Howdy all,

I currently have the basic Runebound game, as well as 3 out of 4 of the Board Expansions (Getting Zanaga soon). My question is with all the various card expansions, which ones are the most worthwhile, I don't want a ton of extra cards clogging up the works, but I'd like to get some quality cards added to the mix.

So tell me what Challenge Card Expansions and Items and Allies Expansions do you think are best?

Honestly, every deck of cards that integrates into the core game are fantastic. They're all quality and add a great amount of variety to market items and encounters.

If I had to pick one to be my least favorite... I would say Traps and Horrors. But only because traps are hard and usually don't give much reward (gold). But really this should be ok; in that it adds challenge and something very unique compared to most other encounters.

Really, get them all I love them more than the big box expansions (which I also love).

Hein99 said:

I'm inclined to give the same answers, but I have some preferences with the card expansions and I'll share them with you.

Challenge card expansions

Drakes and Dragonspawn, Terrors of the Tomb, Beasts & Bandits are my top favorites, while Shadows of Margath has some traits I do not like, especially in the Red cards.

Adventure Variants

These are really all good, but I prefer Avatars of Kelnov and Cult of the Rune above the others.

Item expansions

These I do not use very often, since the Market deck is already big. I don't like some of the early Item expansions, they add very lame items and Allies. Least favorite are Artifacts & Allies and Relics of Legend, while Weapons of Legend and Champions of Kellos are the best ones.

You should check out mr skelators shopping guide to runebound (srry i cant copy and paste it here just google it or something)

The_Warlock, your comments made me think of a few other things. You described the item expansions as some cards are lame and some are great and you`re right. But I still like even the lame items because sometimes that`s all you`ll get and you just have to make due. I see it as part of the diversity of the game.
With all the expansions my market stack is MASSIVE! But I also use the house rule that creates 3 market decks.

1: weapons and armor
2: Allies
3: Magic (Runes, magic weapons-armor and rituals

When you are able to draw a card from the market stack we house rule it that you can from any stack. This way you`re still getting some randomness but you`re much more likely to draw the kind of thing you`re looking for.

So because I have this house rule that makes it easier to draw the kind of item you want I do like that there is a large range of items from lame to amazing. If you`re a fighter a lame sword is very likely better than no sword and certainly better than a good Rune that your fighter can`t use well.
And a lame allies are still great because they can die instead of you.
Runebound is so amazing that even the lame stuff is great!

The_Warlock said:

I do not use your house rule for Items but it's a nice idea; at least you can always get to a city and draw from the deck of your interest, while in the normal game you have to plan your movement in order to reach the city with the stuff you want as soon as you have enough Gold. It's more strategic if you play the normal way, but if you have stuff like Banners or similar you get disappointed when there's nothing useful to buy. Your house rule is nice for allowing the use of Item expansions.

Why don't you separate Weapons from Armor? How do you distinguish between weapons and magic weapons?

I usually don't separate the weapons from armor because I do still like some randomness.
And when dealing out the town market cards I usually alternate drawing from a different deck each time and I put two cards into each town (except for the starting town). And when creating the market decks for each town I'll also put back any duplicates if I happen to draw any.

It's just kind of how the game has evolved for me

Do you have any house rules that have become the norm for you?

Hein99 said:

Perhaps it could sound cold as an answer but no, I don't have houserules and I think Runebound is one of a few games that doesn't need house ruling to play smooth. It is just good as it is, no need to improve or to change anything. But I admit your houserule makes Item Expansion more appealing... I'll consider it if my group will go into serious Runebound playing (which is not what's going on around here, for now)

Some of your discussion of multiple market decks got me thinking. Though I'm not one to make things easier in the game, I was wondering if anyone gave thought to trying a different sorting approach.

Rather than sorting by item type, sort by attribute benefited. Typically an adventurer going off to shop for goods (vs services) wants one of two things in general: something to compensate for weaknesses or something to maximize strengths. As a crude explanation, I imagine three decks (plus a fourth for allies) where the decks are oriented toward mental, physical, spiritual... or something like that. I know there's some obvious crossover to approaches already mentioned, such as items for physical being mostly armour and weapons, but not always.

I'm not sure how this could be done, but it seems like it might be a balance between getting something useful by desire and still maintaining some surprises and uncertainty.

Thoughts?

As to preferred expansions, my group is still too new to the game and we don't have many. But we do like Artifacts & Allies because it doesn't load up the market with uber-items. Too often we've seen the market not get enough affordable items early in the game, and so called lame ones can often be something that a pauper adventure can pick up some small edge until more gold can be acquired.

I haven't even played the game yet but the two expansions i'm looking most forward to are The crown of the elder kings and sceptor of kyros. I like that the sceptor introduces new OMEGA bosses because it adds some challenge and some fear. It reminds me of Arkham Horror when we know that if we screw up the elder god will awaken and that's a very very bad thing...not unbeatable just bad.

I like the crown of the elder kings because working together for one common goal is awesome but then imagine at the end of that goal one of your buddies becomes evil and powerful and now you have to take him down? I imagine that can lead to some very interesting rounds and even conversations amongst the group...at least with my group of friends. If my brother became the bad guy it would be fun and hilarious to gang up and try to take him down and then go down through the players to see who will become the victor.

I'm a big fan of expansions, or anything for that matter, that can change significant parts of the game and/or game mechanics. I'm also looking forward to some of the board expansions because of this reason...once again i've never even played this game but that's what im looking forward to. I also just ordered the game this morning so I should have it sometime next week.

Anyone able to find The Dark Forest? Seems to be out of print. Any chance they reprint it?

A few quick thoughts about the small-deck expansions:

Items :The Champions of Kellos and Walkers of the Wild decks are my favorite because they seem to be the best balanced and designed. The cards mix nicely into the market because they can help low level characters, but have enough expensive items for when your characters are rich enough to afford them. I also like the themes that tie the decks together (makes you feel like you are enhancing an aspect of the Terrinoth world rather than adding a bunch of items to the market). I'm also partial to the Rituals and Runes deck because Runes are somewhat underrepresented in the core game and item expansions and Rituals give you a positive use for unused movement dice.

Some of the other Item types introduced in the item decks can be a little underwhelming (ex. Banners in Relics of Legend or Equipping Allies in Weapons of Legend ) or cool but not supported throughout the expansions to be worth it (Ex. Familiars in Artifacts and Allies : there are only 6 familiars in the entire Item deck library)

Challenges : I don't like the lack of Events in Dark Forest or Terrors of the Tomb . The other 4 decks don't have that issue so I use them regularly to switch things up. A few of the Challenge decks tend to be tougher than the base set so its a good way to challenge experienced players.

Adventure Variants : Avatars of Kelnov is by far the most similar Variant to the base game. Its a good way to switch up the challenges you face during the Endgame, but doesn't change much else. The Scepter of Kyros plays very similarly for 70% of the game but has a different Endgame experience. I'd recommend trying either of these Variants first if you like the way the base game runs but have grown bored/familiar with its endgame.

The Cataclysm and Cult of the Rune change the game in a much more fundamental way by altering the victory conditions (you aren't trying to just defeat the big bad Red Challenges) and adding new tokens to the game play. Cult has a marker that gets moved throughout the game which represents an evil Cult that you are hunting. You need to root out the cultists w/out becoming corrupt yourself. Cataclysm destroys and curses the towns of the map with special new tokens. You then need to work to free the towns via special quest cards, while depending on the meager resources of caravans (a new game mechanic) to sell you items and heal you. These offer a much more significant variation than the above 2. They are a fun way to really shake up your game without spending 40 for a big box expansion.

Crown of the Elder King and Seven Scions i have yet to play (but based on their rules they seem to shake up the game more like Cult and Cataclysm).

Hein99 said:

Evend the one with banners

shadow? said:

You mileage may vary. If you can find a deck (Relics of Legend) for a good price (8-12 bucks) I'd say its worth a short. Banners aren't my favorite, you might enjoy them. I wouldn't buy the deck FOR the banners, but you might find other stuff in there you like. Check boardgamegeek, someone might have taken a photo of the deck's cards which could give you a feel for what else is in there.