I had the opportunity to play my copy of Conquest of Nerath for the first time last night, and I imagine there are folks out there (as I did) wondering what the similarities and differences are between this new offering from Wizards of the Coast, and Fantasy Flight’s big box, conquer-the-world fantasy offering, Runewars. Both of these games seem like they were made for me. Ever since I came across Axis and Allies, I wanted to turn tanks into dragons, and infantrymen into sorcerers. These two similar games were exactly what I was looking for.
Let’s start with the simple. They’re both big boxes. The Fantasy Flight “coffin” boxes are huge. I don’t have any other games that approach this size, about 23” x 12” x 4”. The Conquest of Nerath box is certainly not small, but easily fits in my game closet without causing a ruckus.
The Runewars box takes up a lot more game real estate than does Conquest of Nerath!
And game designers take note: the box insert in CoN, where you store all the game pieces, is without a doubt the best insert I have ever seen. The insert for RW got recycled immediately.
Next up, let’s take a look at the pieces. They are the same scale, and actually look pretty good next to each other. In my experience, when I’ve bought 15mm metal figures for other games from two different manufacturers, they can sometimes look pretty awkward next to each other on the battlefield.
A sampling of the pieces from Runewars and Conquest of Nerath
The scale for these guys is 15mm (that is, your average humanoid is 15mm from the bottoms of their feet to their eyes) from both games. The quality of the minis in both games is very good, but I think I like the style and plastic of CoN a little better. The CoN plastic feels sturdier, and the minis burlier and tougher looking.The RW figures are a lot more “skinny” and I’ve noticed bending at the ankles and of the weapons a lot more than the CoN figures. Although when placed side-by-side the skinny-vs-burly thing is noticeable, I don’t find that it bothers me too much - so if you’re planning on fielding a 15mm fantasy army any time soon, you can pick up both of these games to help you out.
Comparing the undead of Runewars to the undead of Conquest of Nerath. The former sure look a lot more fragile than the latter!
So how do the two games play? Although the object of the game for both RW and CoN is very similar (you need to take territory from the enemy to either get dragon runes [RW] or victory points [CoN]), the two games play differently. 386
Not radically differently, but RW is certainly more complicated than CoN. In brief, a RW turn plays out over four seasons, each of which opens with a card that affects that season. During each season you may perform only certain actions. Heroes in RW serve to get you dragon runes, and to look around for magic items that typically help make them (the heroes) better. Monsters are neutral, and you can attempt to recruit them, or you can fight them. Combat is diceless, instead relying on a pre-determined deck of cards to determine outcome (which is the biggest complaint I have with RW - the deck-of-cards combat favors card-counters, meticulous non-drinkers, and general miscreants and has no place in a game like RW. I only play with the d20-corrected rules now). I’ve played RW several times now, and, diceless combat bias aside, I really enjoy it.
Conquest of Nerath is simpler. The board not modular (the board in RW is modular, and a unique board is built for each new game), and it is divided up into regions just as is Axis and Allies and Risk. All the factions start directly adjacent to each other, with armies in pre-determined places. Everyone has a unique deck of cards, and eight units: A warship, a storm elemental, a monster of some sort, a dragon, your basic footsoldier, a siege engine, and two heroes, a fighter-hero and a wizard-hero. These heroes can fight as a normal unit can, attacking neighboring territories and such, but they have a very important alternative role. Certain spaces have “dungeon” tiles placed at random on them. These are spaces that only a hero can enter. Send in your heroes (warning, never send in a hero alone - always go in with at least 2, preferably more! I was routinely getting four heroes trounced by dungeons in my first game... 884