Runewars

Runewars is not what I expected it to be. Maybe fooled by the title, I was kind of hoping it was a wargame, or, at least a more conventional wargame.

Well, it is, actually, a game of accumulating runes and although some of them you will win by getting your hands dirty, it is quite possible to win the game without winning a single battle against another player.

In fact, it is quite common to go through the first half of the game without any significant conflict among the players. The map is big, and unless the setup was really bad, you can easily get by with the resources around you, but I’m ahead of myself here, let’s talk a little bit about the game in some detail.

Components:
Everything in the box is FFG quality. The miniatures are definitely smaller than other offers from the publisher, but they are nice enough and the small scale makes it easier to find a table in which the game can actually be played.

Make no mistake, when everything is set up it still will occupy a lot of space, but this is no World of Warcraft – The Board Game for sure.

Rules and rulebook:
Well, the rules are online so I won’t get into details here. But basically, each player controls a race in the Runebound universe (Humans, Elfs, Undead and Demons). The rulebook is much better than other FFG products, and although the rules have a lot of details, it is quite easy to find everything.

However, this is the kind of game that will make you go back to the rulebook while playing, especially on the first sessions. And from time to time, you can expect to find yourself browsing a faq or BGG looking for some clarification.

The fate deck:
Everything in the game revolves around the fate deck – a bunch of cards that determines: combat results, diplomacy and hero quests.

I like the system, but it generates some drawbacks:

1. The combat is less intuitive: if you know your unit only hits on a 6 when rolling a die, you intuitively know the odds you are facing, and you can make quick decisions with that information. With the fate cards, you have to learn the odds before making quick, but sound tactical decisions. Not a dealbraker, but the game is not short, and these little time eaters might add up.

Also, I’ve seen a bunch of players relying too much on turtling, taking the easy way out and avoiding making odds assessment, but just venturing forth after making sure they have an army as big s possible, which also drags the game a little.

2. Diplomacy is limited: Diplomacy is really useful to make monsters run. The odds to make an alliance with the monsters are too low and the amount of influence you usually have to spend are almost always better used elsewhere.

Counting the cards on the deck works to a certain extent and it is quick if you are looking for just the four successes, but I guess it is more useful in the Hero quests, since most of them will be successful if you get a neutral result as well.

3. It is not as quick as rolling dice.

The gameplay:
When it works, it works beautifully. In fact, I think the whole system is quite neat with a lot of borrowed things from Twilight Imperium and Nexus Ops, but it will sometimes fail to feel epic, because:

1. Someone might win before any significant battle happens. It is not that common, but it can happen, and it is frustrating to see all those units prepared to fight coming back to the box, without a scratch on them.

The map offers a lot of space for the factions and most of those spaces are not really worth to fight for until later in the game. The cities offer nice bonuses, but if every player has one (which is often the case) the motivation to conquer another diminishes. After all, you don’t want to be unprepared when those runes start to show up.

Also, I just think the board has too many mountains and rivers/lakes, which further delays battle, making terrain hard to navigate.
Neutral units are a nice idea, but fighting them is almost all the time very easy. The idea of having them in your army is also great, but it rarely happens and, guess what: they also delay the fight among the players.

Heroes are OK. I like the way they are implemented (specially when using the exploration tokens), but they are yet another excuse to not get into a fight, as you can invest on them to get some runes without losing troops.

No wonder the Elves are so popular, as they have the means to grow quickly on the influence run, although they are not that good in direct confrontation.

This makes Runewars look like a bad game, but it is far from the truth. You see, all those things are random and may or may not happen considering the initial setup, group thinking, experience with the game, etc. So chances are, the more you play the game, the better you will enjoy it.

Runewars is not too complex, but will certainly benefit from the players experience, because I think the right mindset is key to enjoy it. Battle between the players won’t always be the focus of the experience, but once you are passed that, you will find a game that offers some nice tactical and strategic choices to make.

Our initial impression of Runewars was as a rather overproduced Risk-like game: one in which armies beat on one another in order to claim the most territory. While that’s certainly a sub-theme, it’s not at all the whole: one must learn to read the map, its resources and connections; one cannot neglect the Hero subgame (our winners are usually able to pull of two or three of the six needed Dragon runes through Hero play); one needs to understand the tempo of seasons and order cards; and one definitely needs to learn to manipulate influence and the Objective and Title cards. That sounds, on first blush, like a lot of subsystems – but it’s not terribly difficult in practice.

The real problem is with the wants-to-play-overproduced-Risk player who tries to simplify, and then discovers he’s going to lose every time to the player that has the whole thing under control. If you try to play some other game with the Runewars bits, it might be unsatisfying – but the game that came in the box is excellent: subtle; tight; replayable; charming.

I still don’t understand the production decision that gave us the “mountains”, though!

Runewars is a whole lot of fun and I love playing it but it can be difficult to find the time and people to play with. The size and time commitment people see when they look at the box scares a lot of people off. I mostly have played it 2 player with my boyfriend and a couple 3 or 4 player games with a friend and or my son added in.

There can be a great deal of thought that goes into each move and if someone goes into it thinking only war is the answer they are unlikely to win and can even be likely to do a bit of king-making before they go down in flames. I feel like I still have a lot to figure out about this game after about 15 or so plays.

We played it a lot when we first bought it but recently it seems it isn’t getting pulled out as often as some of our other faster lower set up games. I don’t often go longer than a month without playing it though. Hopefully we will be getting it to the table more often.

This game is a lot of fun.
The board is a bit wonky to setup, so be sure you have ample table space or retreat for a bit to you childhood and sit Indian style on the floor!

The team play is cool between good and evil.
The races aren’t quite balanced though.
i.e. My favorite are the undead, the Orcs aren’t quite comparable.

There’s enough to balance in the game and still be fun.

Expansion adds some cool creatures to all sides.
Battle system is well thought out and adds a couple twists to some creatures.

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Pro’s –
Fun to play.
Races are interesting.
Seasons and events on a God View/Macro scale are pretty cool.

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Con’s –
Races aren’t quite balanced.
Can be time consuming.

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Overall, this is a really fun game. Just have some table space available and some time to commit.

One of my absolute favourites. Take the epic from Twilight Imperium and put it in a fantasy world with dragons, demons, and undead. Much of the mechanics can be found in other FFG titles (TI, Warrior Knights, Game of Thrones etc), but I see this as a collection of some of the very best.
The art work and miniatures are top class, as we are used to when having a late night date with FFG.

Highly recommend!

The game is not just about killing enemy troops but finding and protecting Runes. Great game.