I used some Adventure Variant expansion before, but I've never combined them with other card expansions. In Crown of the Elder Kings and The Scepter of Kyros the manual says that everytime an event from the base deck is drawn it must be replaced by a card from the expansion deck.

If I combine one of those Adventure Variants with other cards expansions (i.e. The Dark Forest), how should I treat the events from these expansion? Do I have to resolve them normally or they must to be replaced like the others?

Fingolfin80 said:

They shall be replaced like the others. Events usually carry on the general plot, so if you use an Adventure Variant it eliminates unfitting happenings and allows you to introduce new cards and carry on the expansion storyline/challenge plan.

The_Warlock said:

Thank you The_Warlock!

This weekend I've played with the Scepter of Kyros and The Dark Forest, using them as you suggested. Maybe we were wrong, but the referesh of the adventure tokens was difficult, and we had to house rule it making a referesh for every event, not only for those with the sun icon because at a certain point became impossible to go on. I have to specify that we were more than usual, we usually are four players and this time we were six, so adventure tokens ran out more quickly.

Another observation: six players really slow down the game, I would suggest a four or five playres game at most.

Just a side note... we've found the game really max.s out at about 4 players, with 3 being optimal. Even at 5, it was getting really long... and my group doesn't really care about long games, so that's really saying something.

And thank you, Warlock, for the clarification on those variant events.

I was introduced to Runebound by a huge group of 5-6 players. I had moments when I strongly hated this game; I felt it was overlong, not interactive and unbalanced. You can play with 5-6 people if you have enough time, but there will always be someone who loses his temper, gets bored or makes mistakes. He will be screwed and his game will be compromised without possible recovery; of 6 players, only 2 or 3 will come to a steady improvement of their Heroes. If you're one of the Heroes who got knocked out just when they shouldn't have, the rest of the game will be slow and painful for you, boring at the least.

This was my feeling, then I bought RB, played it solo a couple of times, then decided that 3-4 players were the only solution to get a reasonably long and funny game. Resources (adventure jewels) are limited and with too many Heroes there won't be enough for everyone. Green and Yellow Challenges become scarce at some point and players have a hard time getting on. If you have to wait something like 20 minutes to get your turn, it will be even worse.

It is more than advisable to play Runebound with 3 and max 4 players, 5 just if you can't avoid it. Expansions like Island of Dread and Sands of Al Kalim are longer to play and I recommend not to exceed 3 players. Frozen Wastes and Mists of Zanaga play very smooth IMO and can host 4 players with no problem, even though 3 is the best number for all RB games.

The_Warlock said:

Hail fellow Talismanglers!

Regarding Sands of Al-Kalim, quite a number of people over on BGG mention it is actually quicker than vanilla RB, Warlock's mention is the first I've seen that lists it as longer than vanilla.

Ironically, Sands is the reason I got RB (picked up my order today), reading about it pushed all the right buttons for me and well, can't use it without the base game. Of course, being me, I didn't stick to just base game in my order, had to add a few of the card expansions to the mix .

Dam said:

Hello Dam, nice to see you here as well.

Well, I don't check BGG for hints, but it's somehow strange that the general opinion is that Sands of Al-Kalim is shorter than the base game. In Sands you have a lot of additional mechanics (Fatigue, Story Die, Sandstorm, Legendary Quests) which obviously stretch all things, but even if you don't need to be so powerful to overcome Red Challenges, the Legendary Quests are not easy tasks like Warlock Quests in Talisman. To complete 4 quests and win the game takes longer than levelling your character to face the Red Dragonlords.

I've played this game solo many times: it takes me about 20-30 mins to complete a vanilla Runebound game, while with Sands I require 45-60 minutes. Give it a try and tell me how it is with your group.

My thoughts, if I understood the SOAK rules right, is that you need to defeat one Red Challenge to gain the ability to have 4 Leg. Quests, which you need to win. After you get the 4 token on the Quest sheet, you can focus solely on the LQs, whereas in vanilla, you might have to go around recruiting new Allies to replace the fodder that died against the first Dragonlord. At least that's how my two games of RB so far have gone, throw meatshield Allies at the DL for the two phases you're not going majoring in. If they luck out and deal damage nice, more likely they just die, but at least you got the Dragon Rune. Since Reds don't hand out Gold as reward, you have to go back to Blues for gold unless you have lot of it saved up. Even more, you need to get to a town where you have an Ally to hire. Travelling is required in SOAK as well, but from my very early impressions, I could see the endgame being faster, completing one last LG vs defeating two more Red Challenges (unless you luck out and get Margath).

The_Warlock said:

Haven't played SoAK yet, but have read through the rules. I don't think comparing quests in Talisman to SoAK is very useful. Talisman's quests aren't even actual tasks to complete, let alone quests. But your point is well taken for SoAK.

Anthing that requires "doing" more than just something ultimate to kill will take longer. I guess some might not recognize this reading the expansion's description by the word, but I assumed so in the hope that the quests would be in the "doing" and not in the being "done to" or happenstance. I'm actually glad to have my assumption / interpretation confirmed.

My SoAK hasn't arrived yet (come on already ) but are they LQ similar to the quests in normal RB? Have gotten three plays of the setup I have (base + 2 Market exp and 2 Encounter exp) and have come across certain Encounter cards that give you a task of sorts. One that's come up twice is "Wanted: An Assassin" (or something like that) which has you trek to Frostgate and make a couple of tests there to pass it.

Go to the RB: Sands of Al-Kalim at BGG and look in the gallery to preview many of the Legendary Quests.

Dam said:

You're right, you need to beat at least a Red Challenge before you can complete the game (= have 4 Legendary Quests). Red Challenges of SoAK are pretty tough, but usually you manage to get a lot of money and chances to buy good Objects in this expansion. By the way, most SoAK Allies are really nice.

There are many types of Legendary Quests: all require to travel a lot, most of them require difficult skill tests, some require facing challenges of a certain colour in a predetermined space. Nothing that's too difficult to overcome, but if you fail a roll the quest is failed and must be discarded. Real Heroes don't get a second chance, they must look for other challenges. So LQ are similar to base game encounters, but more articulate and complex. Legendary Rewards are useful but they don't always help with the next Quests.

The_Warlock said:

Actually in the most recent SoAK game didn't even complete a Red Challenge to win. Took on a Red Challenge, the Djinni, but failed the Before Combat test, which allows you to pick any experience counter of your choice . Compared to standard Rise of the Dragonlords, have seen a lot less grinding. In general about max 3 Blue Challenges, 1 Red (more common just 1-2 Blue). In RotD, after you take on a Red Challenge, if you need to heal, you need to go back down to Blue (since Reds aren't worth gold), but SoAK's Reds are worth gold, so you can just move on toward the next Quest location directly. Also, you just need the Allies for a single Red Challenge, doesn't matter if they die in that one, no need to look for more meatshields for the next Red Challenge.

Maybe we've been too cautious in normal RB, but last two SoAK games have seen us take on the Red Challenge after only 5 upgrades, in base I'd say we've waited until we had 7 before even thinking about it (unless had acquired some awesome combo of Allies + Items).