 red dice and 1 blue dice. Each column indicates the probability of rolling at least the number at the top of the column of that particular symbol, not taking into account counts of other symbols showing, re-rolls due to Precise or multiple ranks, nor abilities.
I don't think this is uncovering anything we didn't already have gut feelings about, but I hope this helps in your mid-game decision making!
EDIT 2017-04-28
I've expanded the program I wrote to make the initial spreadsheet to account for rerolls and extra dice (flanking, upgrades, etc). Since there's now so many conditions I can't fit all probabilities into screenshots cleanly, so I've moved my data to a google doc here. Rerolls were calculated assuming that any die that is not showing the symbol is rerolled.
EDIT 2017-04-29
Added columns for calculating blanks. I chose to keep the reroll logic the same, where it rerolls anything that's not a blank, as I assume blanks were wanted due to upgrades like Reaping Blade.
EDIT 2017-05-02
Added Hawthorne and Ankaur. I don't think their upgrade cards has been shown yet, I imagine Ankaur will add a white die and Hawthorne a red but not sure yet.

If you played 6th or 7th edition Warhammer, you're going to absolutely love Runewars Miniatures. They really captured the essence of the movement phase being at the heart of the game. Here's a bunch of comparisons/responses to your concerns in no particular order.
Trays: Yep, they're a pain and the models don't fit easily and firmly into them at all. Serious gamers will want them magnetized. It's also really difficult to get the trays apart when you need to remove a tray. I'm expecting some after-market ones soon. One thing though is because you square up bases in combat, you can actually remove your unit from the board to wiggle the tray away and know exactly where it goes back. That sounds weirder than it actually is.
Initiative: You know how the turn based system in Warhammer sucks, but no one can figure out something much better? I think Runewars has totally cracked that problem. Slow dudes attack slowly, but through the cunning use of tactics can turn their slowness to their advantage, for example, planning a late turn charge to intercept a faster unit that hasn't gotten to your charge target point yet. No more of this you wiped out half my army by turn 3 just because of turn order and now I have to claw my way back into it.
Tons of Dice: You mentioned rolling 50 d6s. Not only do you avoid that, but you don't have to roll the dice multiple times. There's no to-wound, armor saves, or invulnerable saves. You do all that with one toss of the dice. Dice also provide a tone of effects besides just damage. You can use certain dice results to activate a special ability, target a hero inside a unit, or ignore armor.
Flexibility: Your units have choices beyond just moving and rolling dice. You can choose to take a defensive stance, or take an offensive stance that causes more risk, but lets you pack more punch. Many units have, or have access to, special abilities that let them contribute outside of the role they are primarily designed for. Carrion Lancers can move great, fight well, and are super durable. But they can also weaken enemy units from range. It's really awesome.
Magic: No more BS with a Dark Elf Wizard Lord with 27 power dice to your 3 dispel dice. You all use the same pool of magic, and you know what that pool is at the start of the turn so you can actually plan around it, instead of maneuvering to get your spell where you need it to be, only to see it fizzle. At the moment, we don't have spell casters in the game, so I'm basing this off the units that do have rune-based effects, along with what I've read about soon to be released spell casters.
Not Tedious: As an Empire player, just packing up my army of over 100 models in 8th edition to take to a game was ridiculous, let alone deploying and managing them during a game. Don't even get me started on how tedious it is to paint 50 Halberds and 20 cav. It took me years to fully paint an army and I still never got a full army up to the standard that I would have wanted. Then, after you do all of this careful planning you get into a game that is so mismatched because of poor game balance issues that I either walk away feeling like I had just clubbed a defenseless baby seal, or face that dude with the unstoppable and tedious magic phase. Who loves having nothing else to do but remove models for 20 minutes while their opponent rolls 300 dice? And yet in Runewars you get lots of tense decision points and for the time being, the game is very balanced. I expect a meta game to develop where the most efficient units and combos are identified and some imbalance occurs, or some units feel irrelevant. But unlike GW, I actually trust FFG to notice that in the first place and then try to fix it, instead of simply changing the marketing strategy to try and convince people to not play competitively and buy crap units because they are fun and launch it all with another article from Crazy Old Uncle Jervis in a twenty dollar magazine that they can't be bothered to fill with new content.  
Here's the metaphor I've been using to describe the difference between Runewars and Warhammer: Runewars is an iPhone 6. Warhammer is Microsoft Zune. FFG has taken into account so many innovations in tabletop and video game design and melded them really well into this game. GW has been so far behind the curve in this regard that I almost pity warhammer players the same way I pity that guy with at the meeting when I can hear the loud hard drive on his chunky Dell start up. GW has added a lot of features to their games that do make them more complicated, but aren't based on good gaming principals. So they end up feeling random, tedious, and too cute... distractions from the actual game at hand. I was also super dissapointed to see their standard disclaimer in the recent release of Silver Tower: if the rules don't work, just change them. They put this disclaimer in because they are too lazy, too cheap, or unaware of its importance to properly play test their games. Silver Tower didn't touch the quality of game play one finds in Descent 2nd Edition that has been on the market over four years. Yes GW's models are much more detailed and that really is their core business value. But rebranding from "Games Workshop" to "Warhammer" was one of the most honest moves they've made in years.

Except for that interview where the devs explicitly stated that they wouldn't make you buy other factions stuff to get all the upgrades.

For all we know it could be in the Oathsworn package. That was a hasty assumption that it is only in the Elves. FFG has said quite a few times that in RMG there will be neutral cards in all faction's boxes so that you wouldn't have to buy other faction's stuff to just get upgrades.

I think there's a lot of game value in just the core set and I'd recommend that anyone that was interested in the game pick one up even if they are waiting on one of the other factions. 
Get some games under your belt and see if you like the game. Assuming that the game takes off you should be able to sell off the human and undead models when the faction that you are waiting for drops. Even if you sell the units at $5 a tray you'll end up getting your "essentials" for less than the cost of an essentials set.

I made My own. 

I played WFB for a decade and no thanks.
You can choose to propose 300-400  point battles with your friends but 200 points is perfect. It suites tournaments, it suites casual players and tactical players, it makes the game quite cheap. I remember those warhammer tournamentes with battles expiring in turn 2 or 3, endless miniature deployment... no thanks.
You can ALWAYS make the game bigger if your friends agree, you can play with less characters to field a lot more units.
Less is more, the simpler the better. There are dozens of wargames in which you have to expend lots of hours and lots of money. And there are wargames that are simple but not tactic. This game is not too complex, but it has deep tactics. That's all I ask

I can't give a source but theres been plenty of posts on this forum stating that FFG supposedly made clear that you would only ever have to collect one army to get all the cards you can use. You will most definitely have to buy every expansion for your selected army of course, but you won't have to delve into the other factions as every neutral card will be available through your selected factions expansions, one or the other.
This is only what I've read others post here so don't take my word for it.

You don't spend blight to gain the mortal strike, you only need the blight on the target unit, and yes multiple instances of the surge ability can trigger off of just one blight token.
Another thing, when you spend the blight token the attacker chooses which die to remove.

Yeah the trick to taking out Kari is blight - getting rid of that white dice is huge. The only thing she can really do to counter is is to hang back and stack up inspiration tokens but that's not ideal. Target her with  any combination of Ardus, Archers or the Carrion Lancer's ability looking to get blights on her, always spending the blight on the white dice (only spend a blight on a mortal wound if you can be sure you can follow it up to finish her after taking a full Kari attack back)

Only inspiration tokens from earlier turns and the morale deck can save her from the necromancy, and that can only really last one turn. Even if she rallies at Initiative 2, the attack resolves before the Bonus Action to rally (you can still spend the blight before it gets removed by the Rally modifier).

It's not that she's 'better' than Ardus they both function as part of a cohesive force and require different approaches both to play and play against.

On the eve of the release it's hard to believe it's finally here, with all of the anticipation.
And I'm glad to see I'm not alone. 8672 posts in this forum when I signed on for a game that isn't even released yet. That's almost as many as the Dust Warfare forum, more than 10% of the posts on Imperial Assault which has a couple years and the Star Wars IP juggernaut behind it.
I'm glad I'm going to have a lot of opponents and an already strong online community to be a part of. Happy gaming, friends.

I noticed a banner advertisement on BoLS that said April 13!