Well after reading the rules generally i was really satisfied with solutions that Conieczko and his team came up, few thoughts what suprised me nicely and what not. Of course without seeing the cards and playing the game some may not be accurate but that time will tell

1. Setup. OMG headache. Remove this, set up that, shuffle this into this, the place that according to that. Hmmm...kinda lot of things seting up 2player game for like 30 minutes can be pain in the ass. But I guess with such a complex game it was unavoidable.

2. Seasons. Cool thing! Especially with such a small things like water freezing in winter and limiting food supplies. I just dont get why heroes get to move only during summer...:/ But overall great idea cant wait to see abilities of season cards.

3. Orders.I'm afrait that we will be allowed to move to few armies every year:/ 4 armies and oly 3 of them can iniciate a battle. But like i said time will tell.

4. Resources. Nice. Harvest order quite cool (i hope for some nice spring/summer abilities boosting it) I juts don't get why recruiting units doesnt lower our resource dial?! Kinda illogical.

5. Battles! Again all my fears hav been swept away. From the previews it looked like we take 1 fate card per initiative step (which would be nerfed) but we take one card per unit and that is very very nice idea. Not our puny little dead archers can take out the dragon without even beeing scrached ^^ I Just need to re-ead aout routing cause i'm too sleepy right now to get it

6. Heroes. Nice RPG accent. Inventories, training, nice, climatic duels. One thing that pisses me off is why the heck heroes cannot lead armies and participate in battles? I was imagening mighty hero leading a great army to battle, defeating enemy hero in a duel in the middle of the battlefield and the aiding his troops. But weel in can be easlily inplemented as a home rule.

7. Dragon Runes. No comment right now. Just like routing, i'm gonna sleep, i'm gonna read, i'm gonna write.

Overall 4+/5 for me. Now just waiting for my preorder.

oww gezz sorry about the grammar in previous post but it's 1am in poland:p

Vitalis said:

1. It doesn't look like a 30 minute setup process to me, more like a 5-10 minute one, depending on how quickly people can make decisions about faction and placement.

3. The movement isn't as cut and dry as that, and actually only 2 of your armies can initiate combat per year (you can only initiate 1 combat per mobilize order, even if you activate 2 areas).

4. It's better to think of it as your ability to produce those resources, and not as resources themselves.. After all, you don't lose a farm by harvesting from it, or a mine by mining from it (at least not over the course of 6-8 years).

5. I thought it was pretty obvious from the previews that you would draw 1 card per unit. It didn't really make much sense otherwise.

The army movement seems flexible enough, it's not just four a year. You only have three movement orders, but the Strategize order lets you move any number of armies one space each. Conquer and Mobilize let you move multiple armies in some situations, as long as they all end up in the same enemy space.

I really hope you won't be fiddling with stacks of cards while resolving combat, but seems reasonable enough to me.

I sort of liked the setup sequence. This is supposed to be a strategy empire building game. The fact that setup has to be somewhat particular ensures that ten turns into the game, you don't realize that you screwed up the beginning. I hate it when that happens.

One thing I have not wrapped my understanding around yet is the "surpremacy" rule yet.

Also, reading the optional rules, I think the rule for the specialized quest tokens is more like a rule that would be set in stone for any game I run, once the game arrives.

The supremacy bonuses are pretty straightforward actually. Each order card is numbered 1-8 and has a main ability as well as a secondary "supremacy" ability. Each year has four seasons, and each season you choose an order card from the pool of order cards you have not yet picked that year. If the order card you are playing for the current season has the highest number of any of the order cards you have played that year, you can also use that card's supremacy bonus.

Thus, if in the Spring you choose 1, that is the highest numbered order card you have chosen all year, so you can use the card's supremacy bonus. In the Summer, then, you cannot choose 1 because it has already been chosen, so you choose 5. That is the highest numbered order card you have chosen all year, so you can use that card's supremacy bonus as well. In the Fall, then, you cannot choose 1 or 5 because they have already been chosen, so you choose 3. That is not the highest numbered order card you have chosen all year (5 is), so you cannot use that card's supremacy bonus. In the Winter you choose 7, and are able to use its supremacy bonus because it is the highest card you have played all year. You then repeat this process starting in the following Spring.

Edit: the 8 card does not have a supremacy bonus, because it will always be the highest numbered order card you play all year, so there is no need to incentivize playing it before other cards.

maybe i missed it but when do players choose the first order card for first turn? i ask cause first i resolve a season card after this i choose order card, but the season cards 2nd ability is resolved in standard play order.

still reading rules, so far i feel it was the right decision for preordering rw

nvm i fail at reading. spring cards return order cards to hand

Here's my own quick take on the rulebook...

• The season stuff looks really clever. It reminds me of the "rondel" trick in Antike/Hamburgum/Imperial. You can either follow the easy flow of actions, or jump to exactly what you need. But if go out of order, you pay a heavy price. Resetting options each spring is a big change from the rondel, though. It's easy in Antike to get out of phase from other nations, but here you're pushed back into place at the start of the year. It'll be interesting to see how it works out in practice.
• The combat system looks good to me. I especially like some of the tweaks from a standard Axis&Allies or Twilight Imperium system, with the differing unit speeds and especially with the requirement that damaged units need to take damage first.
• The map setup looks like it'll be fairer than in Twilight Imperium.
• Concern 1: I suspect the blind bidding of influence, along with all bids (including losing bids) being lost, is sometimes going to give fluky results. Did that really test better than just having the winner discard the influence?
• Concern 2: The hero/quest system seems oddly detached from the rest of the game. The order cards have very little effect on heroes. (I think strategize is the only card which directly affects them.) And they do nothing at all in combat -- they don't even add to strength at the end of a battle. So aside from using influence to hire heroes, they seem like a separate game. Maybe some of the quest cards have rules which relate more closely to the armies on the board?
• Concern 3: This one is trivial, but it bugged me on reading the rules. Are the hero attributes and training really completely irrelevant to dueling? That seems pretty strange.

I'm kinda wondering why the Quest Cards are used to randomize the tiles during set-up instead of simply using the Fate Cards for this purpose as well.

The Quest Cards need extra text for this purpose and we'll probably need new Set-Up Quest Cards if new tiles would be added with an expansion,

while the purpose of the Fate cards is exactly to be used as a 'randomizer' for many purposes AND they have numbers ranging from 1 to 30 on them, so you can expand up till you have 30 different tiles until you ever run out of cards for this purpose. Strange that they don't use their randomizing element to randomize set-up.

I really like the fact that in battle you have to continue to deal damage to units which are already damaged.

It makes sense and is a necessary rule though, otherwise Units like Siege Towers, Dark Knights and Giants would make too much of "damage sinks" which would probably unbalance the game.

Lindsey said:

I agree that losing all influence with a losing bid does not seem ideal and will result in a lot of times players bidding nothing at all.

Look at the bidding example at page 32 of the rulebook.

The example is clear enough but really lacks any "realism" if you ask me.

The Elf player has the most available influence - 4 - and is also most likely to win any tiebreakers in this example.

He can either outbid everyone, or in case of a tie he's going to win because he has most Influence Left.

The Uthuk player gambles and bids all he's got - 2 influence - but can really only win if both other players bid less than 2 Influence - very unlikely considering we're bidding for a Rune here - and he cannot win any tiebreaker.

If I were the Uthuk player I'd save up my 2 influence here and spend them on something with better odds.

The Human player's bid of 1 influence is completely unrealistic IMO as this bid assumes the Elf player is not going to bid at least 1 Influence when he has 4 influence available and is going to win any tiebreaker, so this bid of 1 influence is a complete throwaway

So, In this example : ( in a realistic bid IMO )

The Uthuk player should bid : zero

The Elf player should either gamble that the Human player doesn't bid all he's got and bid 2 or play sure and bid 3

The Human player should either bid zero or go all out and bid 3 in the hope the Elf Player gambled with 2.

Lindsey said:

Yeah, I think so too.

Why can't heroes battle enemy units?

Why can they move through ENEMY(!!!) territory? Just imagine: "Oh, it's YOU who killed our beloved hero and left his family without father!!! ... You may pass."(???)

Their attributes only for quests? What is this?? School???

I don't mind heroes not participating in battle directly, but I do hope some of the tactics cards put them "in the action" in an indirect way. So, for example, certain tactic cards could read: "If a hero is present in the activated area, you may..." which would better reflect a hero's roll in battle (preforming specialized functions) than having a hero be able to deal damage to the armies a single unit would represent.

Really, it seems like heroes are there for questing: getting their Frodo on while the armies clash elsewhere. It just makes sense that they can move through enemy territories/forces, as what self respecting hero have you heard of that only does his/her thing in friendly territory?

Kias said:

And what self respecting army have you heard of that allows ENEMY heroes to roam on their own land?

They could just make all that hero-thing more "meatier" to the whole game process. Like making them generals or some kind of super special units with variety of functions ... but we got what we got. Sad

Waiting for first reviews ...

i think that the heroes are quite nicely done. i would hate to deal with 100 extra rules for heroes in battle. its quite hard to spot a hero roaming through the wilderness for an enemy army. Its like a scout

With regards to heroes battling and moving through enemy territory:

I think this is really cool and thematic with the flavor of the Runebound world. I have always gotten the feeling that Runebound's world was more like Warhammer than Lord of the Rings. Heroes in this world are not the type who are invincible warriors that can take on a whole army. They are sneaky, morally ambiguous types who are basically in it for themselves. So what good would one more body do in a battle? Nothing really. Also, the heroes are not marching through enemy territory announcing thier presence. They are creeping around throught the woods and hills, staying low.

I think that heroes in this game are much more like some type of commando or mercenary. They are sent on quests (read missions) to achive some goal that will help the side they are working for. They are not superheroes, just particularly skilled at what they do and a bit more daring than the average person.

Ok, guys, I give up. Let them sneak around, although enemy general/lord aka another player CAN see where they(heroes) move So it's more like nations agree that heroes can go here and there without restrictions. So from this point of view they not some kind of commandos or spies, but more like elites or nobles who belong to everyone and to nobody in the same time.

WeLLius said:

LOL, agree to disagree. But to the point: even if the enemy general KNOWS that the hero is in an occupied region, that still does not meant they will be able to find him/her in the hundreds of square miles that the army is occupying. As recently as the Napoleonic Wars whole armied could pass each other up when in the same area if they didn't know exactly where each other was.

I see the Heroes as primarily spies or agents. They can scout, they can use 'undercover' techniques to find Dragon Runes and what not. It really is thematic.

I do wish they had a way of somehow influencing a battle. Like in Risk 2210. Leaders make units fight a bit better. However, as the combat mechanic is worked out via an initiative and card system, I can't say I am ready to here with a suggestion.

But, in the end, this game runewars is not about the heroes. It is strategic. It is about using your nations resources to get an advantage. Runebound and Descent are games that are more directly about the heroes.

All things being said, the Heroes in Runewars primarily are a resource that a nation uses to collect the Dragon Runes. It almost seems like an aspect of either strategic warfare or espionage.

I would like if it would work somehow similar to the Leaders in War of the Ring which can sneak around enemy armies (like in Runewars) or move as an leader with an army. In Wotr they grant one reroll, in Runewars I would suggest that you can draw one additional card in one initiave step of your choice per hero present (2 if the hero has the same alignment as your race), however you may only play as many cards as you have units, so the leader adds no additional firepower but it improves yout troops, especiall the cheap units.

Probably having the hero game be somewhat separate works fine, and keeps the rules much simpler. Otherwise you'd need a system for military units searching for a hero, a hero-as-general system, some way to determine if the hero is on their own or with a military unit, etc. It's just not what I'd imagined in a Warlords-style board game. Stylistically, I'm bothered more by the way training doesn't affect duels.

I do notice at least one example of a hero/military interaction on Mad Carathos' card. His ability is "At the start of a battle or duel in this hero's area, you may deal your opponent 1 damage." So the text on special abilities, artifacts, quests, and tactics cards may well let heroes and military units interact.

maybe some heroes have special abilities that affect battles and armies...

I really can't imagine someone like Red Scorpion (lol) leading an army but maybe Sir Valadir can! And to be honest, none of the heroes in Descent look particularly "good" or "heroic", they all seem more like mercenaries to me.

My first thought is that Runewars will be much too complex for my tastes. I had kind of anticipated this as the previews piled up, but I think the rulebook confirmed that.

Well, if it's not for you, I understand. But I think the reading a rulebook and playing the game are pretty different. Reading the Arkham rulebook made the basics of the game seem more complicated than it is. I glanced over the RW book and figured that what looks complex now will be pretty obvious when I've got all the stuff in front of me.

My wallet (and wife) are seriously thankful my buddy pre-ordered it so I can mooch off of him. This game looks like a classic so far.