I bought Runewars last week, we played it 2 times so far and I got some questions. Love the game although both games weren't that perfect, we still have to figure out if we want to play epic or normal games and next game we probably use exploration tokens. The first normal game took about 2,5 hours, although noone knew the game, so we decided to play the epic version which took aroug 6 hours which was way too long.

When are you allow to play objective cards? Some say during your turn, some do not, e.g. bound By Honor. Rulebook says during your turn.

Are you allowed to discard Bound of Honor to gain one Dragon Rune if there are no triangle neutral units on the field?

Spring card Famine (rest dials if your ressources are higher than ressources in areas you control): Do you take developments into account for this?

2 heroes are duelling: Damage from special abilty symbol and damage symbol are resolved at the same time? What happens if one hero has Soulbiter (if special ability kills your opponent fully heals this hero) and both heroes get the killing blow at the same time while the hero with Soulbiter draw his special ability? Is he fully healed or does he die?

Tactic Card Tactical allows units to retreat before a battle starts and the units are not routet. This allows Units in an activated area to retreat to an unactivated area without being routet and eventually attack a second time that year. Is this correct? That seemed too strong for us, so we houseruled that we had to place an activation token in the retreated area if there was an acitivation token in the original area.

How do you handle teams? I mean the game is somehow 1v1v1v1, but this obviously causes some problems if two player ally. So last game after 1-2 years we somehow had two teams fighting each other. But that didn't work well as one team had two tactic cards, which allow the player and an opponent to each draw 1-4 tactic cards. So both drew 8 tactic cards and then they got some cards which allowed both players to increase their ressource dials. This seems somehow not intented as these cards seem way too strong with two player teams. But I guess you can't forbid players to ally. So currently we are thinking about allying the cross-positioned players from the beginning. Just i just wondered how you handle this. I can't figure out how to play 3 player games, isn't that always imbalanced?

Hinni said:

As far as I know it's any time during your turn that you meet the requirements, unless the card itself says otherwise. There's no specific "fulfill objectives" step.

Hinni said:

I'm not sure of the exact wording of this card, but if it requires there to be no neutral triangles on the map, then yes, that condition is fulfilled no matter how it came to pass that all the neutral triangles were removed. Even if it's simply that no neutral triangle tiles were drawn during set up.

Hinni said:

Yes, I think so.

Hinni said:

Fate card results are resolved in a specific order. I forget the order off the top of my head, but I believe orbs are resolved before hits. In the case of Soulbiter, this means the opponent must be defeated by Orb damage rather than Hit damage in order to trigger. Remember that all cards drawn are resolved, even if the the figure drawing them is already dead (I think this still applies to heroes in a duel, but someone will correct me if I'm wrong.)

So, if the hero with Soulbiter draws an orb and kills his opponent, the ability will trigger and heal the hero fully. If the opponent drew a Hit, however, that damage will then be applied to the hero with Soulbiter after he's been healed, even though the opponent is dead. It's unlikely a single Hit draw would be enough to kill the hero with Soulbiter after he was fully healed, but in theory I suppose it's possible.

Hinni said:

Nothing stops two players from allying except for the fact that only one player can win. They may be able to more easily defeat the other player(s) but they'll have to duke it out themselves eventually. In a four player game, the obvious response would be for the other two players to ally as well. In a 3 player game the odd one out is pretty much fubar, except that might be able to play king maker by focusing all his power on one opponent. If the allied players are using armies to gain ground, the third player may be able to sneak a victory by using heroes. At the end of the day it's about how many dragon runes you control, not how big your armies are.

As far being imbalanced, I don't think 3 player games are imbalanced, but my group generally doesn't team up like that. Perhaps some other posters have suggestions for how to defeat such teams, or at least make them think twice about staying allied.

Bound of Honor says that all triangle neutral units have to be allied to a player. So I figured that conditition should be met if there are no triangle units, but my opponents said the opposite.

Fate Card in Battles are resolved in this order: special, route, damage

In Duel it says all damage is resolved at the same time. The critical step is, if both heroes have 1 HP, both heroes deal 1 damage at the same time. So both would now have 0 HP. So would they both die or would hero 1 recieve full HP due to soulbiter?

Hinni said:

as far as i understand it the hero with the soulbiter would win (if he got a special ability attack and not normal damage) the soulbiter card says "Deal 2 damage, If this defeats your opponent, then fully heal this hero" but since its a "special ability" you have to have a fatecard with that, and since special ability is resolved before Routes and Damage you would win the battle and your hero would be healed.

If both heros where down to 1 HP and you both get a normal 1 damge, then both heroes dies and the items will be avalible to loot for any other hero that enters the hex with the 2 fallen heros.

that how i understood it acording to the rules

What if both heroes draw a special abilty? I'm interested in

a) the case where the damage of both heroes is resolved at the same time concerning soulbiter and

b) in which states does the damage resolve at the same time.

Duel Rules

b. Resolve Fate Cards: Starting with the attacker, each player
resolves the icon printed in the circle section of his Fate card.
If it is a special ability icon, then the hero may either deal one
damage (as printed on his Hero card) or use the ability of
one of his Reward cards.
If it is a rout icon, then the hero may prevent damage this
round equal to the number of flags. For example, if a hero
is dealt two damage by an opponent and the hero drew one
rout result, he can prevent one of the damage. These results
do not rout the opposing hero in a duel.
If it is a damage icon, then the opposing hero is dealt the
listed amount of damage (place an equal amount of damage
tokens on the opposing hero’s card).
If the circle section of the Fate card is blank, then nothing
happens (the hero does not use a special ability, deal damage,
or prevent damage).
All damage dealt during duels is resolved simultaneously, and
can even result in both heroes being defeated at the same
time (see “Damaging and Defeating Heroes” to the right).

As far as i understand it the damage from special abilities and normal damage resolved at the same time in duels although it's not explicitely written.

Hinni said:

You claim objectives on your turn; the one exception I can think of is the one where you must kill an opponents last hero, because during a duel it technically isn't your turn (it's nobody's turn).

Hinni said:

Yes; if there are no Triangle neutrals on the board, all 0 of them are allied by default. (This was confirmed by Corey, as well)

Unknown said:

No, your Developments only trigger during a Harvest order (specifically, a Harvest order where you get your Supremacy bonus!). Famine and Bountiful Harvest do not take your developments into consideration.

Hinni said:

In a duel, unlike a battle between armies, both cards are resolved simultaneously. However, with Soulbiter, Corey has ruled that if your hero dies, Soulbiter will NOT revive your dead hero, even if you kill your opponent at the same time.

In a regular battle, though, Orbs are resolved before Damage, but in a duel, Orbs and Damage icons are resolved simultaneously.

Hinni said:

Yes, it's a pretty powerful card, and it was intended to be so. One downside, though, is that if the opponent invaded your Fortress, they woudl conquer the fortress without effort. In a ruling by Corey, if the Fortress was at full strength, because you don't go to the "damaged" step, your opponent would get the fortress at FULL strength!

I hope this helps. One thing you may want to take a look at (self plug) is over on BoardGameGeek, I created a document that has a compiled list of Corey's rulings. It's currently in Version 5, though I'm hoping to add a few more to a Version 6 in the next few days!

sigmazero13 said:

Sorry for the gravedigging but I was searching for answers and found this thread.

Is it not so that even if a stronghold is undefended by troops the stronghold is still considered to be defended and soforth you draw destinycards and apply the result (Necromancers still have a chance to reanimate). If so the stronghold is always damaged if it changes owner.

Equites said:

Sigma was referring to the situation where an enemy attacks your defended fortress and you respond by playing Tactical Retreat. Your forces move out, but the stronghold doesn't. Since the "battle" never gets to the damage phase, but the attacker clearly won, Corey has ruled in this situation the enemy will get control of the Stronghold at full strength. The moral of the story is: "don't run away from your strongholds." The corollary is "don't build strongholds in places you're prepared to give up that easily." This is sometimes referred to as the "Remember the Alamo" rule. =P

If the battle actually occurs, even if there are no defenders, then you are correct and the stronghold becomes damaged.