Title says it all.

I really like Descent, and have also most heros and monsters painted, I have all expansions and we play it a lot.

Now, checking the Runebound briefly, it looks tempting as there are some familiar elements, especially same hero figures.

I guess here must be many Descent players that have experience of both games, what is Your own opinions ? I can add, that I enjoy playing Talisman also a lot...

I actually borrowed Runebound from a friend of mine recently to check it out. I've only previously played Descent and especially RtL and I wanted to see how it compared.

I liked it. The game feel is very different, at least IMO, where's its more a race to get to locations and gain experience. Less tactics, since the fights are basically just dice rolls with no movement around the board. After playing it a few times, I'll probably end up getting it at some point.

I love descent and I gave runebound a try.

I didn't like it at all. Not that descent is "deep" tactics, but I found runebound way to simple for my tastes.

If you are looking for a lighter refreashing chance, you might enjoy it. But I personaly found it too easy and random to get much out of it.

However if I had kids I would likey get it. I think its a better game for younger kids with shorter attention spane.

My friend has an eight year old that gets bored playing descent for long, I think runebound would be good for him.

Runebound is okay, I guess. If you know someone who has it, try before you buy.

The big thing I don't like about Runebound is that one person seems to get ahead early and they're the run away leader for the rest of the game, and the person in last tends to stay in last for the rest of the game. Everything else after the first person starts beating yellow encounters is just going through the motions.

It still has all the same descent heroes and locations, but it does feel very different. Kind of a descent extra-lite. (actually, that makes it sound a lot more descent-ish than it really is.) My buddy pulls it out from time to time because he doesn't want to see it as a failed investment, but really we'd just rather play descent. If we don't have time, we generally pull something else out.

Hmm, hard decision still after these comments. Not everything needs to be in the scale of Descent RTL, and I do have kids for whom Runebound might be good. A lighter, smaller, more random game in the 'Descent world' still sounds like fun to me. Problem is, we play the games we have, and adding one game means that the other games hit the table less frequently, that's why this is a big decision - I don't want to play less Talisman, Descent or Tide of Iron (or warhammer, or 40k) !

It's set in the same game-world as Descent, but there ends the similarity. Martin said he designed it to be "a modern Talisman", so if Talisman is your kind of thing, go for it.

I personaly love Runebound, and own all the expansions.

Slev said:

Thanks, I sort of got this feel of the game, and this is what I wanted to hear !

I personally came to Desent from Runebound, and enjoy both, but they are very different games and I enjoy them each for different reasons.

I'm looking at Runebound and thinking about buying it. My only hesitation is the sheer number of expansions out there. Are all of the exansions still in print? Are there are any that are especially good or especially bad? Are there any from 1st ed Runebound that have been integrated into 2nd ed (and I should therefore avoid to prevent double-tapping?)

Don't be mislead by the comments calling Runebound Descent lite. It's not Descent in any way, and it's certainly not lite. You will be investing a minimum of three hours to play it with just 2 players, much more with extra players. It plays nothing like Descent, so comparisons are useless. It doesn't have all the conflicting rules that Descent has, which is actually good, but it's much more advanced rules-wise than Talisman. If you have Runebound, there is no reason to ever play Talisman unless you have more than 4 players; Runebound doesn't handle more than 4 despite what the box says. It is true that it's hard to break up how well the players are doing once an order has been established, but not impossible.