WAR AND PIECES
Fantasy Flight is breaking into the world of miniature wargaming with Runewars. Alex Watkins, organised play manager for Europe at Asmodee, weighs in on the game’s X-Wing heritage, need for paints and glue, and future on the world stage
Interview by Matt Jarvis
Could you introduce the world of Runewars?
Runewars is essentially Fantasy Flight’s first toe in the water for full-on miniature wargaming. We’ve done things with Imperial Assault and X-Wing, which is a miniatures game, and Armada – there’s plenty of games which are miniatures games, and even Imperial Assault is paintable. But it’s never been a gluetogether, construct your unit, move rankand- file, strategy wargame like this.
The decision was made to set it in Terrinoth, which is a Runebound universe, along with Descent and various other Rune- games there have been over the years. You can argue it’s a fairly generic fantasy setting, but ultimately it’s got a lot of history, which is great.
The lore guide that comes with the game talks a lot about the Daqan and Waiqar and how they came to be and why they’re there and what their meaning is – there’s a lot of history there. It introduces a little bit of the other two clans which is nice; even at this level, before they’ve even come out, we’re hinting a lot towards what these other clans are and how they play into the bigger picture.
Although Runewars’ mechanics echo X-Wing’s dial-driven actions, the models come unbuilt and unpainted. Why is that the case?
It’s a market that’s there, and it’s one we’ve never been in.