Expert
Alter
Spezial
RUNEBOUND AT WAR!
Runewars
Fight for the Dragon runes!
Fantasy Flight has once again given us an epic war game, this time situated in the fantasy world of the Runebound universe created by Martin Wallace. Epic, because the first 2 or three games played by the full number of players will take a minimum of 4 to 6 hours to play, but honestly, did you expect anything else from a Fantasy Flight game on such a topic? Each of the two to four players try to be the first to control six regions containing Dragon Runes. This of course will not be possible without some conflict so there are lots of battles between players and also against the many neutral unites on the board.
Each player chooses one of the four fractions- each comprising an army of several dozens of plastic miniatures (different for each fraction) with differing bases (important for conflicts). He gets the army, the corresponding fortress, activation and development marker and – most important – 8 order cards that are used to govern the action on the board in the four seasons of each of the 6 years. These actions for instance are moving units on the board, turn the resource dials and so an. Furthermore, you are given a fraction board with three areas for Food, Wood and iron, each represented by a half circle with partitions numbered from 0 to 8. In each of the three resources areas you place a spinner on the respective starting values.
In addition to all that this fraction board shows all units of the fraction with their special abilities, live points and a value between 1 and 5, which determines the combat round when they are activated. Finally, your coffers are filled with influence markers for money and tactic cards according to the values stated on this board. Each player draws a hero card and 2 quest cards and places the corresponding hero miniature into the fortress in his home area, represented by 3 hex spaces. On top of all that you receive a target card – if you complete this task you acquire a Dragon Rune, for instance you might have to discard 8 influence markers once during the game. By the way, each player starts for his fraction with 3 rune markers, 2 real ones depicting runes and one empty one, in his home area. This ingenious method kepps your opponents in the dark, which of your rune markers are the real ones, because the all have identical back sides.
The board is set up by all players in a pro-game round from differently connected neutral hexes, each player places his home area next to those neutral hexes at a minimum distance of three hex spaces from his neighboring player. Those neutral hex spaces are party equipped with three-dimensional mountains and are equipped with neutral units and city markers according to their symbols. You should plan a minimum of 20 minutes’ time to set up the board and the neutral units – but it is well known that work comes before fun.
At the start of the round you draw one of the four season cards. They all show individual text, this is now implemented and then the standard action for the respective season is implemented. In spring that is taking back of all activation markers from the board, picking up all order cards and putting upright again all those heroes and units that have been placed sideways during previous actions.
In summer heroes can be moved and can be used to achieve a quest. You can also train heroes in one or two of their 3 abilities or heal stricken heroes. Autumn either brings you 2 action markers or 1 tactics cards, both can be very useful in combat. In winter you must provide all your own units in each hex with food by checking if the value of the arrow in the food area on your board points to a sufficient value. Say that you have 6 units assembled in a hex. Then the arrow in the food area of your board must point at least to the 6. All your own surplus units in a hex must be removed, if your food supply is not sufficient. So, a big invasion army can more easily conquer an opposing hex, but your surviving units may not leave this hex till next spring comes and accordingly it will be difficult to feed all your units in that hex in winter, some of them will probably starve.
When the season card has been completely implemented with all consequences, each player chooses the action card for the action he wants to take in this round. Beside the normal action, that can be implemented in any case, each card has a bonus that only gets implemented when the card played is the one with the highest number in the current year. Therefore, of course, the bonus of the card played first in the year is of course always activated. Therefore you are somehow forced, especially in the first year to play your cards in ascending order, at least if you do not want to renounce your bonus. This feat changes later in the game, as the respective requirements and conditions on the board and the goals of the players and there armies will differ very much and timing can be of paramount importance.
No, let us take a look at these order cards in more detail. I will describe them somewhat extensively, as they are – for the moment setting aside combats – the essence of the game.
Card 1 offers the opportunity to move units of your own into friendly or empty neighboring territories. Enemy contact is in that case not possible either with units of your fellow players or with neutral units. The maximum number of your units in a hex, by the way, is 8 – more than that number of units may never at any time in the game, not even when recruiting new units in a fortress, be assembled in a hex. The bonus of Card 1 is the replenishing of tactics cards according to your three areas on your board: You may draw the number of cards that can be seen pictured on the board up to the position of the respective arrow. This, by the way, is the case for all replenishing actions enabled by cards, but sometimes only for one of the resources dials.
Card 2 and Card 3 offer the same main action. An activation marker is placed in any hex of your choice that you can reach with your own units. A maximum of 8 of your units can now moved to this hex from hex spaces at a maximum distance of two hexes. Units with the ability “fast” can cover a distance of 3 hexes. If the units are “flying” units they can cross water or mountains. Of course, this movement over 2 or 3 hexes may not take your units across enemy territories, be it opponents or neutral units. Not even if the units are flying units, they cannot fly over enemy territory. If combat is the result of such a movement, the units are taken off the board and placed on their respective positions on the fraction board. But I will talk about combat in detail later. All units in the hex with the action marker may not – and that is very important – be moved away from this hex until the next spring. So it takes some very careful planning ot to lock yourself for one whole year into a remote corner of the board. The bonus of cards 2 and 3 is to have one mor complete activation action, but combat may not occur again respectively the strength of an enemy fortress is reduced from 5 to 2.
If you choose card 4 – harvest – the positions of the arrows in the dials for foodm wood and ore on the fraction board are adjusted to the totalled value of your own hex squares, maybe even lowered, because the arrows might have ben moved upwards previously by other cards or actions. So take care that your harvest is not turning into a disaster because you have forgotten that some or all of your arrows are pointing to a higher value anyway and exceed the number of resources depicted on your hexes. But normally, after you have won zwo or 3 regions, this action always is worth its while, especially considering the fact that winter is approaching when you must feed all your units. The bonus of card 4 is that you can “harvest” the results of upgrades in fortresses of your own, meaning you could maybe advance an arrow by one position or use other, partly fraction specific abilities. Additionally, you can sacrifice one wood by moving the arrow down one position to build an upgrade, should you still have room for it in one of your fortresses.
If you use card 5 – recruiting – you can hire new units according to one of your three resources, again following the same rule: You can recruit all units that are depicted on the board up to the position of the arrow. The bonus of the card is that you can recruit a second time using a second resource. The new units can be distributed in any way that suits you between your own fortresses. The rule that no more than 8 units may be positioned in one hex is valid for recruiting, too.
Card 6 allows you to rally support. You have the opportunity to acquire one kind of revenue from all cities under your control (control means, a minimum of one of your units is present on the city). Possible revenues can be a certain number of influence markers or a number of neutral units that you can integrate into your army, or the revenue could be new tactics cards or new quest cards. In case of card 5 the bonus offers you the possibility to spend between 1 and 3 influence markers to draw the same number of hero cards and to keep one of them. The corresponding new hero miniature is placed in one of your own fortresses.
Card 7 can be used to acquire that many influence resources that are depicted at all three resources on the fraction board up to the respective arrow positions. The bonus of card 7 allows you to choose one of the three so called title cards and to place influence markers of your own on it. This cards grants you certain advantages during the game until you lose it to player who takes it over with more influence markers.
The 8th and last card – building of a fortress – can be used to set up a new fortress in one of your own regions without a city. This is a feature often used to secure a dragon rune in an area that is endangered by the presence of opposing forces as a fortress yields 5 points when totaling combat values.
As fortresses are damaged when they are taken over by another player – in that case you of course replace the fortress marker with one of your own and turn it over to the back side) you can spend 1 ore to repair such a fortress, because a damaged fortress only yields 3 points and repairing it restores it to yielding the full value of 5 points again. Furthermore, the card offers the opportunity to switch two of your own rune markers. Card 8 offers no bonus, as this bonus due to the highest number could be used any time the card is utilized.
And now we focus on the fights between enemy and neutral units. One feature of combat is that you can spend influence marker to try to convince neutral units of joining your own forces or at least convince them to retreat from the area without fighting. To do so you take that many cards from the fate card stack as you discard influence markers. If the cards show a symbol with stars, your diplomacy was successful and the neutral units now belong completely to your own units. If that surpasses the allowed limit of 8 unit, you must destroy either units of your own or neutral units. If the cards show a shield symbol, the neutral units retreat without conflict to a free or non-controlled hex. If there are several possible retreat hexes, the player left to the active player decides where the units retreat to. If there are no possible retreats the neutral units are destroyed.
If the cards you drew show only red combat symbols, a combat unit is immediately implemented on the fraction board. Combat also happens when enemy units are present in the hex. The probability to be able to assimilate neutral units by diplomatic means into your own army is rater remote, by the way, as the fate card distribution is as follows:
4 x Star symbol
8 x Shield symbol
18 x Red Combat Symbol
Now we know when we will fight, let’s find out how to fight, because that is what it is all about. Combat is- contrary to Risk and most of all other conquest and conflict game – not conducted by rolling dice but by again using fate cards, but another parts of these cards. Before these cards come into play, the units are attributed to the corresponding spots on the fraction boards – there is a special board for the neutral units! This determines the sequence of play respectively the combat round when they will come into play. Then each player draws as many fate cards as he has units deployed in the current round of combat. Thus many units increase the probability of hits. Then you compare the values in those segments of the cards that correspond to the base of the unit. This comparison can result in four different events:
1. – Nothing happens, the unit does not score a hit; 2. A hit occurs – one enemy unit chosen by your opponent is destroyed; 3 – A flag of value 1 or 2, the corresponding number of units is turned sideways and cannot counter anymore in this combat, if not yet involved in the combat, and does not count for the computing of the final combat strength; 4. – Symbol for special ability, looks similar to a Palantir, the special ability of the attacking unit is activated and enacted, for instance 2 hits are scored or the number of life points for that unit is raised.
After conducting a maximum of 5 combat rounds the number of units still standing is compared. A fortress yields a value of 5 or 3 (if already weakened). The winner of the combat is the player with the higher total, in case of a tie the combat is won by the defending player. The loser must retreat all units, turned sideways, onto an adjacent own hex or empty hex. If the attacker managed by this conquest of a hex area to conquer the 6th dragon rune he has instantly won and several hours of fun are unfortunately over. If at the end of 6 years no one owns regions containing a total of 6 dragon runes, the player owning the highest number of dragon runes wins.
And the upshot of all that? It is most important that one player studies the rule beforehand, because otherwise the first evening in spent in setting up the game and thoroughly reading the rules. Many, many details have not been touched upon in this review. Unfortunately it happens rather often that mistakes are made in how the game is played. But the more often you play the faster you play and the mistakes are drastically reduced due to experience. With the assistance of the rather short FAQ nearly every detail is – albeit after a thorough search in the rules – located in the rules. Runewars is much more fun with each game you play, because you start to try new strategies for the quest for dragon runes and to use the special abilites of each of the fractions properly. Luck of course is a ruling factor in the game, especially when drawing cards for diplomacy and combat – so it can happen that you lose with 5 units agains 2 neutral units, but that’s life, or better, that’s combat, as we know since Zack Snyders 300, it is possible to win with a small army against a large one, even if rather rarely.
If you did like Runebound with its numerous variations and if you you not mind combat-dominated conflict games of several hours, you can help yourself without a second thought or wait until the German version, announced for Essen 2010, is out!
Gert Stöckl
Spieler : 2-4
Alter : ages 12 and up
Dauer : approx 180 min
Autor : Corey Konieczka
Grafik : Kevin Childress and Team
German Title : identical
Preis : ca. 80,00 Euro
Verlag : Heidelberger Spieleverlag 2010
www.hds-fantasy.de
Genre : Fantasy adventure game
Zielgruppe : For experts
Mechanismen : Use resources, characters and cards
Kommentar:
Fantastic components
Very long rules
Lots of preparations
Game gets smoother and more interesting with each game played
Vergleichbar mit:
All epic conflict games in a fantasy setting taking more than 2 hours, e.g. Descent, World of Warcraft and others
Atmosphäre: 7
Gert Stöckl
Friends of epic battles in a fantasy world that are not averse to an evening of reading rules and preparing the game will enjoy Runewars.
Zufall 2
Taktik
Strategie__ 3
Kreativität
Wissen_
Gedächtnis 1
Kommunikation
Interaktion 2
Geschicklichkeit
Action