Runebound 2nd Edition is obviously an update to the original Runebound. Runebound in either format is an adventurous romp undertaken by several adventurers, all attempting to work their way up the food chain of monsters to take out the evil dragon lord. The 2nd Edition serves mostly to update several minor issues with the first release. This review will attempt to serve a double duty, by informing the reader about Runebound as a game, and educating those who own the current version enough to decide whether to upgrade.

The Pieces

Runebound contains a huge number of cardboard counters, playing pieces and cards. There are 12 plastic miniatures (the original version contained thick card standups) to represent the players. While these are nicely molded, they are all gray, and could cause a little visual confusion. I’m actually considering a rudimentary paint job on my favorites, just so I can tell them apart. The figures are quite nice, but a little color would go a long ways.

The cards are decorated with some of the best art you will ever see in a board game. The adventure cards show monsters and villains that are as visually impressive as anything in any high-dollar trading card game. The character cards contain fantastic heroes, and the items and allies are all fantastically illustrated. When you look through this game, you can almost wince at the enormous art budget.

The cardboard counters are very well-designed and printed on sturdy cardboard. They punch out easily and are thoroughly attractive. The visual appeal one expects from Fantasy Flight Games runs true to form here. This is an absolutely gorgeous game.

There are seven dice in the game – two white ten-sided dice and the movement dice, which are blank six-sided dice with stickers depicting terrain symbols. The dice are nothing especially impressive, visually speaking, but they do a fine job of showing off symbols or numbers.

Finally, the board for Runebound is a very attractive color map of the region the heroes will be liberating from the draconic overlords. The map is divided into large hexes, and is spotted with towns and cities where the heroes can purchase supplies and recruit allies.

The Game

Runebound takes a little explaining to figure out the rules, but it is relatively straightforward and requires only a moderate learning curve to be thoroughly enjoyable. The premise is simple – each player assumes the role of an individual hero, and all players attempt to be the first to stop the rise of High Lord Margath, lord of dragons.

The game begins as each player selects a hero. There are many to choose from, including warriors, magicians, rangers, and assassins. There are females and males, dwarves and orcs, humans and elves. The range of abilities is impressive, allowing a player to choose a character that appeals to his play style.

Heroes move around the map by rolling the movement dice. There are five dice, which will each show multiple terrain types. When a player rolls the movement dice, he will roll a combination of forests, rivers, plains, roads, hills, swamps and mountains. Not all of these will be present on every roll. Each die can be assigned to a particular hex on the board, and heroes will ‘spend’ these dice to move.

When heroes encounter adventure spaces, marked with colored gems, they encounter adventures. These adventures are typically challenges, in which some nefarious evil-doer attempts to stop them in their tracks. Heroes enter combat against these foes.

Combat is an interesting affair. Each character, whether hero, ally, villain or monster, has three sets of combat statistics – mind, melee, and magic. Each set of scores has a combat value and a damage value. Heroes roll the two ten-sided dice to attack, add their combat values for the particular phase of their attacks, and hope to beat the combat value of their foes. Combat is three phases, and heroes may only attack in one phase per round, hoping to defend against the deprecations of their enemies on phases where they are not attacking. Successful attacks inflict damage on enemies; failed attack or defense rolls cause damage to heroes.

When a hero defeats a challenge, he takes the reward listed on the card, which is almost always gold coins. He also gets the colored gem from its place on the game board. The colored gem is often the more valuable reward, since several of these gems can be traded for a level of experience. Experience can add to the combat statistics of the heroes, allowing them to survive encounters with more dangerous foes.

Adventure tokens come in four colors, and correspond to the four decks in the game. Green challenges can generally be defeated easily at any stage of the game, though the rewards are slight. Yellow are slightly more deadly, and blue adventures should not be attempted until heroes are well-armed and experienced. Red adventures are all dragons, including High Lord Margath, and are absolutely deadly.

Monetary rewards gained from defeating challenges can be spent in towns to purchase items and recruit allies. The market cards, representing more than 100 different allies and items, can be purchased in towns, and without them, the game would be nearly impossible. These items add bonuses to combat values, damage, movement, and other great effects. Half of the fun of playing the game is accruing the best collection of items and allies to rain death upon the dragonlords.

The ultimate goal of Runebound is to defeat High Lord Margath. If a player encounters the High Lord, he is in for a tough fight, but he does not have to beat the main villain to win the game. Margath is also beaten if a player can accumulate three dragon runes, which are gained by defeating Margath’s lesser dragonlords. The first player to either defeat Margath or to beat three other red adventures wins the game.

Differences between Editions

Runebound 2nd Edition is essentially a complete upgrade to the original game. The original Runebound is an excellent game in its own right, but there are a few playtesting foibles that can cause some concerns. Second Edition attempts to fix those concerns.

The new board has no adventures in cities. No longer can you move to a city, defeat the simple encounter, and spend the money immediately. Now you have to choose between going to market and getting experience.

Event cards now allow players to repopulate used adventure spots. One problem that could crop up in the original game was that if one player ran all the green adventures, the other players might not be able to compete in the more difficult adventures. Now that event cards replenish some of the adventure spots, no player is ever out of the game because he got a slow start.

Players are now limited to two allies. This is almost a shame for me, since one of my favorite tactics was to invoke the mirror that reflected damage and then sacrifice allies until really tough opponents fell under their own weight. Even though I can no longer use my cheesy cheating tactic, this two-ally limit is really a good thing. Without the limit, by the end of the game players could be walking around with retinues of hangers-on just waiting to swarm enemies like flies.

Experience spends differently in 2nd Edition. Rather than gaining one point at a time in combat scores, each level grants a +2 bonus to a combat skill, +2 stamina, or +1 life. Enemies are considerably tougher than before, to make up for the faster improvement of heroes. This is a great improvement, since the game feels simultaneously more challenging and more appealing to the power gamer inside us all.

The rulebook now includes the rules for the doom track and terrain hazards that were originally only available as a free download. These rules are optional for a good reason – some players will enjoy the competitive edge of having to face foes before they might be ready, but others may want to keep roaming the board to gain just a few more bonuses before they take on those mighty foes.

Observations

Runebound is not a standard game. The cooperative but competitive play will take a little adjustment, but it can be a huge amount of fun to travel the board, fight monsters, accumulate treasure and experience and face continually more deadly foes. The components in the game are visually some of the best in the world of board games, and the game play is well-balanced and a lot of fun. Runebound 2nd Edition improves on the original through a series of rule and play adjustments, and is easily a better game than the original. Which is saying something, because the first Runebound is an extraordinarily fun game.

If you already own the original version of Runebound, Fantasy Flight is offering an upgrade at a very reduced price. If you mail them your Varikas the Dead card, you can get the Second Edition for only $20 plus S&H – a considerable saving, especially since they will send the entire new game.

In summary, Runebound 2nd Edition is definitely a game, but it’s almost more than a game – it’s more like an experience that everyone at the table enjoys at the same time.

Style: 5 – Sturdy design and amazing visuals make Runebound a feast for the eyes.

Substance: 5 – A thoroughly well-designed game gets just a little bit better.

In 3 reviews, average style rating is 4.67 and average substance rating is 4.67.