I just played through a 4 player game of Runewars where I bounced around the table playing all four teams. Granted it's impossible to completely disavow all knowledge, but I think it was pretty representative. I wanted to share with you how the game ended, it was quite the story.

By the 4th year, the game was as such: humans 2 runes, elves 4 runes, barbarians 2 runes, undead 4 runes. The undead also had 3 heroes with a combined 5 quest rewards and their territories were pretty well protected with mountain boarders (where the elves were fighting a 3 front war). The barbarians had 7 influence and realized that the undead would win the game very quickly if they got the title card Champion of Heroes, which every turn allows the title holder to discard 3 rewards for a dragon rune. He bought the title in the fall with 4 influence, saving just enough influence (3) to ensure he could win the winter influence bid if it were for a dragon rune (which it was not). However, in the winter the undead player gathered 5 influence exactly, and got the supremacy card bonus that allowed him to buy the title from the barbarian player.

The undead now discarded three of the 5 rewards, keeping one hero decked out with very potent armor and a weapon. This brought the undead to 5 runes, only one short of winning the game.

In the Spring of the 5th year, the first Long Winter of the game hit, allowing all players to only retrieve 2 of their used order cards instead of all 4, which made for some tough choices. The undead player launched a huge assault on an elven hex containing the elven allied dragon and some supporting units, committing 9 units to fight the 6 elven units. This would shore up the weaker flank of the undead army and protect all those dragon runes. However the elves would not give in. The battle ended an exact tie in unit strength. The tie went to the defender, and the undead were forced to retreat. The territory they retreated to only contained a single reanimate to protect the 6 units that had routed and retreated. The Summer would surely see the undead lines crumble. The victory would have to be now or never, for the lines would simply not hold, and if the elves got a hold of the runes, it could be enough for an elven victory.

The all important Summer phase came, and the Hero phase began. The undead player got to go first, which was a huge boon. The undead sent the Red Scorpion to attack Silouette, and she killed Sillouette with ease, gaining the all important 3rd reward. The undead's second hero, Spiritspeaker Mok battled Mad Carthos, who had been brought down to one would last year Mordrog was down to 2 wounds himself, and Mad Carthos's special ability brought him down to 1 at the start of the duel. The first round saw both heroes take one damage, and they both fell down to the ground dead. The final undead hero, Mordrog was down to three wounds and he attacked the sole remaining hero on the board, Varikas the Dead who had two rewards, magic armor and a weapon, but who was down to two wounds himself. With his first mighty swing, Varikas felled Mordrog though, refusing to let the undead scourge wipe the world of heroes. The undead player's heroes had all taken their turns, and that only left Varikas. Varikas used his special ability to remove two wound tokens, so he was at full health. He was only tow hexes away from the sole undead hero, who carried the three rewards required for the undead victory. The only downfall was there was a mountain boarder separating the two remaining heroes. Things looked secure for the undead player, until the barbarian player used his teleport card Tactics card, allowing Varikas to fly. Varikas swooped down on the injured Red Scorpion and launched a duel. A duel between the world's final two heroes that would decide the winner of the game.

Round 1: Red Scorpion dealt 3 damage to Varikas. Varikas tried to utilize his Dragon armor to block the damage, but the armor failed him and he was reduced to one would. He did manage a wound on Red Scorpion, so both heroes were reduced to a single remaining wound.

Round 2: Both heroes missed after the exertion of the previous blows.

Round 3: Red scorpion deals another 3 damage to Varikas, killing him. But Varikas only needs to kill Red Scorpion to buy the world some precious time. He drew his Fate card.

And missed.

The undead claimed their final rune the start of the Autumn turn and the world fell to their insideous power.

Haha, nice and very well written. Thank you for sharing this little masterpiece.

So Runewars is fit for Solitaire after all. Wonderful. :-)

Thank you for letting us in on this solo game. I can't wait for my battallions of Knights and mighty Siege Towers to make their stand against

the unholy scourge unleashed by Waiqar, or the fiendish barbarians threatening the noble citizens of the Daqan Empire.

But neither shall the Latari's treacherous claim for power go unpunished. Any honorable man shall take up arms and see these enemies of his

beloved home vanquished, or at least shed his life defending it.

Yes, you got it right. I will start crying if I don't get to play Daqan

I would say that RFunewars is not optimal for solo play, mostly due to the influence bids. It is easy enough to disavow knowledge of tactics cards, objectives, and rewards. The deductive reasoning for each player for influence bids, and tryiong to "outguess" the other players is hard.

However during the week when nobody is around, it's the best I can do!

As a note, for solo map generation, I played a 4-player game. I simply discarded one of the setup quests, leaving me with 8. I then revealed each setup quest tile one at a time, and placed the tiles in that order. It is very different than getting alll 8 tiles and creating the board you want from the whole pool, and the rotation is probably a lot closer to the alternating players method. I then placed all 4 starting location markers, and then drew fate cards for the four factions. Lowest number got to pick first, then to second lowest number, and so on.

Awesome session report! Couple questions...

How long did your solo game take?

Have you thought about using dice for influence bids? Or would there be another method?

I split it over 2 nights, about 5 hours in total. As for influence ids, there are some no brainers where someone high goes all in or someone low stays out. I don't think dice would be good unless it is a player "on the fence".