Game: Runebound - Relics of Legend

Thread: Relics of Legend

Friendless — 2007-12-10T04:26:28+00:00

Relics of Legend is an item and ally card expansion for Runebound, meaning that the cards get shuffled into your market deck. As the items are related to the towns on the original Runebound map this expansion is not suitable for use with the Island of Dread or the Sands of Al-Kalim expansions.

The deck contains a few allies and lots of items. About half of the items are banners, which I shall treat separately. The allies are all " of ", for example, Boar of Tamalir, or Lion of Frostgate. Each of them costs 8 gold, but they're worth the price. I do find it a little disturbing that I might hire the Ram of Nerekhall while in Vynelvale. Was the ram on holidays, or was he on a quest to find the Shroud of Nerekhall to impress the ewes back home? Besides, the Shroud of Nerekhall was in Dawnsmoor, so maybe he was there for a dirty weekend with the Unicorn of Forge. Yes, these are the allies of legend, but the legends seem a bit odd.

It's equally odd that the relics from the other towns can end up any old where as well. The Longbow of Tamalir is an interesting item, but why isn't it in Tamalir? The items are all very good in themselves, but their names just don't work for me. I'd prefer a rule that said something like when the first yellow challenge is defeated the items from this deck are placed into the market stacks of the appropriate towns. And as mentioned above, if you're not playing a game with Tamalir in it then this expansion just doesn't make much sense.

Finally, the banners. Typically when I play a game of Runebound I'll have up to a dozen cards conferring powers upon me - items I've bought, quests I have to complete, bonuses from defeated challenges. The banner cards have long descriptions like this:

Each time you defeat a Challenge in a hill or mountain space, place 1 Exhaustion on this card. Discard 1 Exhaustion from this card to move into a hill or mountain space using any movement die. As long as there are at least 2 Exhaustion on this card, all spaces adjacent to your Hero are considered mountain terrain for the purposes of other Heroes' movement.

Now call me lazy, but that's just too much work. It's exactly the sort of card which you forget you had and then have to go back and fix it up and figure out what should have happened. It's way too complicated. For that reason, I just leave the banners out when I play. They don't make enough thematic sense for the added effort.

Having said all that though, I really do like the powers of the allies and the items (except the banners). If you're playing in the original Runebound world and can cope with scattering of the legendary items, this is a very good expansion. You might even like the banners.

Thread: Re: Rejects of Legend

Padachan — 2007-10-04T11:08:00+00:00

Also agreeing. Have already picked out the banners to not use again. And most of the items is either to "troublesome" to use or just to worthless. Of course there's some exceptions. The allies are kind of cool but have noticed that few of my friends playing, and me, chooses them.

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Urtur — 2007-09-05T07:27:18+00:00

Polish edition by Galakta. Contains Relics of Legend, Scepter of Kyros and Terrors of the Tomb

Thread: Re: Rejects of Legend

MattShepherd — 2007-08-10T20:16:04+00:00

Another agreement here! The banners have done more to mess up games of Runebound than help it. A Banner of the Boar while you're still in the greens almost invariably means you've won the game.

Thread: Re: Rejects of Legend

Ghool — 2007-08-10T20:01:54+00:00

I've played with this set a lot, and I agree completely with the review. I've taken out a good portion of this set because of the uselessness of many of the cards. This one seems to be the worst of all the item and ally decks I've encountered.

Thread: Re: Rejects of Legend

wwscrispin — 2007-08-10T19:30:18+00:00

I have not played with this wave yet, but after your review I looked through the deck. I would say I tend to agree with you. It would be interesting to see if someone who has played with it and enjoyed it has a rebuttal.

Thread: Rejects of Legend

mjtuell — 2007-08-10T09:26:40+00:00

Relics of Legend is one of many available "Item & Ally" expansions for Runebound. Included is a rules insert (which also covers three other expansions within the same "wave") and 30 new market cards.

I won't keep you in any suspense as to my low opinion of this expansion. In fact, I was prompted to write this review because I was mystified by the relatively high user ratings this and similar expansions seem to draw on the geek. To be clear, I like Runebound a lot. I think these cheap ($4-6) little card expansions are great in concept and I guess most fans of the game are willing to give them a pass just because they are so affordable. However, I think that by the time you throw four or five of them together, you've a right to expect a lot more for your $20-25. Since a lot of people do tend to purchase and lump them together, I thought it might be worth throwing at least one of them under the microscope individually.

POOR BALANCE. In this expansion, almost half of the cards (12 of 30) are "banners", each of which is an artifact with a complicated set of abilities that take time to develop. Each also costs 6 gold and is duplicated in the deck (so there are really only six different ones). Beyond that they range from the game-breakingly powerful to the laughably useless. In the former case, the "Banner of the Boar" allows you to switch out experience counters or even make it cheaper to purchase them with startling ease. On the other hand, we have the "Banner of the Unicorn", of which only one of the abilities is worth troubling over-- and to use it you must first obtain and use THREE "discard-to-use" armor items. Combining this 30-card expansion with the regular 84-card Runebound market deck, how many "discard-to-use" armor items do you suppose there are in the game? I'll give you a hint: less than three!

INELEGANCE: The items in this expansion are characteristically more complex than those in the basic set and there doesn't seem to be much payoff. The banners are clearly the worst offenders, but many of the other items are also rather tediously conceived. The "Longbow of Tamalir", for instance, requires you to keep track of how many rounds your hero abstains from attacking in order to gain an increasing damage bonus (initially zero) in the ranged phase. I can see cases in which that could be useful, but in general I just think there are much better uses for 5 gold and a weapon slot.

INCREASED COST OF LIVING: The vast majority of these new cards (26 of 30) cost 6 gold or more. I feel this does slow the game by inflating the deck with more expensive (not to mention questionable) cards, making it more difficult for new characters to get the game moving. For the most part, the new allies are interesting and probably worth their price, but all six of them cost 8 gold. I think this was poorly considered.

SUMMARY: If you are used to supporting a nasty CCG habit, the idea that you're going to get a decent hand full of cool cards out of what amounts to a couple boosters probably won't bother you at all. All the same, I would not recommend this expansion unless you just have absolutely nothing better to do with five bucks. In contrast to the adventure decks, the market deck of the basic game already offers a lot of variety, so there is no real need to endure the lazy design and fussy complexity served up in this expansion.

[Edited for typographical errors and clarity.]

Thread: Re: Review - The Good and the Bad

Blueharlequin — 2007-07-17T03:22:05+00:00

lordunborn wrote:

... but this one is a major game winner.

Yeah, too much so for our games.
We pulled them from the deck.

Thread: Re: Review - The Good and the Bad

lordunborn — 2007-07-16T13:12:35+00:00

The Banner of the Boar is the BEST early card to get. If you play the Market Variant (A Must if you play with all the item/ally expansions) the best thing you can do is try for the Banner of the Boar. Once you get 2 Gems you will level faster then the rest of the players and they don't really stand much of a chance. I have won twice with a major come from behind victory due to this card. We also place the Relics of Legend in the towns that are associated to them (Kind of doesn't make sense to buy a banner of the boar in Forge) which does make getting the Banner rather easy but there are two of them so in a 4 player game (the most we ever play with due to downtime) 50% of the players will get the banner.

I have not really looked at all the other banners but this one is a major game winner.

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

Konwacht — 2006-07-20T17:29:23+00:00

Well done review!

I like the expansions too - but I would strongly recommend to play without those Lantern- and Banner-Items. They both make the game a lot to easy. With the first ones you are able to avoid most of the deadly challenges - and slow the game a bit down since often players take time to decide if they want to pack some adventure under their item or not. There´s no real surprise any more and it´s no "thrill" to travel on challenges... I don´t know the exact name of one item but it lets you look at each (!) challenge - even when another player draws it - and then you may decide first, if you want to put it under your item. Next time on your turn you may now initiate that challange instead of moving. That´s really ... unbalanced. You won´t travel any more onto dangerous colors - your simply wait until someone draws one that you are able to solve. Voilá - you get it, your opponent has to draw another one (which is most often more deadly) and you have nothing to do than to slay your challenge on your turn. That´s very unfair and makes runebound VERY easy (far to easy). The banners are a bit unbalanced too. Especially that one that lets you purchase experience counters for one point less which is really game-breaking and a BIG disadvantage for all other players. This banner of the boar is so frustrating for the others since it is only of medium costs (6 gold) and has such a hard effect on game play. Since the banners slow down the game too (because after most actions players have to put counters on these banners and often they have to read the complicate text on it while acting to remind them on the effect of the banner `cause of the complicate nature "when x counters than y on spaces of type z...") - we decided to remove them from our games.

Thread: Re: Review - The Good and the Bad

MrSkeletor — 2006-01-18T21:52:40+00:00

John, I'll do a breakdown when I next get some free time (probably in another week).
Isle of Dread, the 2 adventure decks should be fine solo tho. The giant adventure will work fine solo (I think it's scepter?) the other one would need some houserulling. A lot of the new items in those decks do PvP things, but to be honest for $10 a piece you may as well just get them anyway before they go out of print!

Thread: Re: Review - The Good and the Bad

Friendless — 2006-01-18T13:09:26+00:00

How much of the set is worth having if you mostly play solo?

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Grimwold — 2006-01-15T13:25:19+00:00

Banners, characterised by the different towns - 2 each for a total of 12 cards

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Grimwold — 2006-01-15T13:08:14+00:00

New Weapons; Armour and Artifacts, characterised by the various towns

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Grimwold — 2006-01-15T13:03:49+00:00

New Allies - an Animal representing each of six towns

Thread: Review - The Good and the Bad

mangler103 — 2006-01-13T15:53:55+00:00

Relics of Legend

My group has played twice with the four small deck expansions that were recently released for Runebound. After the 2nd play, I did some house cleaning.

Each of these expansions has a different theme, but the problem is that for this set in particular, the theme is overly complicated.

In this set, we are given a dozen or so "Banner" cards, each of which is associated with a different animal. Each of them cost the same amount, and each of them is insanely specific and complicated. Here's some sample text, which can be read in this image: ]]>

Each time you defeat a challenge in a hill or mountain space, place 1 (exhaustion) on this card. Discard one (exhaustion) from this card to move into a hill or mountain space using any movement die. As long as there are at least 2 (exhaustion) on this card, all spaces adjacent to your hero are considered mountain terrain for the purposes of other Heroes' movement.

Wow, I'm amazed they were able to fit all of that on one side. Regardless of how useful the card might be if you can actually buy it, and then get enough exhaustion on it to use it, is it really worth all the time and effort for possibly delaying another player slightly? All of the other Banner cards are just as expensive (6 gold), and just as complicated, most of them involving messing with other players.

Also, there's 2 of each Banner card. My market deck was about to topple.

The other theme that runs through all of the card expansions is the theme of screwing with your opponents. While lots of groups certainly love to attack other players, and cause them as much trouble as possible, my group prefers to keep this game shorter.

I removed almost half of the cards in this expansion. If your group really likes Player vs. Player in Runebound, then these cards are exactly what you're looking for. Otherwise, you might weigh the purchase a bit more heavily. Granted, there are some great allies in this set, and some interesting weapons. Personally, I'll take all the Runebound I can get, so I don't mind it, but for the more frugal Runebound fans, make sure you know what you're getting into.

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

Mishenka — 2006-01-11T05:14:32+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 counterparts “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 familiar 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 expansion 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.

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Firepigeon — 2005-12-19T16:38:50+00:00