Game: Runebound - The Dark Forest

Thread: The Dark Forest

Friendless — 2007-12-10T00:48:33+00:00

I play a lot of solitaire Runebound, so my review will be biased towards that. In a solitaire game I am looking for story and atmosphere, and any consideration for player interaction is completely wasted on me. Furthermore, as I don't use the doom track, cards that give improved movement options aren't very useful either. If you don't play Runebound the same way as I do you'll want to take my opinions with a grain of salt.

Firstly, I'd like to say that the artwork on the cards is gorgeous, and the cards succeed brilliantly in producing the Dark Forest atmosphere that they aim for. As this is a challenge card expansion the cards augment the challenge decks - there are no items or allies, and the story of the game is not changed. The deck includes dangerous plants, such as the Spore Spire, the Needle Wight and the Lord of Corruption; there are wicked inhabitants of the forest such as Bandits and the insane Acolyte, and there are woodland fey such as the Foul Nymph and the Enchantress. All have sensible attacks and rewards which match their theme.

I very much like the Wrapwood Tree, which apparently is a nasty tree which can be used to make a good shield if you can deal with it. The Wrapwood Bramble can be turned into a whip. I do like the sense that although the forest is nasty it can be overcome and turned to your advantage.

The cards have only some integration with the main (Rise of the Dragonlords) campaign. The event cards often mention "the war", but don't explicitly mention the rise of the Dragonlords until the blue card. The two red cards are a dragon rune and the Heart of Margath, and it's really only the Heart of Margath which inextricably ties this expansion to the original campagin. I don't like to be tied to the original campaign because I might not be playing it, I might be playing Scepter of Kyros or Island of Dread instead. The cards that are too specific can be omitted if you like.

Another feature of the expansion which is a weakness to me but may be a strength to other players is the way the cards encourage player interaction. Runebound is sometimes accused of being multiplayer solitaire, and it seems the expansions have tried to negate this. This expansion contains 8 encounters for which the reward is some sort of interaction with another player - usually a penalty you can impose on them. When I win such a reward I just sigh and discard the card. Other players will think it's great.

The other consideration for challenge decks is that adding them to the base game's challenge deck tends to dilute the base game's story and also limit the chances you'll see much of the expansion anyway. For that reason I tend to construct challenge decks from scratch, without the base game's stuff at all. I will combine an adventure variant such as The Scepter of Kyros with a couple of the challenge expansions, and instead of finding myself in a world plagued with ferrox and minions of Lord Farrow I'm in a world full of sinister undead and dangerous forests. This expansion works well.

Thread: Re: question about attack roll bonus

Padachan — 2007-10-04T14:47:52+00:00

Heh, sorry about the late answer. But if anyone else has the same question the following goes: Anytime the word "you" is printed on a card it -always- refers to the Hero. So if "you" get bonus to your attack, it's the hero who gets it.

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Urtur — 2007-09-05T14:45:22+00:00

Polish version by Galakta. Contains Dark Forest, Artifact and Allies, Crown of the Elder Kings.

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lestat2099 — 2007-08-20T04:45:02+00:00

Back of the gamebox

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lestat2099 — 2007-08-20T04:32:13+00:00

All things inculded in The Dark Forest

Thread: Card errata - New Refuge

drasher25 — 2006-09-17T16:42:26+00:00

According to an adminstrator at the FGG forums:

A New Refuge should have a wound symbol instead of an exhaustion symbol.

Thread: Re: Review of the 4 small item, ally, and challenge expansio

Konwacht — 2006-07-20T17:32:37+00:00

Please check my comment on the copy of this thread here at "Relics of Legend"-Expansion:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/94274

Thread: Re: Review of the 4 small item, ally, and challenge expansions

Mishenka — 2006-06-17T05:28:23+00:00

I think that's the way some people play it (and certainly balances those cards somewhat), but it's really not clear from the card text. An official FAQ ruling on this would be nice.

Thread: question about attack roll bonus

Burnham — 2006-06-17T00:44:08+00:00

Well, I'm in the midst of a game right now, and this just came up, so I figured I'd ask:
With the card "Whispers of Change", does the bonus to my next attack roll apply if my next attack roll is from an ally, or is it the next attack roll that my hero himself makes?

Thread: Re: Review of the 4 small item, ally, and challenge expansions

Burnham — 2006-06-16T22:41:15+00:00

and the downside of not being able to take fatigue damage, while preventing you from using the character’s special abilities, also protects you from challenges that deal fatigue damage.
I took this to mean that if you were supposed to take fatigue damage, it would instead go right to your health (just like if you were maxed out on fatigue counters)

Thread: Preserving Event/Non-Event Adventure Card ratio

Dinky_Gnatbane — 2006-02-06T00:38:33+00:00

One of the problems with the Dark Forest and Terrors of the Tomb expansions is that they do not contain Event Adventure cards so if you just add them in with the Base Game Adventure Cards the Event cards will be diluted and the Adventure Counters won't be refreshed as often. If you follow the steps below during game setup you can preserve the ratio of Event/Non-Event Adventure Cards which should return the frequency of Adventure Counter refreshes to that of the Base Game. (The # of cards non-Event Adventure cards listed in Step 3 is the number of non-Event Adventure cards in the Base Set Adventure deck).

1. Remove Event Cards from Adventure decks and set aside for now.
2. Add the non-Event Cards from the expansion(s) to the base set non-Event Cards and shuffle.
3. Count out 32 Green, 22 Yellow, 13 Blue, and 7 Red from the non-Event Cards and place the excess non-Event Cards to the side for now.
4. Shuffle the Event Cards back in with the shuffled non-Event Cards.
5. Place the non-Event cards that were set aside on the bottom of each Adventure Card deck.
6. Game on!

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Grimwold — 2006-01-17T12:44:53+00:00

New GREEN encounter cards

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Grimwold — 2006-01-17T12:42:23+00:00

New GREEN challenge cards

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Grimwold — 2006-01-17T12:42:18+00:00

New YELLOW encounter cards

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Grimwold — 2006-01-17T12:42:00+00:00

New YELLOW challenge cards

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Grimwold — 2006-01-17T12:41:12+00:00

New BLUE encounter cards

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Grimwold — 2006-01-17T12:40:54+00:00

New BLUE challenge cards

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Grimwold — 2006-01-17T12:39:58+00:00

New RED challenge cards

Thread: Re: Review of the 4 small item, ally, and challenge expansio

beri — 2006-01-12T06:04:09+00:00

Wow, great review! I thought they'd just be 'more of the same' items, allies, challenges, etc. I'm impressed they tried to spice things up, and I think I'll get all 4, if not all 7 current expansions!

Thread: Re: Review of the 4 small item, ally, and challenge expansio

maddddog67 — 2006-01-11T16:31:06+00:00

Excellent review...thanks!

Thread: Review of the 4 small item, ally, and challenge expansions

Mishenka — 2006-01-11T05:15:37+00:00

Here I will review the 4 small challenge and market deck expansions for Runebound 2nd edition: The Dark Forest, Terrors of the Tomb, Relics of Legend, and Artifacts & Allies. Since these expansions have many characteristics in common and since most people who own Runebound would probably choose to buy all of them at once, it makes sense to me to review them together.

First a general comment on all of these decks. Almost all of the new cards add some new mechanic or aspect to the game. So rather than just selling more of the same types of cards already found in the basic game, FFG has put out something that will, in various subtle ways, modify the feel of the game. This aspect alone makes the expansions a worthy buy.

I’ll start with the two challenge deck expansions: The Dark Forest and Terrors of the Tomb. As the names suggest, the former adds forest creatures and encounters, while the latter adds undead. First of all, the cards in both decks use skill checks much more heavily than the basic game. This is a welcome change, since skills were really underused in the base game. Next, a number of cards in both decks encourage player interaction – either by hurting the other player in some way, stealing their stuff, sending a monster after them, or hindering their movement. One fun card is “Toll Collector” from TDF, which make all other heroes pay you 2 gold if they fail a Sneak check on a road space with a green jewel. Note that none of the cards in these two expansions encourage direct PvP conflict (the two Market deck expansions described below do however), but more of a “take that” kind of interaction. Both decks also add challenges that are either immune to certain types of damage, get bonuses in certain phases, or can only be hurt by certain types of items, thereby discouraging the players from focusing on only one of their attributes to the detriment of others. Good examples of this are the “Dire Ferrox” from TDF which will attack in multiple melee phases in a single round, “Needle Wight”, also from TDF, which automatically inflicts a wound when attacked in melee, “Shadow Ferrox” from TotT which can only be hurt by magical damage, and “Legion of the Dead” from TotT who ignore the first 2 damage from any attack not done with an “Explosive” item. TotT especially has a pretty large number of card of that type. Each deck also adds one “Transformation” type card (“Primal Transformation” in TDF and “Unnatural Transformation” in TotT) which give you a choice to transform into a half-plant creature in one case and an undead in the other. It’s a little disappointing that the two cards, aside from their name, are basically identical (you get +2 in all your stats, but can’t take fatigue damage for the rest of the game). It would have been nice if there were some different aspects to being a plant vs. being undead. These two cards may also be a bit overpowered, since you essentially gain 3 levels, and the downside of not being able to take fatigue damage, while preventing you from using the character’s special abilities, also protects you from challenges that deal fatigue damage. Another two red cards that are essentially identical in the two sets are “Heart of Margath” and “Skeleton of Margath”. Both of these, once defeated, allow you to immediately fight Margath himself. These are fun cards, but it would have been nice if there were some unique aspects to each of them.

The Dark Forest by itself adds a few unique mechanics. One is cards that “Reward” the player with advantages or disadvantages when fighting on forest and swamp spaces. As an example, “Avatar of the Woods”, a blue challenge, gives you a -3 penalty to all rolls on forest and swamp spaces until you defeat a red challenge on one of these type of terrain, after which point you get a +3 to all rolls on swamp and forest. There are also similar green and yellow cards. Another interesting new aspect is cards that give you a weapon, armor, or relic as a reward. Some of these are green challenges, which give you a basic weapon or armor, which can be extremely useful in the early phase of the game.

The one interesting mechanic in Terrors of the Tomb are cards that “resurrect” unused heroes (“A hero of Old Awakens”), allowing you to control them and use them to harass the other players.
One thing missing in both of the above expansions are new event cards. These would have added some variety to the game, however, their omission in these packs is understandable since events in Runebound are generally tied to a certain scenario (i.e. Margath in the base game, Giants in the Kyros expansion, etc.), and the designers apparently wanted to keep these expansions relatively generic. In fact only one non-red card’s flavor text mentions anything related to the any scenario (“Vorakesh” in this case), and I’m guessing that was probably an oversight.

Now on to the two Market deck expansions – Artifacts & Allies and Relics of Legend. Each of these expansions provide new items and allies for the market deck. As with the challenge expansions, most of items & allies bring some new and generally fun mechanic to the game.
Artifacts & Allies once again introduces cards that encourage player interaction – some in non-confrontational ways such as borrowing an ally or trading items (ex. “Cloak of Useful Items”, “Cloak of Time and Space”), others in direct PvP confrontational ones (for example the ally “Sister of Vengeance” becomes stronger every time you defeat another player, but there’s also a counterpart “Sister of Mercy” ally that gets stronger every time her hero is attacked). There are also cards that allow you some control over how the adventure cards are revealed. For example, “Lantern of Revealing” allows you to keep a green or yellow adventure card you draw instead of resolving it and then replace a later green or yellow challenge with it. The other new mechanic introduced in A&A is Familiars. They are basically like allies, except the first one you get doesn’t count towards your ally limit of two, and they are generally not strong in combat but rather have some useful ability. For example, “Healing Toad” takes wounds for you, “Fetch Imp” can fetch items from a nearby town market effectively allowing you to do a Market phase even when not in town). Some familiars are definitely more useful than others though, so some (like the “Demonic Cat”) would probably rarely be bought. The other allies in this expansion do things like get and give bonuses on certain types of terrain or against certain color challenges, or allow you use an additional weapon or armor. The combat items in this set give you both an offensive and defensive capability (and cost more to compensate).

Relics of Legend introduces Banners to the game. These are items that are “charged” by certain actions (defeating a challenge on specific terrain type, inflicting high damage, defeating another hero, etc.), and for each “charge” token you use from these cards you get a certain bonus (receive +2 bonus on “Before Combat” roll, swap your experience counters, prevent discarding of an item or ally when knocked out, etc.). Most banners also give you some additional boon when they’re charged with at least two tokens. There are also some interesting weapons and allies in this deck, which, while not really changing the game mechanics, generally have some interesting effects. For example “Sword of Frostgate” reduces all of the opponents attributes by 1 for every inflicted wound, “Longbow of Tamalir” inflicts +3 damage for each previous round in which your hero did not attack. Although one particular item, “Waraxe of Dawnsmoor” seems somewhat useless – it allows you to defeat a challenge by passing 3 consecutive Body checks, but doesn’t give you the reward. Since you really need the reward most of the time, it seems like you would really only want to use this item against Margath in the endgame, and since it occupies a weapon slot, it’s really not worth buying it just for that.

Overall, each of these expansions adds something new to the game, and in a game like Runebound variety is the spice of life. It makes the game more exciting, adds more player interaction, thereby reducing the “downtime” complaint some people have with this game, and generally enhances the game experience. With their price being in the $4-6 range per expansion, I don’t see any reason for anyone who likes the base Runebound game to not get them all.