I will first include a general review that applies to all Character Deck expansions, and then I'll move on to review the Wildlander Character deck expansion.

This is my first of six reviews on all the Character Deck expansions.

It's a lot of work, so IF YOU FIND THIS REVIEW USEFUL, I'D APPRECIATE GEEK-GOLD TIPS!!!

General review on all the Character Deck Expansions

A very important thing you should know before you buy any of the expansions is that in order to include character decks into a Runebound game, each player must have his own expansion deck (righ out of the box, or customized). So you should buy at least one character deck per player, more if you want to build customized decks.

As stated in the instruction booklet, each expansion from the character deck series "gives your hero new skills and abilities, and they also allow you to thwart your opponents with devious spells and deadly challenges".

An expansion deck can be used right out of the box (every character deck expansion is ready to be used by a single player), or you can customize your own deck using cards from different character deck expansions. That means that different players could use the same boxed standard expansion in a game playing one against each other (mike uses a wildlander character deck, and dave uses a wildlander character deck too), or that different players can customize decks using the exact same cards from two different copies of the same expansion (mike uses one card from the wildlander character deck on his custom deck, dave also uses the exact same card on his customed deck from his own copy of wildlander character deck).

I think character decks probably were meant to be bought by the players in order to customize their own character, and not necessarily by the owner of the game.


Each expansion includes:

25 Class cards (feats, spells, locations and challenges) - Red Back
5 talent cards - Blue Back
10 menace counters
1 Rules Booklet (exactly the same one for all the expansions)


TALENT CARDS

Instead of expending points to increase your abilities, now you can acquire talents, which will grant your hero abilities (similar to the character abilities in Runebound's character cards) and Proficiencies (used for spell-casting). This is a really great addition, as it allows you to improve your character in more ways than just increasing abilities, stamina or health. The abilities are very well designed, very useful, and related to each individual character deck's flavor. You can only have one talent at a time (talents are non-cummulative). Some cards MAY seem too powerful, perhaps unbalancing at first glance, however, taking into account the increased difficulty of the game, they are actually quite necessary.


CLASS CARDS (feats, spells, locations and challenges)

You can play Friendly class cards (cards that give your hero bonuses or advantages) on your own turn to benefit your hero, but also you get to play Enemy class cards on other players turns, to make things harder on their heroes! (This is a great way to end Runebound's infamous downtime problem).

Feat Cards: Grants your hero temporary abilities and bonuses on your turn, or makes another player's hero suffer a penalty on his own turn. May require proeficiencies or they'll cost more (+2 per unknown proeficiency).

Spell cards: Similar to feat cards. They grant your hero bonuses or inflicts penalties on other heroes. May require proeficiencies or they'll cost more (+2 per unknown proeficiency).

Location Cards: Played on heroes or enemies on specific terrain types, granting bonuses and advantages to your own hero, or inflicting penalties on other heroes. Some of them persist, afffecting the location after the turn has ended.

Challenge Cards: Similar to challenges from the traditional adventure decks in Runebound, but you can play them on your enemies by expending menace points (more on that later).

Main Changes to Vanilla Runebound

The menace Point System: The use of any card (except talent cards) requires you to expend menace points. You have a supply and a pool of menace counters. Your supply is located right over your hero's card, your pool beside it. In order to play friendly or enemy class cards, you have to spend menace counters.

Friendly class cards use menace counters from your own pool (moving them onto your supply). Enemy class cards use menace counters from the other player's supply (moving them onto his menace pool).

However, if there aren't enough menace counters to expend, you can't play the card. Notice that if you use too many friendly cards on your character, you're just giving other players ammunition to use against you. Also, Runebound's challenges will not only reward you with gold and experience, but they will also give you menace counters to refill your supply (and give your opposition ammunition to use against you).

The turn sequence: The turn sequence changes a little bit, to accomodate other player's ability to play class cards on your turn, and to allow for the refilling of class cards.

General comments on Character Deck expansions

More Interaction: You will get lots of player interaction by using Character Deck expansions. Even if you still play without allowing PvP action, the character decks are designed to let players mess with each other. A really great bonus is that downtime is eliminated. Now you get to play class cards against each and everyone of your fellow players, on their respective turns.

Increased Replayability: You'll be able to play with different decks, or even build your own customized decks, adding to Runebound's replayability factor. You'll be playing a different character every time you play!

More Confrontation: You won't hear complaints about Runebound being a multiplayer solitaire after buying these expansions. However, If you dislike direct confrontation in Runebound, these are NOT the expansions for you (unless you buy them only for using the talent cards - but that seems a waste of money to me). Even without allowing PvP action on your Runebound games, this will turn your traditional Runebound games into a frontal conflict between the heroes. If you do allow PvP action, this will turn your games into a full blown PvP war. I'm not saying that this is bad (nor good), just that you should know what you´re getting into before buying these expansions.

Improved Flexibility: You will be able to improve your character beyond traditional ability, stamina or health upgrades. Acquiring talents (and their respective proficiencies) allows for greater flexibility in the upgrade of your character, and gives you a chance to build strenghts not necessarily focused on helping you, but also, on messing other player's game.

Longer Playing time: The playing time will be longer because of all the extra additions to the turn sequence (and this is NOT good, since Runebound is infamous for its long playing time). Also, you won't be able to improve your hero as fast as you did before, because there are lots of new dangers and difficulties that make the game much harder; you'll find yourself travelling to towns more often and expending more gold on buying health, and you'll only attempt hard challenges with full health and low menace supplies. Also, you'll be more likely to die. All these factors will lenghten your Runebound session.

Risk Factor: The risk factor will greatly increase. You'll not only have to face the challenges, but whatever the other players send against you. You'll be more likely to die. A hard challenge can become harder if other players get to play enemy class cards on your hero before the challenge to weaken you (and they will), possibly getting you killed. Powerful talent cards will help reduce the risk level and they do help a lot, but it is still greater than in vanilla Runebound.

Strategy/Tactics: New strategic variables are added with Talent & Class Cards, and you should think on how you want your character to grow early on in the game. Tactically, you'll have to manage yor Menace supply and keep track on other player's menace supply (specially before attempting hard challenges, because doing so with a big supply of menace will surely make enemy cards rain on your parade - and even get you killed). Also, you should plan on acquiring Talent cards as soon as possible, because they tend to balance the overall risk increase of the game.

Overall: These expansions offer an interesting alternative to Vanilla Runebound. They help solve several problems (player interaction, downtime, replayability) However, they are not for everyone. Be sure to try them before you buy them, because they change the feeling of the game radically. The game feels more chaotic, more dangerous. Personally, I like them. But I am sure lots of people won't.


Review on the WILDLANDER Character Deck

This expansion has a ranger/druid flavor to it. It is not an overtly offensive deck, although it does have some offensive spells and feats. However, it is more flexible than the other decks, in the sense that you may impare other players in more ways than hurling offensive cards their way. You can use nature in your favor to help your character, or use it against them to impare their movement, to make challenges harder. At first glance it may seem less powerfull (at least offensively) like a druid or ranger may appear if they had a frontal confrontation with a wizard. But they wouldn't, would they? They'd play hide and seek, and use their knowledge of nature to slowly but surely make the wizard sorry for messing with them, every time he crossed a river, made a fire, found an animal, went to sleep in a cave. This deck does that. And it also has lots of resources (friendly class cards) to help your character against all odds.



TALENT CARDS

The talent cards that come with this expansion are very powerfull. Some cards may seem overpowered, even unbalancing. But they're not. With the increased overall risk of the game, they tend to balance the game in its later stages. Also, they balance the rest of the deck, specially the lack of powerfull spells.

Syntax: Name(Cost, Proeficiencies)
Proeficiencies: W-Wizardry, D-Divinity, F-Fighting, S-Survival, Sb-Subterfuge

Sense Danger(1,F,S,Sb): You may choose not to be affected by events.You may attempt green adventures on any Yellow/Blue adventure counter sites, drawing from the green deck, and gaining 1 XP as usual. However, leave the adventure counter on the board.
Pathfinder(2,F,S,Sb): On movement, you may use hills for mountains, rivers for swamps, and roads for forests.
Forest Stalker (3,F,S,Sb): Use any movement dice to move into forest spaces. +6 on ranged, melee and magic on forest spaces.
Wildlander(4,W,F,S): After defeating challenges, discard all exhaustions and take extra movement step, then proceed with experience step as usual.
Harvest from the hunt(5,W,F,S): After defeating challenge, discard all damage from hero and allies.

CLASS CARDS

1) CHALLENGES
Syntax: Name(type,cost,health,ranged,melee,magic)
Type: Friendly-F,Enemy-E,Both-B)

The most interesting challenges included with this expansion are:

Thakog the attended(E,4,3,12/1,13/3,10/0), +3 to ranged, melee, AND magic for each card on the undefeated challenge track
Frost Giants(E,8,5,13/2,17/4,15/1), If on mountain space, skip escape phase.

2) LOCATIONS
Syntax: Name(type,cost,locations)
Type: Friendly-F,Enemy-E,Both-B
Locations: River-R, Swamp-S, Mountain-M, Hills-H, Forest-F, Road-Ro, Town-T

The most interesting locations included with this expansion are:

Flash Flood(B,1,R), Play at the beginning of movement phase: All spaces are considered river spaces until the end of the turn.
Glamour of the Wildfey(B,1,F), Test Spirit-Resist(12). Success: Discard 2 menaces. Fail: Turn ends immediately.

3) SPELLS
Syntax: Name(type,Cost,Proeficiencies)
Type: Friendly-F,Enemy-E,Both-B
Proeficiencies: W-Wizardry, D-Divinity, F-Fighting, S-Survival, Sb-Subterfuge

The most interesting spell included with this expansion is:

Awaken Tree Ents(F,4,W,S): For the first round of combat, your hero receives +3 to combat rolls for EACH adjacent forest space.


4) FEATS
Syntax: Name(type,cost,proeficiencies)
Type: Friendly-F,Enemy-E,Both-B
Proeficiencies: W-Wizardry, D-Divinity, F-Fighting, S-Survival, Sb-Subterfuge

The most interesting feats included with this expansion are:

Forest Allies(F,3,S): Hero and allies get +2 on all combat rolls
Herb Lore(F,3,W,S): Discard a forest location card, discard all damage and exhaustion from hero and allies and refill hand to 10 class cards.
Minotaur's Strenght(E,3,-): +3 to melee value of challenge being played by your enemy.
Flesh Golem(E,4,-): Until the end of combat, if one of your enemy's allies fails combat roll, the ally is lost, the challenge receives a life bonus equal to the ally's life value, and the ally is discarded at end of combat.
Scorpion Sting(E,7,-): Until the end of combat, if a challenge inflicts 1 or more damage on your enemy's hero or ally, that character may not attack for the rest of the combat.


Overall

This is a very interesting character deck, and it will give any character a very characteristic ranger/druid flavor. It is not very strong in spells, but the strenght of its talent cards and feats, as well as its many friendly class cards offering a helping hand every step of the way totally make up for it. Most of them are related to nature, terrain, knowledge of plants and animals...

This expansion reflects the nature of divine/natural magic usually associated with druids and rangers, while it also reflects how druids and rangers use their nature-savy ways, terrain and techniques to thwart their enemies and benefit from their knowledge of nature. It is a great addition to Runebound, and gives depth and breadth to the characters as well as to the game in general.


IF YOU FIND THIS REVIEW USEFUL, I'D APPRECIATE GEEK-GOLD TIPS!!!