Runewars - Thoughts after initial game

Runewars has been the first game I have actively been anticipating for quite some time. Unlike lots of games which ride in on a wave of hype and then languish on the shelf I fully intended to get the game on the table and played asap. 

I preordered from Coolstuffinc and had it Friday, then we aimed to play the next day. I spent Friday night setting the game up so my brother inlaw and I could just hit the game full force. Sometimes the FFG games setup steps is like a mini game by itself. Runewars is no expception...piles of cards, modular board setup, chit piles...it was so saucy it should have been outlawed. The hex board put it over the edge for me since I love my hexes...I don't know quite what but its the running gag at my house that I hide in the basement having "hexual relations" with my games rather than spending time with my wife or friends. Not entirely true...but not entirely false either.

Our first game was humans versus undead. I setup both sides (as randomly as I could) and was ready to roll. The goal here is to control land (hexes) that have dragon runes, if you get 6 you win immediately. Each nation starts with 2 runes and 1 false rune (as they are all face down you can do a bit of bluffing in where you put these to bait an attack, or even block someone else since each land can only house 1 rune). You start with a stronghold that generates your units and can then muster your starting force there.

The core game is quite simple. The game is played over rounds and four rounds make up a "year" in the game. Each round represents a season, and the cards from these decks trigger different events. You start in the spring by essentially refilling your hand of orders, reading yourself for the coming year. You conclude the year in the winter where you must have plenty of food handy or will need to destroy excess units since your usual max units per land is cut from 8 to "current food level" which could be 2 or 3...not good if your land doesnt generate much food.

Within each round, you work with the order cards in your hand. You start with 8, then play one each season. You can play each one once, then in the spring you get them back so you have all 8 again. The orders are what drives the action. You have 3 orders for moving (1 for shuffling troops, and 2 for attacking), 1 order for recruiting troops, 1 for gathering resources, one for the cities you control, etc.

Each order outlines its action, and also a supremacy action which is triggered when the order value (1-8, listed on the card itself) is the highest played each year. I like this mechanism since it forces you to really consider the lower number orders (which are good on their own) and the timing of each. In the spring you will get this automatically since the first card you play IS the highest number each turn as of that point in time. When we were playing, we usually opened with Order 1, Strategize which lets you move troops to adjacent areas or friendly areas. The bonus here is you draw a tactics card. The next card you play could be value 2 or could be value 7. If you play 7, you get that bonus...but if you play the 2 afterwards its not the highest order so you just get the basic action. Maximizing the benefits of the orders one plays is a key part of success here.

The land hexes have resources on them, so common sense indicates you want to expand out and claim more to get more units (and then more runes). You move your units out with orders and can either go to empty territory or try to either enlist or kill the neutral units on the map. My brother inlaw happened to buddy up with a dragon on turn 2 or 3 so I had a bad feeling of things to come. These units fight alongside your own units but some aren't overly strong so I am not sure how critical getting them on your side would be. A dragon is a no brainer though, but beastmen or sorcerors might warrant more consideration before spending influence trying to court them.

Each year there is one action that triggers your hero. Each side starts with a hero (pulled from Descent/Runebound) who are basically an extra mini game that is intertwined with the base game. The hero has a quest that involves traveling the board with an objective. The heroes can duel each other but don't play a lof into the actual armies (at least not in our initial match). Here is where there is a bit of narrative, since you have to pass a skill check on some of these quests. My foe had a quest in the mountains where she failed the check and was crushed under a landslide (dying in the process). Her gear was dropped in a pile where she fell to be picked up by another brave hero. The quests can generate dragon runes I believe so they are important but I didnt get a lot of practice using them since my forces ended up getting beat up on turn/year 4.

Combat is well done in that it does have a bit of randomness with the fate deck but depending on how you build your forces and how lucky you are the fight can go either way. Each unit has a special ability that when the card indicates 'special' you can trigger. Otherwise you can do simple damage, or cause a route...or nothing at all. Units fight in initiative order from 1 to 5 and in hindsight you really need to bring a good size force across the map if you don't want to get routed and crushed. The more of a given unit you have, the more cards you draw (and the more options you get). It makes sense now, but I didnt pick up on that fact when building my army.

As you acquire runes, you can replace blank ones and put the actual runes in empty areas. This could go two ways...you can put the blank one in a key spot thus hosing the opponent (which seemed pretty excellent) and you can put the good runes near your armies. We picked up on this about halfway through, so rune placement will need to be done very carefully next game.

Overall, the game felt a bit like a table top Ogre Battle (snes). You have this almost top-down view of the action and direct both the army units and hero across the map while the opponent does the same. The mechanics were well thought out and intuitive enough that we were able to move through the game without many hiccups which is high praise for a FFG game. Most often we have to read and re-read some rules, but after we tried all the different ordered I only checked the rulebook a few times to check some details. The set game length (6 turns) and player number (4) make this a more likely candidate for mega game days at my house (where we sometimes cant pull 6-7 people or may not have 8 hours for a game). It scratches a similar itch in a reasonable time frame.