So, played Rune Age for the first time this weekend. The first time we played the dragon scenario (I was killed by another player and the game ended with no one able to kill the dragon). Then we tried the Co-op scenario, Cataclysm. First attempt (elves, orcs and undead) we died before getting the Stage 2 event cards out. We reset and tried again (elves, orcs and humans) and managed to start to see the Stage 2 events, but then died again. Third attempt wasn't any better.

How are you supposed to get through this scenario when in just round 1 or 2 you get a beast of an Event that just starts a countdown to death (8 turns to kill it or game over). In 2 pulls of buying, one of us, the human, got lucky and managed to get enough footman into his deck and pulled them out when attacking the enemy. As the orcs I never seemed to be able to get enough force out to deal with the bigger threats and kept losing units to the curse (the one that reduces your draw to just 4 cards) Attrition die.

I have a couple suggestions. The first is: don't try The Cataclysm until you've beaten Resurgence of the Dragonlords. The dragonloards scenario is much more forgiving, and it gives you a chance to become familiar with each race's strengths and weaknesses.

Second suggestion: it's tempting to just keep attacking the enemies that deal damage if you don't attack them, but if you do that, the attrition die will whittle your forces down to nothing, and you won't be able to purchase enough units to both replace the ones you lost and buy the new units you need to defeat the tougher enemies. Sometimes you just have to bide your time and take a little damage.

If I were you, I'd try more of the Resurgence of the Dragonlords scenario. Also, it sounds like (since one of you killed the other one during that scenario) your group might enjoy the pvp Runewars scenario. That will give you another chance at learning how the races function best. After you've played a few more of those games, then you may want to tackle The Cataclysm again. But don't give up! It's totally doable! Just keep plugging at it!

We did leave certain bosses alone at times, but even so, I couldn't get enough units into my deck, let alone my hand, to help take down any of the bosses as the one boss with 8 strength that needs to be killed in 8 rounds comes up fast.

Hmmm. Well in that case, here's another thought. I don't know that this will help, since you may already be aware of this, but beginners to deck-building games often make the mistake of purchasing any card they can whenever they can. This will dilute your deck with cards you don't really want or need, preventing you from getting units into your hand. But since you said you were having trouble getting units into your deck, I don't think this is the problem you were having.

If you give it another try, let us know how it goes. I'm interested to hear if things go better for you. Perhaps it was just rotten luck of the draw that night.