Hola :-)

I'm new to board games. A few games caught my eye, like Runebound and DungeonQuest. I have a few questions for all the experts :-).

Would you say that buying Runebound right now would be a good idea? I see lots of talk about a 3rd edition maybe coming, and lots of the expansions are sold out or hard to get. I'm not looking to pay a bomb for the expansions, so if I can't get it for the original asking price, chances are I won't get it. So without the expansions, would Runebound still be worth getting just for the base game, and maybe a big box expansion? Is Runebound worth getting, even if a 3rd edition may be coming out soon? I don't have lots of money, so I'm concerned about it being wasted if a new edition comes out so soon.

For someone like me, what do you think? Should I take a pass on Runebound, wait for a 3rd edition, maybe get another game instead. Kind of stinks getting into a game when everything is sold out :-).

Gracias :-)

Well it's a good question considering that we don't know what you like in board games, number of players you can get around the table, your prefered theme, max number of hours of play, etc…

But, having the game and some expansions, i'll try to guide you a bit with what I know about Runebound.

-1ST: DungeonQuest : Which I own, is completely different than Runebound. The only similarity is it's based of the FFG world of Terrinoth and some characters in DQ are compatible in Runebound (at least my french version of DQ gave me the 6 character cards to use with Runebound). DungeonQuest is a game of silly randomness and dungeon exploration. It's card driven and luck plays a huge part in this game. For me and my gaming group, it fills a spot when we feel like just having lots of fun and laughing at each other misfortunes. The goal of the game is to exit the dungeon, alive, and with the most treasures. In our numerous plays, more often then not we die a horrible and hilarious death on our in or out of the dungeon. It's random, silly, fun and quick to play. 1-4 players, around 1.5 hours.

-2ND: Runebound 2nd edition : Which is one of my favorite game I own. It's an adventure game set, again, in the world of Terrinoth. You play 1 character that venture de map and try to accomplish challenges, level up and be the first to either kill the big boos of gather 3 Dragon Runes from numerous Dragon Lords. It have a kind of "race" mechanic where you compete against another player to be the coolest champion around. the game is quite simple on it's surface and doesn't need many plays to graps it's mechanic. In the base game, each turn the active player have 5 phases to do: Refresh (return activated cards), Movement (roll movement dice), Market (if in a city), Adventure (if on an Adventure token), Experience (pay X Adventure tokens to level up and take 1 XP Token to bosst a stat).

One of the coolest mechanic in this game is the Movement dice. You have 5 big dice with terrain types on each of it's sides. When you roll them for your movement, you must choose one symbole on each die and move your character around the map. It's pretty neat and even though it's a little luck-based, it still leaves you with some control on where your character will go.

But, you must be ready for long games at first and for that, many will tell you, and they are right, that it's best played with 2 players, 3 tops! My normal 2-player games take 3 to 4 hours. It's a little bit slow at first since your almost a zero, but when you start harder challenges it's getting rewarding quickly. The principal reason why it's slow it's because there's almost no interaction between players, unless they do some PvP which I tell you it's pretty rare. So, during the other player turn you watch him do it's 5 phases. A turn may take from 1 to 3-4 minutes depneding on the card you draw. One thing though if you're a little imaginative and willing to do it is reading the flavor text on the cards so the non-active player can get in the ambiance and see what the other player's adventure is.

It's really is a solitaire adventure game played with others hheheh. Each character is writing it's own story, one turn at a time.

If you like: Long games that reward you later on, some downtime when not your turn, seeing whats happening to the other player and follow it's own adventure, don't mind readin falvor text to help other players get the feel on your story, immerse yourself in an epic adventure in Terinoth?

Than go get this game!

-Concerning expansions : My favorite, for the base game, are the Items&Allies and the Challenges types. Items&Allies will simply add more cards in the market deck of the base game. you simply shuffle the expansion cards with the base game cards and voilà.

Same thing with the Challenges expansions. You simply add them to the Adventure decks of the base game for more variety in the challenges, encounters and events.

My favorite Items&Allies expansions and the ones I would recommend for the base game: Weapons of Legend, Rituals and Runes

My favorite Items&Allies expansions and the ones I would recommend for the base game: Traps and Terrors, The Dark Forest, Terrors from the Tomb, Drake and Dragonspawns, Beasts and Bandits.

The other types of small expansions and the Class deck and the Adventure variant expansions. I won't talk about the Class deck since I don't own any of them and heard they're not really necessary. The adventure variant can be cool if you feel the base game starting to get boring and you'd want to refresh it a bit. What it does is simply replace the end game goal with a new one. The instructions will tell you which base game cards to replace with the expansion ones.

-Concerning Big Box expansions : Those are cool! They add a new board overlay, new characters, new mechanics. They keep the Runebound feel to them but let you roam new lands and accomplish new goals. I bought 2 of them and probably won't buy any more.

My favorite Big Box expansions: The Frozen Wastes and Sands of Al-Kalim. FW let you play in a frozen wasteland in search of the lost Princess. You have some new cool mechanics for discovering long lost aftifacts and eventually, the Princess. OR, you can simply level up enough and go kill the dude in it's northern settlement before any player bring him his Princess or kill him first.

Sands of Al-Kalim I didn't tried yet but I can already tell it's gonna be huge fun. I love desert settings and this one is pretty cool. It has a sandstorm that moves around the board and alter some places on the board.

Another one that people seem to like is Mist of Zanaga. It's in a swamp area with awakening gods…don't really know the setting but it looks pretty neat too.

Well, that's all I can think for now. Hope I could help you a bit in your decision and don't hesitate to ask anything!

Regards!

Ok, there is some typos in my post and can no longer Edit it, but apart from the grammatical errors (there's lots, forgive me of being french ) I want to correct this one:

"My favorite Items&Allies expansions and the ones I would recommend for the base game: Weapons of Legend, Rituals and Runes

My favorite Items&Allies expansions and the ones I would recommend for the base game: Traps and Terrors, The Dark Forest, Terrors from the Tomb, Drake and Dragonspawns, Beasts and Bandits."

Should read:

"My favorite Items&Allies expansions and the ones I would recommend for the base game: Weapons of Legend, Rituals and Runes

My favorite Challenge deck expansions and the ones I would recommend for the base game: Traps and Terrors, The Dark Forest, Terrors from the Tomb, Drake and Dragonspawns, Beasts and Bandits."

Katie said:

There's been a fair bit of rumour-mongering about a 3rd edition lately, but there hasn't been any solid intel that one is actually coming. Just a bunch of people guessing about whether or not it's on the horizon.

The small deck expansions have gone OOP, most likely because the business model they employed wasn't working well enough to be continued. However, I suspect it's at least equally as likely that they will return in some new format (perhaps POD?) as that their disappearance signals the end of second edition Runebound.

Hola :-)

I wasn't expecting such a long answer! Gracias :-).

I wasn't really asking if we'd like the game, I was more asking if I should buy it or not, with all the sold out expansions and talk of a 3rd edition. Being new to board games, I don't know how this stuff works, or what's going on in general with that in Runebound.

Would you say that the base game of Runebound has enough content on it's own for a complete game?

SolennelBern said:

I saw another game, called Dungeon Run. It looks kind of like DungeonQuest. It seems pretty fun too, I like the random type of dungeon exploring.

Gracias for the long answer :-). I did do some research on the games, so I already knew a little about the games. With your post, I know a whole lot more ;-). It's good to know what to maybe buy first :-).

I'm not really sure a 3rd edition is coming. If I had to bet, i'd guess that a Print of Demand or new small box collections would see the day.

But it's not impossible a 3rd edition would come out and if it did i'd be a pissed gamer since me too I just got RB and numerous expansions.

I'd say, if you're in need of a new board game and Runebound is in the top of the list, might as well buy it and enjoy it right now.

With the base game you'll have plenty of replay value for a dozen of games and after that, if you feel the game becomes repetitive, try to get a big box expansion (for a new map overlay and gameplay) or some small box Challenges expansions to add varietey in the base game challenges.

Dungeon Run is really different than DungeonQuest. In DungeonQuest your character simply try to gather as much treasure as possible without dying but more importantly, exit the dungeon.

In Dungeon Run, a dungeon crawler, you explore a random dungeon, ballte monsters, gather items and level up. All this time the other characters will probably leave you alone since they too want to level up and get to the Boss. When one kills the Boss, you take it's treasure and try to exit with your life…thats when the other players will want to get you and fetch that treasure for themselves and be the winner of the game. So at first it's an dungeon crawler and by the end it's a competitive game! Looks fun too and Plaid Hat games is one awesome company!

Thanks SolennelBern for the description. I've had the Runebound for a while, and we've been playing it every now and then, but more often lately. I have some of the card expansions added to the game, and I've been wondering whether to get some of the boxed expansions. No I got the final impulse to get the Sands of Al Kalim, and ordered it.

I like the game a lot, it's really good entertainment to play with family. Looking forward to see the Sands expansion

Katie said:

Yes, I would say the base game has enough content to qualify as an entertaining game in its own right. I would be loathe to recommend any game that did not have enough content in the base box to qualify as a complete game, frankly.

Making lots of expansions is one thing, but deliberately making the base box incomplete in order to sell expansions is just dirty pool. FFG is widely known for doing the former, but I've never personally known them to do the latter. =)

Ditto for what Steve says, and I think you will like Sands as a variation. Instead of the traditional kill the Big Baddy, the race to complete the required number of quests is a nice variation on top of the standard adventure structure of the base game's mechanics.

Personally, I am holding out hope for a new edition. I was going to get the game right at the point when everything started to get sold out, so I ended up going with Talisman instead (since FFG is still backing that title). I would love to see the thoughts they have in mind to improve the game. I just hope that they don't end up dumbing it down.

Sorry, Double post.

See, I bought RB2E about three years ago, mostly because of the solo play aspect, never got around to playing it for various reasons, and I missed out on all the expansions. Now I see that some expansions, being that they are apparently OOP, are ridiculously expensive (at Amazon, Isle of Dread is about $150, Midnight at about $250), the rest at a more reasoable $30. I see also some of the card expansions are in the same boat, some way too costly (upwards of 60 or 70 bucks), some at a more reasonable $10. I'm thinking about maybe getting (at least some of) those more reasonably priced items. Will it worth be it, do you think? How much will those few less expansive expansions add to the game?

BatHead said:

I would play the base game first, if you haven't already. You bought the base game as a solo potential game and never got around to playing it. Buying expansions at this point would be throwing good money after bad, as they say.

Play the base game a few times and decide if you actually like it. If you do, go for some of those expansions. if you don't, you may want to consider selling off your base game (perhaps for a ridiculously high price. =P)

Responding to an old thread, but it has gotten some activity recently, and the question is as relevant now as it was then.

I went ahead and bought Runebound 2nd Ed this past November and I am glad I did. Yes, I may miss out on some of the past expansions, but you know what? it is still a GREAT game to play, and my family loves it every single time I take it off the game shelf and put it on the table.

Even if it gets a 3rd edition treatment, I will still be playing a GREAT game in the meantime. And if one comes about, it will likely be at least another year or so before it sees print. probably longer. There are still 3 good big box expansions, Frozen Wastes (which i just bought), Sands of Al-Kalim, and Mists of Zanaga. They are still base priced at about $35 or so. And if you get all 3 that are currently out there, you have FOUR ways to play a GREAT game. I cannot say enough good things about this game, and the only drawback is the time it takes to play, which is 3 1/2 hours plus for our group. (But a fun 3-4 hours).

So, I do not worry about the card expansion packs I missed. I did pick up the 2 Adventure Packs that are still currently out there, and scored a coup in picking up the last 2 packs on the shelf at a hobby shop I stopped in at while visiting a town about 80 miles away, valued over $75 each on ebay and Amazon (if you could find it on Amazon). That part was cool. As a result, whenever I am in a new town, I check the local hobby game stores to see if I can find treasure like that. Kind of makes my Runebound game collecting a little more exciting. I even read on a recent posting (about 2 weeks ago) that recently, 2 copies of Runebound Essential was still on the shelves in a Florida Game store at base (non collectors) pricing. Alas, another poster of the thread found out they do not ship. Only way to get it was come to the store. You never know what you will find in a new game store.

But…anyone reading this….if you on on the fence, and think maybe it will go out of print, or get updated to a 3rd edition after you buy the 2nd edition, you are just denying yourself a great game over the next couple of years until that issue is resolved one way or the other. I got it last November, and I am so glad I did, and am enjoying it, and the big box expansion I got (Frozen Wastes), and plan to get the other two that are available over the next 2-3 months (one purchase every 4-6 weeks until I have the other two).

Happy gaming .

After writing the previous posting, I decided to look back at Amazon. Only 2 new copies left under $75, and the other 3 new copies left are over $125. And FFG is out of stock on their Web Site. Yep…this one appears to be going off the grid. If you are still on the fence, and you can afford it, get it now while you still can to experience the a really great game. With 3 big box expansions still available to buy, there is still a lot of good gaming there. But, it does appear those of us with 2nd editions will be the lucky ones until FFG makes a commitment to produce more, or upgrade it to a 3rd edition.

Sorry, I did not realize the scarcity of the game at this point in time as I was writing the previous posting.

I have a question. I recently picked up the base game to play solo. I still have to crack the box open. Yes I know late to the party, and trying to no /ThreadJack, but I feel a few other people are in a similar situation. I see that the some expansions are really no where in sight. My personallity type is to try and buy up everything in sight and go overboard. i am trying to show a little restraint here and not empty the bank. haha

So with that in mind, Are there any small card sets or big box expansions, that may still be lurking around that are really worth picking up? Or do I just play the base game for now and wait till an announcement of 3rd is on the horizon? Maybe someone can help with a minimalist approach.

Thanks.

Dru

Druthu said:

Sands of Al-Kalim is widely regarded as the best of the big boxes. As far as small boxes go, my personal favourites are the Adventure Variant ones.

The Essentials box that was released a couple of years ago has a good selection of card expansions if you just wan ta general selection. Probably easier to find, too.

If you;re playing solo, you'll want to avoid the Character Decks. Those are explicitly designed to enhance the PvP aspect of the game, so they won't do you much good if you're the only one playing. =P Plus, you need one for every player, so they can be a big money sink too.

Well….

I just got back from the hobby store….I know own:

Runebound 2nd Edition

Runebound: Essentials Collection

The Island of Dread

Sands of Al-Kalim

Drakes and Dragonspawn

Champions of Kellos

Walkers of the Wild

Crown of the Elder Kings

The also had other expansions, but they are still available on the FFG website, so I thought there was no hurry to pick them up.

Excellent! Welcome to Terrinoth

You seem to have a very good selection there, Druthu. Drakes & Dragonspawn is one of my favourites of the challenge expansions - if you can get it, I highly recommend Shadows of Margath as well. Mix those two into the adventure deck, and you'll have an absolutely awesome time! The Essentials Collection always seemed to me to have collected some of the more meh expansions, excepting Weapons of Legend of course. Walkers of the Wild is another favourite from the market expansions, so another coup there!

As for Big Boxes, Island of Dread is lots of fun with the sailing mechanics and all, and I do particularly like the Cthulhu-esque feel it has, but I can also highly recommend The Frozen Wastes if you can find that. All the big boxes are wonderfully thematic, but there's something about Frozen Wastes that really excites me whenever I play.

I tend to play most of my Runebound solo these days, as my fellow gamers would much prefer to have more variety of games than just play one for three hours of a game day. But solo Runebound is really quite awesome all the same, as you can really lose yourself in the adventure! Go for it!

Druthu said:

That's a pretty impressive list, I imagine it will keep you busy for some time.

It also sounds like you've got a good selection of quality expansions there, so you've got a solid addition from a collector's perspective as well. =)