Hey y'all, relative newcomer to Rune Age and deck-building games in general.

I've now played a couple games of Rune Age with Oath and Anvil, (including a somewhat house-ruled six-player 2vs2vs2 Runewars scenario) and was wondering about the general opinion on the Good aligned factions. In my group the general feel is that, though there are a few fun abilites for the Dwarves, Humans, and the Elves , they just don't have the edge against the Undead, Orcs, and Uthuk.

Sure, the Humans can easily spam early in the game, and their Bowmen are mean, but in the later stages they have trouble bringing enough power to the fight.

The Dwarves depend on using Gold, which seems fun at first but rather clutters up your deck and hand, plus their "destroy a unit" troop, the Sentinel, seems to me to be the second worst of the game (first being the Orc Lizard Rider).

And the Elves…their basic units have very limited usefulness, and their deck-cyclers are a tad high-cost. The only way one of the players found to really compete was to combo only Darnati Warriors(second best "destroy a unit" troops in my eyes) and Forest Guardians.

Whereas the Undead pull a lot of troops easily and have the Dark Knight to really get a punch out of their numbers(unlike the Humans).

The Uthuk(my favorite) have low-cost deck-cyclers(the Flesh Rippers) and a safety net with their Warlock Chieftains, and have an easy way of empyting their deck of low cost units and then bringing them back when needed with the Blood Sisters.

And the Orcs….in one game our usual Orc player managed to dish out around 40 combat strength with a lucky combo of Archaic Scroll and Spiritspeakers. Even without the Archaic scroll, Warchiefs, Ravagers and a last little Spiritspeaker just let him roll out the Horde.

So, are the Good factions really underpowered, and/or are there any specific strategies that would allow them to be a worry to the others?

The trick to Humans that my gaming group and I have found is to get Footmen early, and then get out of them as quickly as you can. Focusing on Bowmen, Knights, and Novice Wizard (and then Roc Warrior when you can) can be absolutely devastating, but only if you can eradicate the Footmen from your deck at the right time. Fighting the right time for the switch is the key to winning with them. Also, never buy Siege Machine… I'm pretty sure it's the worst unit in the game.

I'm still working my head around the Dwarves. They win on occasion, but I'm still not "seeing it". Demolitionist is incredible. Not so much for the stealing of gold (because players tend to avoid "2 Gold" when he's purchased), but for being able to see your opponents hand and plan out your attack. If you're playing the Rune Wars scenario, "Rally Forces" is killer for the Dwarves if you have purchased Demolitionists!

And the Elves… get to Forest Guardians ASAP. Buy Storm Sorceress for gold, use gold to buy Darnathi Warrior and Forest Guardian. Hopefully you get Tact and Diplomacy or Wealth and Industry to start (Pain and Sacrifice is decent too) to get a nice start. IMO the Elves are the best faction in the game, but also the faction that takes the most practice to see how they work.

Good thoughts from both of you two. I have only bought the game last Thursday and it seems tons of fun, but still feels little dibalanced at times. That being said, there should not be a direct balance between each and every card, but between races as whole. When I have time I will make an analysis and post the short version in a new thread.

In pvp, my group has found the Daqan Lords to be one of the strongest factions. Some people say Latari Elves are strong in the late-game. I have to agree with them. So if you can knock the elves out early, that will save you some grief later. The problem is that some factions, like the Uthuk Y'llan are very strong in the early game, so if you focus on eliminating the elves, you could have trouble with the Uthuk. But that's more about strategy than army balance. I like what was posted above about the elves, but I also want to add that I really like the Leonx Rider. Usually, people save their stronger cards for the end of a battle, so if you save your Leonx Rider for the middle to end, you have a higher chance of forcing them to discard a stronger card from their hand. I suppose in pvp, Darnati Warriors are better because they'll have to buy the unit back, but there are certain reasons Leonx Riders are better. An obvious one is that it can force a discard of the Demon, whereas the Warrior cannot destroy it. Also, you can shift emphasis toward pumping up your hand instead of destroying their units. For example, you have one card left in the deck and you know it's a strong unit like a Dragon, Forest Guardian or Pegasus Rider, you can get yourself to draw that unit.

The dwarves are not bad at all, in my opinion. They can get their 5-cost unit out early and then buy Guardians to keep the Digging Machines alive. Sure, it's harder for them to destroy things, but they are also more resilient to being destroyed. Consider the Daqan Lords where they have to discard a card to destroy a unit. They count on getting more strength than you by destroying your units. So while the Bowman is only 2 strength, effectively it is 2+X where X=(strength of unit destroyed). The Guardians keep your units in the battle instead of being instantly destroyed, allowing you to keep the upper hand in strength. And since they spent one of their five cards to destroy your unit, they will have less total strength in hand.

Another thing with the dwarves is you don't want to trigger the miners just because you played them. You need to keep track of what is in your deck and what is in your discard pile. If the chances of you pulling gold are slim, don't trigger their When Played ability.

Personally, my favorite are the Dunwarr Dwarves, Latari Elves, and Uthuk Y'llan and I never feel particularly handicapped by playing any of them.