RuneQuest: Warlords Preview - Fantasy Strategy At Its Finest

If you’re not already familiar with the IP we’re dealing with today, then you’re not alone. Even as a fan of Tabletop RPGs, I hadn’t come across RuneQuest much outside of passive mentions that basically sold it as a more “hardcore” version of DnD with deeper lore. Either way, our RuneQuest: Warlords Preview is about this new turn-based strategy title set in the TTRPG’s universe, and whether it’ll stand tall enough to sell some newcomers on this complex and intricate setting. 

RuneQuest: Warlords – A Turn-Based Fantasy Throw-Down

If you’ve played many strategy titles before, then you’ll probably be pretty familiar with the bread-and-butter of the gameplay in RuneQuest: Warlords. It’s a turn-based strategy RPG/Skirmisher where you control several different units on a grid-based map. Each turn, the various combatants have a certain number of action points to use up, and once you run out, your turn is over, and the other side gets to run around attacking you. 

There’s also the standard array of special abilities, different stats for the different unit types, and a decent amount of progression brought into the mix from RuneQuest’s TTRPG roots. As you go, both your heroes and your standard army units get stronger, and you’ll have to manage these upgrades and your army in general between each mission of the campaign. Like I said, it’s all relatively standard for a turn-based strategy title, but that’s not to say that the game has nothing interesting or unique to offer. 

Welcome to (Fantasy) Flavortown

A lot of the appeal of RuneQuest: Warlords comes from the lore and storyline. Going into it without any background knowledge, it would be easy to only see a standard ‘European Fantasy’ setting and just shut off your mind during all of the dialogue, but that would be a huge mistake. While there are certainly enough familiar fantasy elements to keep genre fans happy, if you pay attention to the world and the characters, you start to get hints of a pretty deep and involved lore bubbling just under the surface. 
 
There’s clearly a decent focus on religious conflict here, but the tone remains relatively grounded. It is pretty much devoid of any sense of ‘tongue-in-cheek’ or self-parody, meaning things feel genuinely earnest in the way they’re brought across. While this might be an issue if you struggle to take fantasy settings too seriously, if you let yourself go, it can really suck you in. Hell, I only get to play 4 missions and I’m already interested in learning more about everything that’s going on in the larger world setting of the RPG. 

Tabletop Pedigree

There are other gameplay elements in RuneQuest: Warlord that make it feel even more strongly tied to the tabletop than other physical-to-digital adaptations like this. At the start of each battle, you have to deploy the forces that you’ve managed to keep your hands on in the campaign thus far. All of these units and heroes have a points value, and the mission will have a strict limit on how many points your army is allowed to take up. If you’ve ever played a tabletop miniatures game, then you’ll know this is a pretty common facet of those games, and it leads to some interesting dynamics. 

The points limit means you have to be more creative than just dumping all of your points and effort into the same group of characters and units. Sure, they’re going to be killer units, but they’ll cost so much that you won’t be able to cover enough ground on certain missions. It forces you to keep a bit of variety amongst all of your characters, as well as giving you the opportunity to try different approaches on all of the missions, especially if things don’t work in your favor on your first run.

A High Quality of Life

Another thing that stands out in RuneQuest: Warlords is the quality-of-life additions to the game. Firstly, you can go around handing out commands to all of your units at once instead of having to wait for all of the animations to finish, which is great if you’re itching to see what’s about to happen or you’re going for a speed run. You’ve also got a hotkey that moves onto your next unit, which is pretty standard, but it only works if that unit has any action or movement points left to use up, which is a nice touch that saves you wondering who the hell had AP left when that “are you sure” pop-up hits when you try to end your turn. 

On top of that is a layer of polish that sells this as one of the best-assembled fantasy strategy titles in recent memory. Everything from the way the UI notifies you of buffs and debuffs to the intuitive setup of the menus and buttons you need during your turn. You’ve also got a full tactical map from a top-down perspective that gives you an insane tactical advantage over your opponents. Even for hardcore fans of the genre, there’s a lot of promise on display here. 

My Final Thought

I have managed to hook myself on RuneQuest: Warlords, and I’ve only seen 4 missions so far. This is a fantastic package to experience this world setting, and even if you’re already into turn-based strategy games with a fantasy setting, then you’ll still find that so much of this game has been done right that there’s plenty to get your teeth into. The real test will be if this momentum can be maintained for the rest of the game, and I for one can’t wait to find out. 

RuneQuest: Warlords was previewed on PC using a copy provided by the publisher over the course of approximately 3 hours of gameplay - all screenshots were taken during the process of preview.