So, having picked up the game last night, I thought it would be several days before getting a chance to play. Luckily my brother in law and his roommate decided to come over for the evening, and it was easy enough to get a 3 person game going.

Now, I was reluctant to drop $100 on any game, but having done so, I was wondering if it was really going to be worth that after having played it. I am happy to report it was easily worth it. I can remember at least three or four times stopping looking up and saying, "Wow, I really like this game."

So I was playing the elves, M was playing the Undead, and . was playing the Uthuk (which we just called the orcs). Clockwise around the map was M, me, and then C.

The first year was mostly about building up and expanding. M was able to get a second hero, and we all sort of got our feet under us. A good harvest in fall, was a big boon to myself and M, but C had only expanded into one area by then and got a lot less from it. M also managed to get another Dragon Rune.

During the second year, M pushed back some neutrals, I expanded a bit more, and C was able to expand out as well. Battle lines were starting to form. During summer my hero went on a quest and got a second Reward only to then have one of M's heroes come after him, duel him and take him out, stealing his two rewards, and triggering M's objective, giving him another Rune.

The third year brought with it some good and bad points for me. I was able to get a dragon to join me, but I committed too many forces to the effort, and left myself badly out of position. Before I knew it, I had 5 units (including the dragon) in the area, and my food dial was only at 3. Uh oh. I spent the next season scrambling to get food. M had a juicy two food area within range of me, so I committed some forces (a warrior, archer, and sorceress) to take on three units of his.

He decided he would rather destroy both of us than let the food fall into my hands, so played a tactic that did four damage to both sides at the beginning of the battle. It eliminated both armies in an instant. Winter hit and two of my pegasus riders starved for the greater good of keeping the dragon around.

On the good side, that year I was able to get a Dragon Rune.

On the bad side, it was late, and I needed to get up for work the next morning, so we called it at the end of the third year. Right before things would have gotten really bloody. Heh. We went ahead and declared M the winner since he had 4 Dragon Runes. I had 3, and C still only had the 2.

All of agreed it was a really good game, and are looking forward to when we will be able to play it again.

Nice read. Thanks for reporting.

Also, have you played Runebound?

No, I haven't this my first game in the Runebound world. Never played Runebound or Descent.

I see I have Runebound as my fav FFG game so far and thats why I'm looking towards Runewars as a "step up" from it. It might be more of an empire building game than following one character more in-depth and level up and quest but I really love empire building games aswell and this one has heroes aswell. Tho I wonder how the heroes interaction feels like? I've read the rules but hard to say if you havent tried how much they impact the game

Heroes felt like a little mini-game within the game to me overall, but that's not to say they don't have a direct impact. One of our players had a hero who at the end of his move eliminated an enemy or neutral unit within his hex. Also, 3 of our 7 heroes ended up drawing rewards that got our respective sides additional dragon runes, which influenced the game in a big way. And finally, heroes make great spies, since you can freely walk through enemy hexes and examine the runes in each one. So while I personally would have liked to see heroes having a direct influence in battles, they certainly can be a major impact to the overall game, with a little bit of planning and luck.

First game took about... 2.5 hours after setup, had a few breaks to re-read/check the rulebook due to some confusion, it's a great game once you figure out all the rules and get a hang of some strategies though!

I was playing the Uthuk and my friend used the Elves... he beat me rather soundly once he opened up my defenses

Overall summary:

Hero/Quest/Duel-wise:

My first hero was great, he did one damage to the opponent at the start of any battle/duel that shared the same hex as him... that one point actually helped me kill my opponent's hero A really good defender for battles, and the reward/gear I got for him turned things around easily at times

My opponent managed to get 3 heroes in the course of the game (at one point, all three were out at the same time) which actually caused an odd occurence as he went through quests like crazy and we ended up finishing the entire quest deck by turn 4 or 5 (need more quests!!!), though we still had 2 in hand that were unresolved... I didn't see anything in the rulebook about recycling the quests but we did so anyway and re-shuffled the deck for redraw, a little sadly repetitive here... he ended up decked with loot, but got some unlucky draws in dueling so I never lost my hero

One thing about the heroes: they definitely gave him the edge in getting more dragon runes onto the board to control, which won him the game

Unit/Battle-wise:

LOTS of confusion here on some of the rulings... we had a long look at the instructions to see what happens during battles to resolve routing and damage in terms of "participating units" and what would carry over... namely priority for settling what gets damaged or routed

First of all, we were trying to clarify what a "participating unit" was... if it was a unit that was in that same initiative round (i.e. a "1" initiative unit vs. another "1" initative unit), or if it meant ANY unit on that hex; reason being was whether or not we had to prioritize routing/damage to the units of the same initiative level first before we had to choose a unit of a different initiative

for example: he deals 2 damage at a level 1 initiative round, could I choose to have my level 5 unit soak that damage instead of damaging my level 1 units? on the other hand, if he has 2 units at initiative level 3 and I have none, does his resulting draw of damage/routing get pushed onto any other unit of my choice if none of my units are routed or damaged yet?

The cards:

Tactic cards range from game-breaking to near-useless it seems... certain ones like automatically stealing neutral units from a hex that your hero is on, or stealing a good chunk of your opponents resources, or taking control of your opponent's hero (!) can really turn the tide quickly, while others like destroying a city in an area you control or moving over mountains are much more situational or dependent on how the map was structured; I personally gambled for good tactic cards vs. influence during the Fall seasons since my opponent was already crushing me on influence; it helped me early game when I drew great ones, but late game I got some pretty bad tactic cards in a row and could not react fast enough

The equipment/rewards are amazing in general, they definitely can turn the duels around at the right time (if you get lucky) and there are tons of them

The fate cards are a little clunky at times (it got a little odd when we would go through a few battles with very few damage icons so anything with more than one health would survive for a fairly long time); very similar to Malifaux's Fate deck btw. ; the special abilities are nice, but they don't occur often, and sometimes they do nothing if they do show up depending on the situation >_<

Season cards: I LOVED the season cards and their effects... unfortunately, because I had virtually no influence compared to my opponent, he would win most of the influence-based challenges and reap the rewards (or I would suffer a consequence)

Order cards: definitely a lot of planning/strategy available here to make people pause before they decide on their next action, loved it!

The construction/setting:

Cities are OP!!! =P understandably so, controlling a city gives your army a big draw advantage, definitely a target I'm going to keep in mind next time

I love the development system for strongholds! the fact that each army as a unique development is great

The maps are well done, with plenty of room for all the units/development tokens/etc.; to keep things interesting, try to put water/mountains in the middle of the map and avoid having them on the edges where they won't come into play... players should keep in mind how far they are from cities/mountains/neutral units/controllable resources when choosing their starting area!

The 3 titles are a little underwhelming from what we saw, the Wizard one where the player gets to resolve ties seemed much more powerful than the other 2, but nothing too special, then again I didn't get to try either of the other two

Conclusion:

I can't wait for another match, especially once we add 2 more players, I can see the games lasting all day ; lots of strategies to consider to make it more than a battle of luck & attrition; the only thing that bogged the game down was the fate deck itself when it was coming up with all 0's for results and just the learning curve of the rules (which isn't too bad after you try 2 full rounds (8 seasons); I highly recommend the game to anyone who enjoys war-based board games, RPG elements, and HEAVY resource management; I hope they develop some nice expansions in the next year to expand more units, more quests and cards, and more engaging map tiles!

Thanks a LOT, jtwing, very interesting, simple, clean and smooth to read. Could you provide some more informations ? The ones I'm waiting the most for, for instance, is :

- what other games do you play and like ? (and I mean especially games from FFG but from others is ok too).

- then to what other games would you compare some of the mechanics of Runewars ?

- do you think it's enjoyable with, what, 2, 3, 4 players ? how many players ?

- Is it smooth after some turns or does it stay complex the whole long ?

Very interested in your feedback !

Cheers !

Edit : kagehoshi, you forestalled me will read your review now.

Hem said:

I mostly play RPGs (WFRP 3rd, D&D 4th, plus too many others to count). I've played a few games of Arkham Horror within the last few months, thats it for FFG board games.

I'm a fairly experienced boardgamer though, mostly Settlers, Diplomacy, some Avalon Hill games, etc.

I found myself looking at the resources a lot more than I thought. Not sure if its the Settlers player in me, but I realized fairly soon after the game on reflection that my main hinderance was not enough food, where as the Undead player had an abundance. The supply/winter rule is key.

I found the game to play well with 3, but then we were pretty much just getting to the butting heads portion and no clue how much of a blood bath the next three years would have been had we gotten to them. I think it will play well with 4. With 2, it might be alright, but just not sure.

After one year I think everyone pretty much got the majority of rules, and while the game is broad, none of the rules are especially complex, and none of the systems are really hard to understand.

Thanks for the reports jtwing and Kagehoshi!

Can't way to play my own copy here in Brazil.

Happy to report I just wrapped up my initial game of Rune Wars with a buddy of mine and the game really came through in the 1v1 experience (really excited about getting a 4-player game going tomorrow). I don't want to repeat what has already been said, so here are some of the highlights of the game.

Map ended up being a bottleneck and my buddy, playing the humans, got a head start on pushing out over my undead. You see, I didn't pay enough attention when I set up my home area. On one hand, my mountains gave enemies only a single point of entry. On the other, I should have noticed that a dragon would be sitting at the point of entry, or exit in my case, and getting it out of my way proved troublesome.

Neutral retreats created a nice little gathering of creeps in the center of the map that I failed miserably to persuade over to my army. The humans on the other hand, succeeded, scoring a dragon, two beastmen, and a sorc in one fell swoop. Once again, a Dragon was making my life difficult.

My biggest advantage was my food supply, as my side of the map beat him hands down in it allowing my winter armies to stay at full strength. However, a lucky reward draw allowed his hero to rout half of my freaking standing army right before I put up a stronghold, and he then walked his forces in and broke through the front line, pushing through with a conquer in the following season to snuff out a hex full of routed units.

He had me outnumbered and was about to grind my economy to dust, but I had one force of 7 units left and a tactics card that let me walk through the mountain creating the center choke point. I walked into his empty stronghold, with walls, giving him a str of 7, and gambled the game on the draw of one necromancer who obligingly raised two reanimates, putting me just over and allowing me to backdoor his forces. After his counter attack failed, losing by 1 strength, it moved into the last year and I was able to nab the dragon runes he thought were safe and clinch the game.