This review will break down the main mechanics of Return of the Heroes with a comparison to Runebound in mind. Therefore, each topic below will conclude with a RB -> ROTH section, which is a collection of light hearted thoughts on playing Return of the Heroes having experienced Runebound.
While I cannot fully comment on going from Return of the Heroes to Runebound, I will attempt to offer some assumptions with a ROTH -> RB section. Note: This review is meant to be a light comparison of the two games, anyone looking for a deeper, specific review, should look toward some of the other excellent reviews elsewhere.
Components
Runebound owners will have been spoilt with the full Fantasy Flight big box treatment, however, Return of the Heroes is no slouch when it comes to production values either. The box, board tiles, chits, wooden bits and actual gemstones are of great quality and you even get a draw bag and character cut outs with stands too!
The artwork is a little old fashioned for my taste, but it does have a certain charm and does a good job of immersing you into a fantasy world. However, this isn’t without its clichés, dwarves, elves, wizards, clerics anyone?
RB -> ROTH
- Cool, character mats!
- Loving the hit point stones!
- What, only 5 characters?
- These chits are a little fiddly!
- Dynamic board tiles, nice!
ROTH -> RB
- 12 Characters, smashing, shame the figures are all grey!
- Lots of lovely cards!
- What are these funny looking dice?
- Static board, but it looks great!
- Yep, this is FFG alright!
Rules
Runebound players will remember reading through a well structured and written rule book that had them up and running after a few turns. Unfortunately, ROTH is another matter. I won’t go over old ground, as the ROTH rule book has been covered at length elsewhere, but let’s just say there’s something wrong when seasoned gamers are reaching for the included glossary and the geek forums for help playing this game!
RB -> ROTH
- Why am I being taught the game by dwarves and elves?
ROTH -> RB
- Ah, a rule book to bring me back to reality!
Victory Conditions
Beat bad guys, power up, beat badder guys, power up and then beat up the boss bad guy, sound familiar? Well this is basically the premise of ROTH too, accept there are a couple of twists. First, each player has a personal quest they must complete before they can attempt to defeat the villain. Second, the villain is a random selection from a number of potential baddies. Each baddy has different stats and special abilities which will influence the play of insightful players.
RB -> ROTH
- Cool, I get to embark on a real quest!
- What do you mean blind mice hold the key?
ROTH -> RB
- So, no quest, no restrictions, I could just attempt to go after the big baddies straight away?
- (Yes, but only if you want your ass served to you on a plate!)
Movement
Runebound has a static board, but offers a unique hex / dice system which keeps movement interesting by ensuring you aren’t entirely certain you can get to where you want to go. ROTH on the other hand has a dynamic tile layout that is filled with interlinked fields.
Each character has a movement stat which denotes how many fields can be moved by each player. Tan fields allow free movement, while coloured fields require a test to be passed before movement can continue.
There are a few places on the map that also influence movement, such as the lake, but ultimately, this is a simple system which will see players zipping around the map with relative ease.
RB -> ROTH
- What, the dwarf can only move 2 spaces?
- Pesky red and blue fields!
- Ooo, found a teleporter!
ROTH -> RB
- Ah, these funny dice match the terrain hexes, cool!
- I can roll less dice to get rid of exhaustion hits, great!
- Pants, I needed a swamp and all I got was this bloomin tree!
Combat
Battle hardy Runebound players will be used to scanning card stats, reading through special conditions, calculating best timings for attack and lots of dice rolling. Things are a lot simpler in the world of ROTH, basically, roll the dice to test a required skill, score a hit if you pass, which generally beats the baddy, or take a hit if you fail.
Some baddies may need multiple hits and tougher ones will modify your current skill stats, but essentially, the toughest baddies don’t require too much brain power to fight. The villain will have an extra power, such as heal, but this is about as complex as fighting will get.
RB -> ROTH
- What do you mean I have to roll low!
- So, if I take a hit, combat ends and I can run away next go?
- Aww, I don’t get a buddy to help fight..
ROTH -> RB
- What, it’s a fight to the death?
- Oh, I get a chance to escape if I test range..
- What’s this before combat business?
- Hey, I can enlist allies to help fight, cool!
- Mmmm, this is a lot more complex!
Death Penalty
If you thought the penalty for death in Runebound was harsh, it’s not a patch on ROTH. Forget losing money an item, ally or two, how about everything, including your experience points, save for a lousy item left to you in the deceaseds will!
Yes, if you die in ROTH you are avenged by the heir to your estate, who inherits an item of your choice, and that’s it. They are basically starting from scratch again. However, if this happens early in the game, this shouldn’t be too big a hit and if it happens late, there should be a number of trainers now on the board who can help you out pretty quick. But it’s fair to say, if you die at the wrong time, you’re not likely to get back into the game and become strong enough to attempt the big bad before someone else.
RB -> ROTH
- What do you mean all these little cubes and stat points I’ve been earning have to go back in the box?
ROTH -> RB
- Actually, losing money, a valuable item and ally is a pretty big hit isn’t it?
Events
Runebound events occur on a random card draw and generally take the form of environment changes, such as forests spontaneously combusting or roads become heavily guarded. These can affect every player and are basically a ball ache. ROTH on the other hand has events such as archery or jousting competitions, all very quaint and amicable.
RB -> ROTH
- Pants, Dual of Mages and I’ve only got magic skill of 3!
ROTH -> RB
- I have to test diplomacy before I can buy anything, WTF?
Quests
Runebound doesn’t really do quests, there’s the odd take this card there, pass a test and gain a reward type deal, but they’re few and far between. But ROTH has quests coming out of its ears. Not only are there individual heroic quests for each player, there are a host of side quests to be discovered throughout the board. Granted, they’re still mostly “take this chit to another location” affairs, but they do offer a nice distraction from the main game objective.
RB -> ROTH
- I6? Anyone? Where’s I6?
- Is the Amulet out of the bag yet?
- Woah, received a nice stone for completing my heroic quest!
ROTH -> RB
- So, I take this card and do something with it later, hope I remember.
Levelling up
You gain experience points in Runebound after each successful battle and when you have enough points they are spent to boost the stat of your choice. In ROTH there are two ways to level up your character. Firstly, little coloured cubes are gained from certain combat and task rewards and used to boost the appropriate combat skill. Basically, the more cubes you have for a skill, the more dice you roll in combat using that skill. This increases your chances of a successful roll.
Secondly, you can boost skill stats by visiting and paying gold to a skill trainer. The trick here is that you must fail a skill test using the trainers combat skill to gain the stat point. If you pass this test, you do not progress, so it’s easy to fail early on, but harder later in the game, although, additional combat dice can make a mockery of that theory.
RB -> ROTH
- What do you mean I have to wait for trainers to be drawn out of the bag before I can boost skill stats!!
ROTH -> RB
- Ooh, range, melee, magic, stamina, hit points, what shall I choose?
Markets
Each town in Runebound offers a market stack that increases throughout the game. A plethora of weapons, armour, allies, artefacts, etc can be bought to boost combat, movement and various other skills. Items are used in a variety of ways, such as, use once, use once per turn or always active.
ROTH has 2 markets that offer wares to all players when one player uses the market chit. A number of tiles are drawn from the market stack and made available. The active player can buy items for himself or sell to other players earning commission, this is quite a neat dynamic. Items are generally aids for combat and movement offering a simple boost system to your base stats.
RB -> ROTH
- Mmm, plus 1, how exciting..
ROTH -> RB
- Mmm, quite a lot of text on these cards, I’d better take this all in!
Player Interaction
There’s not that much player interaction in Runebound, there’s a race for best locations or items and players can fight or trade with each other if sharing a hex. However, ROTH has even less interaction, no fighting or trading, but there is a race dynamic similar to Runebound for prime items and of course, to finish the game!
RB -> ROTH
- No fighting with other players, ah well, didn’t do much of that anyway!
ROTH -> RB
- I can tool up and take out the others, yay!
Gameplay
In Runebound, everything is pretty much laid out in front of players from the outset. You know where all the encounters are, you know where the towns are and you generally set yourself a plan as you go. The random nature comes from the draw of the cards when you get to an adventure hex or town, but given you already know the general hardness of an adventure or what cards have already been drawn at a particular town, you even have some control over this.
ROTH on the other hand is a different kettle of chits. The board tiles are dynamic leading to randomly formed play areas and there’s even a neat variant that starts the game with tiles face down, providing a completely unknown board. Starting encounter chits are placed face down on the board and the rest of the chits start in the bag, this leads to a lot of unknowns.
Basically, all main quests, markets, trainers, event chits, etc start in the bag and are drawn when an existing chit leaves the board. This leads to players waiting for certain chits to pop out of the bag before they can progress any further. Luck of the draw has never been so apt!
RB -> ROTH
- Is that bloomin’ amulet even in the bag!!!
ROTH -> RB
- Right, I’m going here, there, then there.
- Pants, the thief beat me to it!
Down time
It’s fairly common knowledge that there’s downtime in Runebound, in fact, if you time it right, you can pop to the shop, restock on supplies and re-serve your beer and pretzels in between goes. This is mainly due to the multi round combats and the fact that you must enter some kind of combat to complete an adventure, so you could draw multiple events and / or side quests that you must deal with until you finally draw a combat card. Of course, you could end your movement in a non combat hex, but given you may not see a turn for a few minutes, you are more likely to make the most of your turn when it arrives.
ROTH is refreshingly quick in this respect. Combats are generally only a roll or two. Events and quests are dealt with pretty quick, so ending a movement with nothing to do is of little consequence, as it’ll be your turn before you know it.
RB -> ROTH
- My go so soon, cool!
ROTH -> RB
- Mmm, maybe we shouldn’t have started a 5 player game..
- Escape, no way, I’m seeing this though now!
- Cuppa anyone?
- What do you mean it’s 1:30 am!
End Game
In Runebound, the end game can be quite a contest, especially if two players have broken from the pack and are making a serious challenge for the win. The harder adventure hexes really are tough and beating the dark lord, or any of the dragon lords, really is tough and provides a great sense of achievement when accomplished.
ROTH falls a little flat for me. Once a player has completed their heroic quest, generally by moving A to B and defeating minor enemy C, it’s a matter of attack the bad guy when you feel strong enough. If a player pushes their luck too soon, they will rightly get defeated. However, players generally go in over powered and defeat the villain with ease. This leads to a tension free final battle with maybe the odd “Wish I’d had a pop at him earlier” comment from the other players.
RB -> ROTH
- Well, All my skills are around 10 and I can roll at least 4 dice for each, am I strong enough?
- Yup
ROTH -> RB
- Purple and red combats are really, really tough!
- Hope this is Lord Margath else you might get a third dragon Rune!
- What do you mean I have to roll a 21!
Expansions
Runebound has a lot of small expansions, which add to the card decks and add more characters. There are also a number of big box expansions, which can significantly change the game play. ROTH has 1 large expansion which can accommodate 5-6 players and changes the end game conditions.
RB -> ROTH
- Mmm, Sand of Alkhim sounds interesting?
- So, I can add new enemies, items, characters, cool!
ROTH -> RB
- OK, so I can increase the player limit from 4 to 6 with the expansion.
Conclusion
If you’ve read most of the blurb above you will spot a general trend that ROTH is a lighter, simpler, shorter game than Runebound. If this was a comparison review I’d sum up with my personal favourite. But this is not a comparison review, it’s a “Should I buy ROTH if I own Runebound?” type review and the short answer is no.
The longer answer is, if you don’t like the length of Runebound, but still want a fantasy RPG fix, then maybe. I purchased ROTH on a special offer that seemed just too good to turn down. It has provided some entertainment and I’m sure it will get some more table time. However with hindsight, I’d would probably have gone for another Runebound big box expansion, which should also tell you what my personal favourite is
Posted Sun Jun 1,2008 05:26 pm
