Runewars is a fantasy area control/empire building game for 2 to 4 players designed by Corey Koniezca based on the 1998 game Battlemist.
Unlike other games of this genre, Runewars’ play time is about 2 to 4 hours including setup, the first play will probably last a bit longer with the usual rule digging in the rulebook, which is very well structured. It’s a bit shocking to have a Fantasy Flight game that does actually last as long as the box says, it plays almost too fast leaving you ready for another game and another and another.
What is it all about?
In Runewars each player controls a fantasy faction, the regular elves, humans and undead are included but there is also a very cool barbarian/demon race. The game is based on the same setting as Descent and Runebound, which I guess is neither good nor bad. The setting is pretty generic in my opinion but it gets the work done and if you play several of the games in this world it’s nice to see old heroes and items show up in different games.
Players recruit troops from their factions and hire heroes to fight for control of dragon runes on a beautifully illustrated modular board. The mountains on the board are even 3d! which at first sight seems a bit gimmicky but proves very useful on identifying impassable terrain.
How do I play it?
Hold it! Before you get to play it, you first have to set up the board. It’s a very important part of the game as it will balance the players positions. and why would you do that? Well when setting up the map no one really knows exactly where they’re gonna end up so players usually try to balance the map by themselves. It’s a really nice idea that works great. Worried about games getting too repetitive? Even with 4 players you don’t get to use all of the pieces so games are always different.
Now that the map is set up and players have placed their home realms they recruit their initial units and the game begins.
The factions are balanced but they all have their strong and weak points, usually evil factions have less influence but more tactics cards, and good factions have more influence but less tactics cards. Influence plays several roles in the game, but most notably is used to bid for gaining more dragon runes. Tactics cards allow players to make unexpected plays that can grant a bit of an edge on the game. So it is very important to have both of these resources.
The game ends as soon as someone claims his sixth dragon rune or after 24 turns. Why 24 turns? The game is divided into seasons (Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter, for those who haven’t learned these things yet), the game ends on the sixth year. Why six years? I guess even undead and demonic barbarians get sick of wars after a long time.
Each season there will be a special effect that will change the game that season and a season effect that is always the same every season. Special effects range from having influence bids on dragon runes to lowering your resources (more on that later!), season effects range from heroes questing in the Summer to having to feed your troops in Winter.
The game has a very nice way of controlling resources, instead of having to deal with wood, ore and food chits, each player has 3 dials, these dials represent the resources you have and you’re allowed the benefits of everything from the dial below. You reap these benefits usually with order cards.
Every season you choose an order card face down, then after all the players have chosen everyone shows their cards and the player with the lowest numbered card goes first. Ties are solved by whoever has more influence and if still tied for the player with most initial influence (in fact all ties in the game are resolved like this).
Orders allow you to recruit units, move them, harvest your resources, hire heroes and even recruiting neutral units in cities.
Every order card except one has a supremacy bonus, the player can use this bonus if this is the highest numbered card he’s played this turn, that’s why there’s a card that has no bonus because it is always the highest card. This is to encourage players to follow a certain sequence in their actions but eventually leads to choices between playing an order and waiting a bit on it to get the supremacy bonus.
Moving on, above I talked about neutral units, these start the game in predetermined areas and as the name implies they belong to no one. There are several monsters from Descent as well as dragons and giants. You can choose to fight these units or attempt diplomacy. Using the fate deck which is also shared for use in battles (yes, this game has no dice) and for heroes quests, you may draw up to six cards, which you have to pay with influence. Given that there are only 4 cards that have a positive result, it is hard to recruit units this way, but very rewarding to stroll around with a dragon.
So let’s talk about what you can do with that dragon and all the other units you’ve been recruiting, yes, it’s time for battle!
When a player invades another player’s territory a battle begins, each player then arranges their units by initiative and battle begins starting with units with the lowest initiative value. Usually units that attack first miss more but units that are stronger may not see any battle action if they get hit first! So there’s a nice balance there. For each initiative row players draw fate cards and apply the results, these may be a miss, a hit, a special power or a rout (knocking a unit on it’s side an
d disallowing it to participate in battle). Each unit has a different shaped base and you check the appropriate shape in the fate card.
There is luck in the battle, but not excessive luck. After all the rows have attacked the battle ends each player sums his strength which consist of standing units and stronghold in the area if any. the player with the highest strength stays in the region and the other must retreat and rout his units. This allows for fast battles that don’t have to end in the total annihilation of another player’s forces.
So what about those heroes? Don’t they go to battle massive armies and gain glory for your kingdom? Well… no. Heroes have a much more important role, which is to spy on enemy dragon runes and getting rewards that can be traded for dragon runes. If opposing heroes encounter they may duel, the winner getting all the loser’s rewards. Heroes get rewards by performing quests, these usually consist on going to some point on the board and drawing fate cards according to one of the heroes’ skills. If the hero passes he gets his loot if not he may in some cases die!
In the box
Lots of plastic figures, a lot of cardboard pieces to unpunch and a lot of air. don’t get me wrong, you won’t be disappointed be the content of the box, but it’s clearly made to hold a future expansion in there. There are also a lot of tiny cards, which is actually pretty cool, because they occupy less table space. The only normal sized cards are the order cards and the quest cards. Most cards have a small illustration which is a nice touch that I missed for example in Twilight Imperium. Also you’ll get those 3d mountains, according to the rulebook they “click” onto their board spaces, but that is far from the truth, it’s bot really an issue and for now I’ve decided to keep my mountains apart but they could also be glued to the hexes.
Is it a good game for me?
This isn’t a random fest despite the quantity of cards involved, however in the first plays it may seem so as there is so much to take into account. Also, if you’re looking for a fantasy wargame this isn’t it as well, there is a military component involved but it’s only a part of a bigger game. It is an incredibly short game for the depth it offers and for that reason the rulebook offers an epic variant that will take some more time to play.
The game is highly replayable as each faction has its perks and feels very different to play. If you’re looking for a big box game to play I can’t think of anything better than this game right now.
The standard price isn’t too inviting (100$/€ depending where you live) but you can usually find it much cheaper around the web.
External links
Runewars – Fantasy Flight games
Tiago is the mastermind behind Breaking the Magic but he usually isn't the mastermind when playing games getting a lot of humiliating last places. He is however a cunning Cylon. Also never ask him to roll a die, even though he doesn't have bad luck at critical times he is known to roll the worst possible result. He loves receiving mail and answers every single one. 
Good review! It gave me a clear idea of what the game is like and made me more interested in trying the game than I was before.
Thanks.
Hope you get to try it, it’s a really interesting game. I’m already wishing for an expansion with more races because I think that this will see so much play that I’ll get tired of the base four