Hi everyone, me and fellow gamers are planning an evening of play, and we're wondering if and how we can add challenge expansions.

Currently we have The Dark Forest and The Terrors of the Tomb available, and if things work out following the plan, it will be a table of 5 (we're all in the late 30s, with full-time jobs and SO, so unplanned hurdles are a real possibility).

As in the Crown of Elder Kings all the blue cards are swapped out to make room for vassals's challenges, it makes sense not to add any other expansion to this deck, to keep the fight for the throne a pressing issue; however, given the relative high number of players, I was thinking of just taking out the blue cards from the base deck and adding the aforementioned two challenge decks including the blue cards, to have a little variety and to "bulk up" the number of possible encounters.

Do you have any suggestion or previous experience with this kind of situation?

Thanks.

I have not acquired/played CotEK, but I too would be interested in perspectives from those who have on this issue.

golem101 said:

The Crown of the Elder Kings is based upon Blue Challenges being vassals and I do not suggest to mix other Blue challenges. When game comes to Blue Challenges, Heroes are trying their shot to victory and it's pretty much a matter of time: the first to defeat a winning combination of vassals gets the Crown. If I remember correctly, a PvP battle showdown then begins. In this Adventure Variant the Heroes should be encouraged to try Blues early on, to avoid other Characters becoming too powerful or getting dangerous Items (you get the Crown and another has the Touch of Death ready for you). I've played only once and with 3 total players; it was kind of fun and shorter than the usual Runebound game.

As for mixing Challenge expansions and Adventure Variants, it usually works well unless you do not disrupt some mechanic or disregard instructions for the game setup. In my last Runebound game we played "The Seven Scions", an Adventure Variant that uses no Red Challenges and relies on Green, Yellow and Blue decks from the original game. I decided to replace ALL base game cards with Challenge cards expansions: I put in Dark Forest, Drakes and Dragonspawns and Traps and Terrors, eliminating all Encounter cards since these are not used in the Seven Scions.

The game ran smooth and in the end two out of three Characters were equally powerful and only a slight flash of luck decided the winner. The Seven Scions proved to be a well balanced Adventure Variant, but I think it's quite "lame" because of the less significant Storm Challenges during the game (Storm Events are nastier and Stormlords make for a great Endgame, though).

Thanks.

Will do without the blue cards from the extra challenge decks (will use the other colors, though), to keep the vassals chasing/fight for the throne a most important issue in the game.

Another thanks for the words of warning on the Blue cards.