RuneQuest: Warlords

This not being my favorite genre of games, I picked this one up solely because of the RuneQuest label, earnestly hoping that it would at least do Glorantha justice and that the setting - in terms of story, ambience, writing, etc. - would be enough to "carry" the gaming experience for me and make it worth my while. Here follows the main reasons why it failed to keep my interest as both an avid gamer and big fan of Glorantha, even to the point where I'm not going to finish my very first campaign: - The writing was a huge disappointment. Besides being lacking in complexity and depth (the dialogue, for instance, feels like it was either A.I-generated or written by a 12-year-old ) I also felt that it was inaccurate in terms of lore in more than a few places. I'm far from an expert, but in my experience one of the characters being a "high priestess" of Orlanth just seems off. As far as I know a "high" priest of Orlanth equates to an actual tribal king (and I guess in the case of a high "priestess", a queen). Anyway, this particular character, well versed in defensive and healing magic, alludes in dialogue to Orlanth being a source of "healing" - but it seems to me that such things were rather the domain of his wife, Ernalda (not to mention Chalana Arroy). This character ought simply then to have been a high priestess of Ernalda (or rather just a regular priestess) - but it's like the game developers didn't want to delve too deeply into the lore for some reason, maybe to help ease beginners of the setting into it, and they therefore made Orlanth into this omnipotent god of "everything" within Orlanthi society in a way that almost makes the Orlanthi world seem like a monotheistic one. Another example of this is when Orlanth (at the death of a hero or unit) is besought to then administer his/her passage into the afterlife, as if this wasn't the domain of an entirely different god or even set of gods (Daka Fal, at least, comes to mind). - The voice acting is uninspired as a whole, downright dreadful in many cases. Jarring errors of logic and grammar such as a certain unit proclaiming by way of a battlecry "in the name of gods!" or characters interchangeably refering to Orlanth as "the" Orlanth are just some examples of what makes me suspect the involvement of A.I within the writing process (possibly even among the voice actors). Voice actors commonly (mis)pronounce the names of people and places in 2 or even 3 different ways, not uncommonly within the very same conversation. - The art direction leaves something to be desired. Is there a particular reason why every single Orlanthi hero had to be redheaded (even Gudmund the "Golden")? You can barely tell one from the other just by looking at them - and it's not like any of them have particularly stand out personalities, either. I'm not familiar with the lore of "Talastar", the homeland of the game's Orlanthi element, but I guess old norse names were a thing there. It doesn't help with immersion, then, that both female heroines seem to have masculine old norse names. Perhaps there's a reason for this within the lore that we're simply not made aware of? - The game contains oddly (im)balanced sound effects and fairly soulless music (that repeats on a loop in such a way that it, too, brings A.I to mind). - The animation of the characters suffers similarly to the voice acting. Where it ought to have been hard-hitting and visceral, in keeping with RuneQuest combat, it is lackluster and lazy almost to the point of being laughable.

To be honest, I've run out of patience for this game. The missions aren't evenly paced, with some missions being absurdly difficult and the next being too easy. There are a number of game altering and QoL glitches that they simply aren't bothering to fix. Until recently many players were locked out of the Scorpion Queen mission. I have to repeat the previous mission now to re-unlock it. And have found that the experience of playing the game is so time-consuming and annoying that it isn't worth it. I'm not new to strategy games, not by a long shot. And it's not that the game is too hard so much as it is awkward, poorly weighted, unfair in a boring way and full of overly repetitive mechanics that feel too much like Warhammer without the sense of humour. This game is based on an incredibly deep and rich lore. The devs tried to bring that to life and aspects are enjoyable and commendable. But in other regards they were too lay to design anything much other than poison mechanics. Flying units can't actually fly, they just ignore hindering terrain on the ground, often units who can leap over terrain simply cannot leap over terrain they should be able to. Why do I have a flying bull who can't reach a cliff or fly over more than 1-2 squares of elevation? Why do I have leaping infantry who can't jump over certain rocks, a gap in the trees, a random crag etc? As in some of the worse Warhammer titles, poison rules the battlefield and becomes an arduous affair of upkeep to stop units dying to sprays of multi square affecting poison. The universe this comes from has an enormous amount of rich magical effects and even the common man wields magic. So to see multiple units depend on poison seems . . . well frankly uninventive. I have spent two months reporting glitches to the devs who are quite clearly either ill-equipped to fix the game or don't care. The game was massively overpriced at launch and will likely drop considerably soon due to poor sales. But quite frankly, I wouldn't recommend it for more than £5 given the glaring issues which become more aggravating the longer you play. Many aspects of the game are not explained, and game ending mechanics not mentioned in your objectives. So much so that it locked most players out of the campaign for two months with no fix provided by devs, who themselves clearly don't know what is wrong with the game or why. If the game had been cheaper I might be more forgiving, but it's frankly greedy to charge so much for a poor product. The graphics are fine, some of the magic casting is nice, the art design is good, the voice acting is fine but poorly cast. The gameplay itself is deeply frustrating for no reason. Multiplayer is not much better, with opponents relying on using multiple expensive Talastar heroes to decisively win battles very quickly in an unbalanced fight. Overall, I have tried really, really, really hard to love this game because I love the RuneQuest IP, but I just can't. I may check back in a few months where I will likely find the game is no longer supported, but hopefully had a last bug fix first. A waste of the efforts of the developers who worked on it and likely either weren't experienced with strategy games, or were screwed over a lot by deadlines, other commitments and bad bosses. Don't buy this.

同时有英雄与部队的RPG,有点像《咒语力量》的战棋版。整体机制与《幻想将军2》类似，但去除了单位升级，只要参加战斗并存活，单位就能获得一个小buff，这样可以让玩家专注于战役目标。整体质量是不错的，遗憾的是画面与创新性不太够，说不上比《幻想将军2》提升太多，如果能引入更多机制，比如沙盒大地图，可能会更有趣。

非常有乐趣和挑战度的战棋游戏 整个游戏过程完成度也很不错 另外推荐同制作组的 Fantasy General II 依然好玩

Currently on the 4th mission and the game is interesting. I like the Runequest world and the graphics are decent. The combat has been fun, killing overwhelming Broo mobs with my heroes and troops. A very big disappointment is the dialogue and voice acting. The voice acting is so bad it detracts from the game. Best to just turn off the volume and put on some music when you play this game.

This would have been a "mixed" rating or 3/5 stars if that had been an option. Mostly bought the game because Runequest/Glorantha, but also play a fair amount of turn based games so that being a thing was a bonus. And mostly interested in playing the campaign when I picked it up. The campaign experience I would split into 3. The first 6 missions felt very Glorantha-faithful, the missions felt different from each other and the storyline seemed it was going to have some depth. Missions 7 through 15 was a slog, with very little variation in scenario structure, forgettable story development that could be any generic fantasy game and along with enemy unit numbers made the game very tedious. Mission 16 through 18 put in some twists in scenario structure and enemies and got more enjoyable again, but suffered a bit from coming of the weak midgame. Having finished it, I doubt I would replay it unless they make changes to the mid campaign parts. So I was a bit dissapointed about this part of the game. I enjoyed the few skirmish vs ai games I played, and it felt more organic and interesting than the campaign missions. There is a multiplayer mode, but it has no matchmaking and I've yet to see an available game. Took a look a the discord without finding anyone talking about it and judging by the achievements doesn't seem very active. So prepare to network and get your friend involved if this is the biggest draw about the game. On the technical side of things I'll prolly repeat what most other reviews have said: *The voicework/sound effects doesn't really work well. Lacking in variation, volume mixing and voice direction. The Household unit for example doesn't sound like it belongs with the others. The Militia sounds like a frat gang at times. The fighting sounds is either missing or not interesting. This is where money was saved I guess. The music however, I quite liked, especially the Lunar music I got in skirmish. *The maps looks really good. The effects however, are unreliable. Several units have AOE effects that linger, but they kept randomly dissapearing in campaign battles, especially after the ingame cutscenes. So when battles got bigger towards the end of the campaign, it turned into a memory game to try to remember where all the poision, fire and ice puddles were. Also like the how most of the units look, especially because it's clear what's what. *I had my game get stuck on enemy turn loading twice (in mission 5 and 7) after ending a turn just after reaching the first objectives. But this was just after release and not had the problem since, so might have been fixed or I found some rare bug. The bonus objectives and achievements seems bugged or poorly written, I've both gotten stuff I didn't think would count and had things that should have counted not count. So achievement hunters may or may not find frustration here. If you like turn based battle games and some spin on the quasi medieval fantasy settings, the game would be fun for some amount of time at least. Expecting a seamless multiplayer game with AAA presentation would prolly not be a good fit.

I think it's very Gloranthan, in terms of the fantasy world. It captures the barbarian/Orlanthi and "civilised"/Lunar cultures well, and covers the canonical Hahlgrim's Saga in Dorastor very well. Most units can do some things that feel Gloranthan. I like the art. The plot is interesting even if linear. I like the numerous choices for improving your heroes; the power-tree allows for varied play. (It's not the Runequest RPG rules-wise, but I do not mind at all) Where it fails is in other areas like gameplay. For me, worst of all, the AI enemies are terribly stupid. They roam around seemingly semi-randomly and disengage from fighting often, causing themselves great harm from opportunity attacks. It makes the game feel much less dangerous. The voice acting is dull. I recommend the game for its Gloranthan feel. Otherwise, gameplay-wise it feels like something out of the 2000s.

sorry, love ya guys, but clunky

I enjoyed Battlesector, so I decided to try its fantasy equivalent. I finished the campaign in about 38 hours. Missions are often longer than you expect, so be prepared for a real war of attrition. The setting is interesting — ancient mythological themes from the RuneQuest universe. I had heard about this RPG world before, but never tried it. The story is decent, and the graphics are solid, though the animations definitely have issues. I liked the flying Bulls, but their movement was often restricted by mountains and rivers. Similar problems appeared with ranged attacks — for example, enemies on towers in the final mission or DragonSnail eggs on the other side of a river couldn’t be targeted properly. In some missions, fallen units didn’t actually fall; they just stood there. I also got thrown out of the game two or three times during my 38‑hour campaign run. Overall, I enjoyed the game and would love to see more stories, more units, and more varied weapon sets used more often than they are now.

Игра вполне достойна своих денег и чтобы ее разок прошли. Тактически интересная. Не сложная даже на максимальной сложности. ИИ конечно наитупейший, но давление количеством дает некий вызов. Сюжет простой, линейный и примитивный. Финал идиотский. Баги были только в самой последней миссии, не не критично.