I got the base Runebound game a little while ago and am now looking toward getting an expansion. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I'm thinking of getting one big box and and one (maybe two) card expansions. My FLGS has most of the expansions, even some of the ones I've heard are hard to find.

Daring Dragoon said:

The best big box expansion is Sands of Al-Kalim. It adds a lot of new elements and interesting mechanics, including a nice arabian nights atmosphere. Also the recent Frostmarch is quite good IMHO. Island of Dread is useful for additional Items and Characters, that are perfectly compatible with the base game, but I'm not very satisfied in terms of gameplay. Movement has many constraints and the endgame is much more tough than the base game Red Challenges; this tends to make games longer and sometimes boring.

Card Expansions are the best and cheapest way to give your base game a totally new appeal. Challenge card expansions (green colour) are excellent if you just want some new surprises; if you find you're very familiar with base game cards and know how to proceed, try one of these and see how different it might be! Adventure Variants (orange colour) are another great idea: not only you have different challenge cards, but you might have a whole new adventure with its own rules. I didn't try every single expansion, but I found Avatars of Kelnov and Cult of the Rune to be very interesting.

The_Warlock said:

I think you mean Frozen Wastes. Too much time playing Talisman lately? =P

I second everything Warlock said. Sands is the best, IoD is the least interesting. It's not bad, it's just not... as good. As far as small expansions go, I would personally go for the hard to find ones first, simply because they're hard to find and might evaporate on you. I'm paranoid like that sometimes.

Steve-O said:

Oops... at least I didn't write Tomb of Ice.

I was interrupted while writing that post, this is the reason why I didn't mention Midnight big box, Item expansions and Character packs.

Midnight is very different from the base game. I own a copy, I believe it's intriguing, but I think it won't play as good as the base gameplay. I own other games where a player must impersonate the evil mastermind and struggle against the other. I don't mind playing such a role, but I think it's not in Runebound original spirit and I've never given it a try. At least I can't recommend Midnight because I'm not sure about it.

Item expansions are interesting but I feel that most of them add Items and Allies that simply don't keep the pace with the base game. I never used such expansions with the core Items, just a couple of times while playing solo, and I found most of the Items/Allies are unnecessary or lame. Artifacts & Allies is out of print and quite difficult to find, but I don't think its content is well worth searching. Champions of Kellos and Weapons of Legend are much better, while Rituals & Runes adds some new Rune Items (always welcome) and the Rituals, which are completely new "Items".

I don't like Character Packs. They are made to expand Character advancement (Talents) and to increase competition between players (i.e. there are cards you may play to hinder the others), but every player is supposed to have a deck that he's encouraged to customize by mixing cards from different packs, just like a grimoire in Magic the Gathering. Well, there are only 6 packs available and they are thematically linked to some base set Heroes. I feel uncomfortable using a deck with a Hero that has nothing to do with it, such as the Blade Dancer deck with One Fist. But I didn't try these expansions either, so you can just have my feeling about them. I've no story to tell.

The_Warlock said:

I don't like the character packs either. For my part, the reason I don't like them is because each player needs to have one in order for them to be used at all. That means I have to invest in three or four of them to cover my regular group before I can even try them out to see what they're like. I'm also not too excited about the additional confrontation between players. Personally, I like the fact that we can all wander around doing our own thing without feeling compelled to mess with each other.

That said, I know some people do like more confrontational games, so the character packs may well be worthwhile to people who want that style of play.

Thanks for the advice, guys.

I went ahead and got Sands of Al-Kalim and it is great! Very thematic and different enough from the base game to provide a whole new experience but similiar enough to scratch the same itch.

I'm glad I asked because I was originally leaning toward Island of Dread because it had the same heroes as Descent. I was very sad when I realized that Steelhorns was not in base Runebound.

Hi,

If you are looking for a board expansion to get a new adventure (and a new vista on the board) Sands of Al Kalim seem to be the best. But if you'd Iike to add new characters to the main game I think personally that Frozen Wastes are better - one character in Sands has the skill 'prophecy' which is tested only there. Besides the plastic figures in FW are the nicest (most detailed). I haven't played Island of Draed yet but what I noticed: you can add the items from the expansion to the base game - which is good - but the charactets (allthough 8 - in comparison in SoAK and FW are 6) seem to be unbalanced and stronger than from the other sets (not to mention misprints on the cards).

If it's about small expansions - I would recommend only challenges and items and ally expansions (as many as possible) e.g. Walkers of the Wild, Weapons of Legend, Drakes and Dragonspawn, Shadows of Margath. I haven't got The Terrors of the Tomb yet so I can't express myself but I've heard that it is a good, climatic expansion.

I prefer one big runebound game with as many small expansions and characters as possible and play seldom any adventure variants which replace some features from the base game e.g. blue or red challanges.

It seems that I published that post to late. Work, work...

Your post is still appreciated because it's unlikely this will be the last expansion I buy.

If you want a solid description of all the games expansions take a look at this set of reviews. This guy has actually written some great solo rules for the game and is a tester for the game.

http://fortressat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=370&Itemid=365

Hope that helps you out.

So far I have several of the adventure card decks and item card decks, as well as about 6 of the Character Class decks and two of the big box expansions (Isle of Dread and Frozen Wastes).

I personally like the big box expansions especially the new Heroes. But most of the people I play with enjoy the base game better, so we just mix in the new heroes and play on the normal board.

I would highly suggest the Catacalysm Adventure varient. Its relatively cheap but adds a new depth of gameplay and changes things up a lot. Personaly I find it to be more enjoyable than the base game, however we run two house rules when playing it. Everyone starts with 5 gold, and when you try to find a caravan however many movement dice match the space you are on it how many market cards you can draw, instead of just drawing 1 market card.

I'd recommend Island of Dread or Frozen Wastes equally as they are great big box supplements with appealing themes that can make for an entertaining and atmospheric game. I seem to be going against the majority here in that I didn't quite enjoy Sands of Al-Kalim so much (the challenges seemed a little uninspired and I found moving the sandstorm around to be actually quite annoying), but it's still worth having. The only expansions that I have had no real use for are the class decks. I tried them once and found that they slowed play time massively...