Looking for a few good ideas on how to integrate the card expansions with the big box expansions.

By thewm, in Runebound

I have all of the expansions for Runebound and the one problem I have with the box expansions is that the encounter card backs differ from the core game and the card expansions. When we want to use the card expansions no problem as long as it's with the core game, but as soon as we try to add them to the box expansions everyone knows the next encounter is not from the box expansion. So I am looking for a way to add the card expansions without anyone knowing.

Mix them all in and put a dummy card on top to hide the card backs or draw from the bottom of the deck (like you do in Fury of Dracula).

Nice and simple! Probably better than sleeves and extra printed backs to slip in. I'll keep that in mind if me and mine want to beef up the big box encounter decks.

Dam said:

Mix them all in and put a dummy card on top to hide the card backs or draw from the bottom of the deck (like you do in Fury of Dracula).

That works as long as you aren't using a box like Sands where the challenge cards have extra rules for day vs night fighting. Unless you've already come up with a system of house ruling such additional effects for cards that don't have them.

True, SoAK would be a problem... but not say IoD? I have IoD but haven't tried it as yet.

JCHendee said:

True, SoAK would be a problem... but not say IoD? I have IoD but haven't tried it as yet.

Island of Dread won't be a problem, except for the Sea Encounter Deck which replaces the Blue/Purple Challenges and has a completely different difficulty scale (very random) and reward logic.

Ah, I see. Well, it'll be a while anyway before we would try integration for that expansion.

Thank you for the suggestion. As far as Sands goes, I think if you have the undead encounters with one health at night would make sense. I will look into some suggestions for the other cards.

JCHendee said:

Ah, I see. Well, it'll be a while anyway before we would try integration for that expansion.

I think Green and Yellow are the decks that would most benefit from the effort anyway. Not being able to add Blues into IoD would have relatively small impact, I think. And Reds are generally highly story oriented and few by design (Margath and his dragonlords in RB, the high mucky-mucks in IoD) so I'm not sure you'd want to mix them anyway.

Yes, good points about the reds, as from what little I've seen (SoAK and Core), they are indeed built to match the theme of a box or variant. Don't know about the blues, but considering the different card back, likely they are very theme oriented for IoD.

And though it's been said before, some small box expansions for the big boxes might be fun someday.