Runebound 2nd Edition: Review

Runebound 2nd Edition is the update of Fantasy Flight's popular game of fantasy adventure. In the role of one of twelve heroes, players travel a large fantasy realm, completing encounters and growing in prowess with the ultimate aim of defeating the Dragonlords and their newly resurrected leader, High Lord Margath.

To be honest, impressions upon opening the box are a little dissapointing. Contained within are the gameboard, rulebook, two sheets of counters, two decks of cards, a bag of dice for movement and combat and twelve plastic hero figures. Why the dissapointment? Well, purchasers of FF's games are typically spoiled when it comes to game contents. Just take a look at how packed the boxes are for games such as Arkham Horror, Doom and War of the Ring and you will see what I mean. There is no difficulty getting the Runebound components to fit back in! But this should be taken as more of a cautionary warning for those used to an avalanche of pieces than a wholly negative comment, for what is there is of the usual high standard. The board depicting the land is not as large as the boards for Arkham Horror or War of the Ring (some may say this is a good thing!) but it is beautiful to look at. The cards are durable and well illustrated, the card counters thick and the dice have pre-placed stickers in indentations so there is no concern of the symbols eventually wearing off. Plastic figures are an upgrade from the card stand-ups of the first edition and, although they are not as detailed as wargamers might hope for, they certainly do the job well enough. As with all FF games, the rulebook has large pages and is well written, leaving little need to refer to it when players have got to grips with the relatively simple rules.

Each player begins the quest in the city of Tamalir with nothing but their various skills and three gold coins to their name. Counters on the board show the location of adventures, the completion of which forms the crux of the gameplay. They are rated at four levels of difficulty, each level corresponding to a deck of cards which is drawn from to determine the exact nature of the encounter. These vary from one off occurances, to epic lasting events and fierce battles. If an 'Event' or 'Encounter' card is drawn, then the player draws again until a 'Challenge' (battle) card is revealed. Upon defeating the foe, the character is rewarded (usually with gold or an item) and takes the adventure counter off the board to show the experience points gained (between one and four depending on difficulty). Depending upon the number of players, a set total of experience points can be spent to increase ranged, melee and magical abilities or even provide additional health.

Each turn is split into five phases. First cards used the previous turn are refreshed so they can be used again, then characters may move. Following this, any encounter on the final space landed on is resolved. The fourth phase only occurs if a character ends in a town. In this 'Market' phase a market card (which may be either an item or an ally) is drawn from the deck and placed in the space specific to the town. The player may then chose of buy any items which are there (gold permitting) sell items owned, hire allies or pay to be healed. In the fifth phase, accumulated experience points are spent.

Movement in the game is goverened by dice. Seasoned gamers may shudder at the thought of a roll-and-move system, but it works surprisingly well. Each die has one or more symbols on each face, depicting terrain types. The roll determines what the dice may be used to travel through, so a face depicting a river and a swamp shows the die can be used to move one hex into either of these terrain types. Certain terrain, such as plains, appears more frequently then harder to traverse terrain such as mountains and the effect is to give a player several options yet restrict total freedom of movement, which works well. Being wounded or tired reduces the number of dice rolled and more may be given up to rest and remove exhaustion tokens.

Combat consists of three rounds, after offering an escape opportunity. These are: ranged combat, melee combat and magical combat. Each character is rated in these three areas and also has a damage score in each. During each round, the player decides whether to attack or defend and rolls two ten sided dice, adding the total rolled to the value of the relevent attribute in an attempt to meet the target number of the card being fought. Only one attribute may be selected to attack each combat round, the other two can only be defended with. Allies allow addtional attacks to be made, although these are weaker than those of the hero typically.

Each hero has a wound rating and an exhaustion rating. Tiring occurances add to exaustion while combat inlicts wounds. Additional exhaustion above the hero's capacity is taken as wounds, so it is often wise to rest and recuperate. Should a character take wounds up to his limit, he is knocked out and placed in the nearest town, losing gold and his most valuable item or ally. In this way, failure is punished yet all players remain in the game until the end, which is a necessity in a game which typically lasts a good two hours!

Once players are sufficiently powerful, they can attempt to confront the High Lord Margath and his Dragonlords, represented on the board by the hardest level adventure counters. This is not a feat to be undertaken lightly as they are powerful opponants, but defeating either the High Lord or any three other Dragon Lords ensures victory for the trumphant hero.

Runebound generally does a good job of depicting an epic fantasy quest in a boardgame format. This has been attempted before more than once, notably in the classic game, Talisman. Perhaps it speaks for the genre that both these games share similar attributes... and flaws. Each sees heroes travelling a land, defeating foes and becoming more powerful in a similar way to a pen-and-paper role playing game. However, each can also be considered to be long and repetative, with little player interaction as each strives to achieve their aim first.

How players respond to this is largely a matter of personal opinion. Aside from the events, each encounter of Runebound really boils down to rolling dice until the challenge is overcome, grabbing the reward and moving on to the next one, pausing for breath only to heal and spend treasure and experience. Many people will not find this to their liking and it can be argued that Arkham Horror attempts a similar style of game with greater success. But if you don't mind a game taking a good two hours (or more with a greater number of players) to finish and essentially consisting of doing the same thing over and over, then you will probably enjoy Runebound. I believe this criticism to be a little harsh, but it is how many players may respond. On the other hand, if you yearn for heroic fantasy adventure and take pleasure in directing your hero through deadly encounters, becoming stronger and more powerful in an epic quest to defeat a great evil, then Runebound could well be the game for you. Also, if you have fond memories of Talisman, then Runebound should be very much seen as a bigger and better version.

This review only considers the game as it comes out of the box, but FF have already released several expansions for the game, ensuring longevity and freshness. Having alternative adventures to face certainly appeals, but the game as it stands should satisfy for a long time.
At the end of the day, if the theme and gameplay appeal to you, Runebound 2nd Edition is a veritable must buy. If not, perhaps you should look elsewhere. Either way, Runebound appears destined to become the definitive epic fantasy adventure game.

Summary

Presentation: Good art throughout and quality components are what you will find in the box. It is a slight same that FF have not included something better than a feeble plastic insert to contain everything though. 8.3/10

Clarity of Rules: Generally clear rule book with good examples and several optional rules which are easy to implement. 8.5/10

Game Length: Can be a bit overlong for what it is, especialy with more players, although with two or three who are familiar with the rules this is much less of a problem. 5.5/10

Value: Less value than many of FF's big box games and perhaps a bit expensive for the contents. Perhaps not the best choice if you are not aware of what you are getting 4.9/10

Overall: A very strong contender for its type. Runebound is one of those games people either love or hate, strangely, for very similar reasons.... 8.5/10 (not an average)

Review by Chris Walkley