Hi, I'm new with this game and I have played two games with Threat track at level 16 (it says normal difficult). But I have a problem. I only have time to get four levels until trigger the Endgame. The first time I win thanks to the abilities of the rune dragons I won during the Engame, but in the second game I lost with Margath.

Is it me or the game is too short in that difficult? Is it better play doom track with 5 cards to trigger a doom counter?

For your information I use the rules of threat track says put a doom counter in the pool before rolling the dice.

I never played with the threat track rule but I had a lot of solo games with standard Doom track rules. The rules you need to understand are:

1) do not attempt a Challenge that's not really worthy (most true for Green Challenges)

2) always try Challenges that are not discarded after completion but are kept for later use. Do never use the bonuses they give but keep them to avoid Doom Track advancing. For the same reasion, do never complete the tasks given by an Encounter.

3) Hope not to draw too many Encounters and Events that are immediately discarded

4) Carefully consider the introduction of new cards from expansions, as most of them will change the equilibrium

You may argue that with this approach the game loses something, but if you want to play solo you need to have a hard time or it won't be challenging. Making the Doom Track advance slowly only makes the game easier. The basic rule is well balanced and usually you will be able to succeed if you follow the above practice.

Still you will lose quite often and learn which Heroes/Items/Allies are most useful and in which situations. This increases your experience and awareness in standard games with other players.

The_Warlock, do you play the doom track with 3 cards to trigger a doom counter like it says the rules?

I think the encounter cards shouldn't go to the doom track because these cards are removed from the game normally although the rules say that.

With one player a Doom counter is placed every 2 discarded cards, including Events. I agree that it's somewhat annoying if the track advances all of a sudden because of Events, therefore you may choose not to consider them.

You're right about the Encounters; they must be removed from the game so they do not influence Doom Track.

When I play solo, I need to consider that I can max. discard 16 challenges + Events in total, so I need to reduce Green Encounters at minimum. In solo game you have the advantage that you don't have to wait if you decide to go to a town or if you roll bad for movement, and there are no other players to steal you Challenges or useful Items/allies. You have to counterbalance this with an increased difficulty and only the standard rules doom track grants that type of challenge.

I should use the travel hazard variant in solo games with the doom track for choose wisely the place I end the movement. In addition for every turn I stay in a town after the first for find a good item I would add a challenge card. I think these rules let you to hurry.

The_Warlock said:

I just tried a single game and was totally defeated... that's why I looked around the forum.

But when I read this I wondered... Maybe I got the rules wrong, but as far as I read it, a Doom Counter is places every two cards, but one of them remains.

So that's a max of 8 challenges + events.

Or were you playing with house rules?

Yeah, sounds like a lot of Doom going around.

Vitus_Prem said:

In my rulebook it says 3 cards to trigger the doom track with 1 player. It seems there was a change since the publication of the first rules of Runebound.

A few more questions: When anyone uses the threat track, does he or she put a doom counter before rolling or after rolling? And when the threat track reach 10 or passes 10 begins the endgame or you lose? I want to know what rules you usually use.

Vitus_Prem said:

You're technically correct. The Doom Track as explained in the Rulebook has that strange (and unnecessary) rule that makes a card switch from the bottom to the top every time the triggering number of cards is reached. In a 4-5-6 player game this is not overwhelming, but it makes a solo game impossible. 8 discarded Challenges + Events are too few, it would be surprising that you're able to face a Blue Challenge at that time.

So I interpreted the rules differently and in fact I adopted a house rule. I place cards from Frostgate to Vynelvale space also in a single player game and I add a Doom counter every 2 cards, but I discard (and switch the last card to the top) only when I reach Vynelvale space. This means I place 8 cards aside (adding 4 counters), then I discard seven and put the last to the top; I get to discard seven other cards before the Endgame is triggered (total is 15, not 16 as I said).

In this fashion, the Doom Track variant is challenging enough but it's doable with most Heroes (I still have to win with Runewitch Astarra and Sir Valadir). With 8 cards it's impossible.

What is this "Threat Track" mentioned in this thread. I've read all through the 2nd Edition rules and the 2nd Edition FAQ and don't find any mention of it. Is it something from 1st Edition that was later dropped, or something from an expansion?

XerxesAragon said:

The threat track is a popular homebrew variant for solo Runebound. It was posted on BoardGameGeek by an user called Mr.Skeletor, I think. It used components from Runebound Midnight but can be easily prepared using other materials. It attracted attention because the track and the game difficulty was adjustable. This is a link to these solo rules: http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/49058/runebound-solo-rules

I've never used the Threat Track personally.

Casting thread necromancy...

I just played this game for the first time yesterday, and played both games solo with the doom track, as written in the rules. The first time I played, I was Red Scorpion and did fairly well, but was defeated in the end.

The second time I played, I used the battle mage (can't remember his name), and won relatively easily. If you completely skip green encounters, go straight to yellow and then onto blue with the help of some strong allies (the berserker woman and the Sir Garreth the Black, I think his name was), you'll find that you can hang onto many of the blue cards when you defeat them (don't discard them to activate their special abilities, if any!), which slows the progression of the doom track.

Start taking on red challenges after the sixth skull is on the doom track, and once you defeat them, you'll find the dragon runes give you some pretty strong powers to help finish off the other dragon lords in the end game.

I'll have to play solo a few more times to see if my strategy/luck hold over time, and may also need to incorporate some of the other optional rules, like travel hazards.

I played about 5 solo games of Runebound (core only) using the doom track and travel hazards variants, and nothing else. I finally succeeded on my fifth attempt, using Silhouette. Surprisingly, I defeated Margath and another dragon lord before the end game began (4 times out of 5, I made it to the end game then died). Runemaster Baras was a helpful ally in my one victory, as were the following items: charmer flute, staff of light, chain mail armour and belt of strength (and some magic weapons). Of course, luck of the draw from the market deck, and when encounter rewards allow you to draw items from the deck, was a factor in being able to obtain the kinds of items I did in game 5.

Silhouette's ability to score 2 points of damage on ranged attacks, and her ability to attack on two different phases in a round, were also key to the victory (because of the charmer flute, Silhouette's ability to attack twice, Runemaster Baras assisting with rerolls, and a dragon rune that dealt 3 magic damage, I was able to defeat Margath by the start of round 2). I concentrated primarily on boosting Silhouette's ranged and melee attacks when she levelled (she reached level 9 by the time she faced Margath).

Of course, lady luck is very fickle, both with card draws and dice rolls… I wonder how often I'll be able to repeat this feat, especially with other characters (seems to me that it is critical to be able to deal significant damage in the first phase of combat, which most characters are unable to do).

Winning on the "most difficult setting" for a solo setting was tough, and all the more enjoyable and rewarding.

I'm new to Runebound, and loving this game!

As a new Runebound player who has only played the game solo, I decided to conduct a little experiment, seeing as how many people on these forums have complained that the doom track rules are difficult and make it practically impossible to meet the victory conditions in solo play.

Over the past month or so, I have played 23 games of Runebound 2nd ed solo, using the Core box only. I used all the core rules as written (5 Exp. / level, standard rules for knockouts, item and ally limits, etc.) as well as the most recent FAQ doc found on the FFG website. I used the Doom track as explained in the 2nd ed Core rulebook (every third card triggers a doom counter, top card moved to bottom when doom counter is triggered; all cards Challenge/Event and even Encounter cards are placed facedown adjacent to the Doom Track, unless the card explicitly says otherwise, as per p. 10 of the Core rulebook), and also made use of the rules for Travel Hazards (which, for the most part, were easily avoided during solo play).

Over those 23 games, I either obtained 3 dragon runes or killed Highlord Margath in 13/23 games (56.5% success rate). Over the last 10 games (i.e., as a result of growing familiarity and experience with the game and winning strategies), I met the victory conditions 7 times out of 10 (70% success ratio). I played with all 12 characters included in the core set, and although it took me 2-3 tries with some characters, I was eventually successful with all of them. In many cases, I even won before the end game had a chance to start, but all games were "close." Thus, in my experience, a solo game with doom track can easily be won using the rules as written, and my success vs. defeat ratio suggests that the core game is well balanced for solo play.

The Warlock already outlined the main elements of a successful winning strategy in his second post from the top. I would add that, since you are not competing with anyone for market items/allies, you can spend more time healing in cities (especially if you have the Acolyte of Flame or Rune Seeker as an ally) or waiting for the right movement dice combo to appear before moving in, which increases the pool of items/allies available in cities and minimizes the risk of encountering travel hazards. It should be noted that just because more items/allies are available (potentially all of them, if you decide to remain in a city long enough to exhaust the market deck, which I did not do) in a solo game, does not change the fact that you will only be able to accumulate a very limited number of them due to the limited amount of gold you will acquire with the Doom track running (some of which can still be lost to knockouts, especially early in the game)… so the game remains a challenge. If I won every time, I would find it boring.

Now looking forward to trying out the various big box and deck expansions I've been hunting down, and still hoping some of my friends will eventually want to give Runebound a shot in multi-player mode...