by Budgernaut
I was just thinking about this very thing today. Here is a list of Runewars releases:October 2009 - Runewars announced
January 2010 - Runewars released
July 2011 - Banners of War announced
November 2011 - Banners of War released
September 2012 - Runewars Revised Edition announced
February 2013 - Runewars Revised Edition released.
What I notice is that the turnaround time between announcement and release is relatively short (compared to the 1 year+ wait for the Star Wars games). Also, it seems to me that if they went through the effort of making a revised edition, this game is still one of FFG's "live" games. Looking at the announcement and release of the original, I find that it mirrors the announcement and release of the revised edition. Judging by the time between original release and expansion, and given that something seems to be happening with this game every year, I'd say we're due for an expansion announcement sometime next summer.
As with most of you, I'm really excited to see the Rune Age units from the Orcs of the Broken Plains and Dwarves of Dunwarr get turned into miniatures for Runewars. It will be awesome!
With this expansion, however, it will have to have all the core stuff for the new factions as well as Banners of war material (extra faction sheet for alternate units, development cards, etc.) If you then add a few more heroes, quests, map tiles, season cards, and other stuff, it seems like it will be quite packed even before more rules are added. But if more rules are added, I'm definitely in the camp looking for optional 6-player games. I can't imagine what kind of table could fit a 6-player Runewars game, but I'd like the option to be there.
For the influence/tactics problem, I really like what was done here: http://boardgamegeek.com/image/1281967/runewars. I would adjust the idea so that the Dwarves could choose to start with the same influence or tactics as either the Latari Elves or the Daqan Lords, but they broke ties for starting influence in between these two factions. Likewise, the Orcs of the Broken Plains could choose the starting tactics and influence of either Waiqar the Undying or the Uthuk Y'llan, but lost influence ties on starting influence to Waiqar, while it beats the Uthuk. Considering I've only played one game of Runewars, this could be totally ludicrous, but it sounds good on paper to me. :)