Fantasy Flight Games

Adventurers Assemble

Published 27 July 2017 | Runebound

Adventurers Assemble

The Unbreakable Bonds Expansion for Runebound Third Edition Is Available Now

The heroes of Terrinoth are known to live a solitary existence, favoring uninhibited adventure over the companionship offered by a team. But as dangers grow across the realm, defenders will have to band together to beat back the impossible odds that face them. The safety of the Free Cities must outweigh old rivalries, but setting their differences aside may prove to be the most difficult task the adventurers have ever attempted.

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce that the Unbreakable Bonds expansion for Runebound Third Edition is now available! With new heroes, scenarios, and forms of gameplay, as well as a wide variety of new asset and skill cards, this expansion offers players hours of enhanced gameplay to unite and pursue glory!

Unlikely Partnership

Unbreakable Bonds unites two new heroes of the Runebound universe. The famous elven warrior Eliam is renowned for the lightning speed of his twin blades and the cruel joy he takes in destroying his enemies. But despite his fame, the bold adventurer must constantly seek high-paying quests to fund his lavish lifestyle. Meanwhile Tatianna, the master huntress, seeks fortune not for herself, but to ensure the survival of her tribe. These unlikely allies must come together to face adversaries more powerful than any they have encountered.

Forming a band offers adventurers a unique set of advantages new to Runebound gameplay. Once heroes have formed a band by moving into the same space, they move as a single group, allowing them to traverse greater distances with each hero moving the entire party during their turn. The group dynamic also gives players the opportunity to learn Party Skills to strengthen them against the enemies they may face.

However, these skills are only available to those who fight as a part of the group. If any hero abandons the party, they forfeit their access to the Party Skills, as any personal pursuit of glory must always come with a price. But if a player chooses to return to the party, and their fellow party members allow them back in, they can use the Party Skills without having to relearn them.

A Dangerous World

Unbreakable Bonds introduces both cooperative and solo gameplay to three player-favorite scenarios: The Corpse King, Caught in a Web, and The Ascendance of Margath, and offers two brand new adventures unique to the Unbreakable Bonds expansion.

In The Red Death, the towns of Terrinoth are ravaged by a strange fever that turns the skin and eyes of its victims a terrifying red while also covering them with painful boils. To put a stop to this plague, heroes must gather ingredients and find a cure before more innocent lives are lost. The one who finds a cure will undoubtedly be lavished with fame and fortune from the grateful people, but it may be worthwhile to share the glory with another to guarantee the cure is found before Death catches Terrinoth’s heroes in its clutches.

Evil emerges from the Ru Darklands in Locust Swarm. Uthuk Y’llan warbands are spreading throughout the realm, attacking any shrine, village, or city that they can defeat without a fight. Adventurers will battle an army of Mystics, Tricksters, Warriors, and Savages armed with only their small cache of weapons, their cunning, and just a little luck. With the odds so greatly stacked against them, heroes may be forced to forget their competitive natures and work together, if only temporarily. To save the realm, the heroes of Runebound must find a way to push back the swarm and end the Locust Swarm’s demonic reign.

Gather Your Party

The times grow dark and Terrinoth needs heroes. Take up your sword, strap on your walking boots, and band together to form Unbreakable Bonds!

Look for Unbreakable Bonds (RB06) on sale at your local retailer or online today!

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United Against the Swarm

Published 23 June 2017 | Runebound

United Against the Swarm

Previewing the Locust Swarm Scenario from the Unbreakable Bonds Expansion

Long ago the world met darkness
Beneath red banners, horror gripped the land
Wandering, thirsty, and bloodied by rage
They swarmed the land like locusts

Rumors have reached the adventurers of Terrinoth that an ancient evil has returned to terrorize the Realm. The Uthuk Y’llan, commonly called the locust swarm, have awoken from their slumber. Their violent warbands have gathered and are riding out of the wastes to attack shrines, towns, strongholds, and cities of the Baronies. If the realm’s heroes wish to push back the locust swarm, they must set aside their differences and work together… even if just this once.

Today we'll look at a preview of the Locust Swarm scenario from the Unbreakable Bonds expansion for Runebound Third Edition!

Locust Swarm

The Uthuk Y’llan are a race twisted by their unholy alliance with the demonic realm. They have not been seen in Terrinoth since the First Darkness, when a horde led by Llovar Rutonu rampaged across the kingdoms of Elves, Dwarves, and Men. They came from the Ru Darklands, where their foul touch turned what was once green brown and sere. They did the same to the lands they conquered, turning them into blackened wastes, slaughtering or taking prisoner any who dared cross their path. It was only the heroism of Timmerran Lokander that saved the world, when he slew Llovar at the Battle of the Locusts. The threat of the Uthuk soon faded into memory, and memory into legend.

But the Ru Darklands stir once more, and the Uthuk warbands venture forth from the Black Citadel to bring nightmares to life. Woe betide anyone who falls beneath the grisly cut of the Uthuk’s curved blades, but a worse fate awaits those who are taken alive.

Demonic Destruction

Now, the Uthuk warbands rampage across Terrinoth and leave destruction in their wake. At the beginning of the Locust Swarm scenario, players place one random warband faceup on the first space of the story track, and then spawn that warband in Outlaw’s Glade. To anticipate the growing horde, players must also place one additional random warband facedown on the story track for each player; these will reveal themselves as the Story Quest progresses.

Each of the five Uthuk warbands gains units throughout the story, either through events or when gems are refreshed. These units make the locust hordes more powerful, with their growing power determining their next target. At their weakest, with one unit, the warband can target shrines only. But as their forces grow, they progressively become equipped to target towns, strongholds, and eventually cities. Whenever a warband enters a civilized hex, they ravage the area beyond repair, and players must place a scorched earth token in that hex. Civilized hexes that bear the scorched earth token are considered empty and have the wild terrain type.

The Uthuk Y’llan are an opportunistic race, taking advantage of those they know they can dominate. As such, they will never engage in a fight they cannot win and cannot enter a civilized hex they cannot target. Instead, they must maneuver around these areas, keeping to the shadows until they find a weaker target they can strike. If a warband does not have a target, they gain a unit on each of their turns until a target is acquired. The moment that the Uthuk Y’llan learn of a target ripe to pillage, they move in its direction no matter how far it takes them.

Unlikely Partnership

The only ones standing in the way of the Uthuk Y'llan's unopposed victory are the heroes of Terrinoth. Unbreakable Bonds changes a core element of the original Runebound game by introducing both solo and cooperative combat experiences. Now faced with their most difficult task to date, heroes will have to put aside their differences and fight alongside those who once acted as their rivals.

To defeat the Locust Swarm, up to four heroes may form a Party. A party allows players to achieve more by sharing the cost of learning skills, and trading across the realm using envelopes to share gold, quests, rumors, or skills. However, old rivalries die hard, and working together may not always go smoothly. If tensions rise among the group, a hero may leave the Party at any time, regardless of whose turn it is. This can increase a single player's opportunity to gain wealth and glory, but also costs them any skills they learned as part of the team. Should a hero decide their abandonment was folly, they must reach a hex occupied by the rest of the party and likely make a humble apology to rejoin the group.

Infiltrate the Horde

To combat the Locust Swarm, heroes may find that brain is more effective than brawn. With the right clothing, makeup, and stench, even a human can pass for an Uthuk. With the Infiltrate quest, a hero may test their mind against the cunning of the Uthuk and hopefully gain entrance into their ranks. In order to invade the warband and gain their trust, a hero will have to take damage by donating blood to sell the illusion. However, once they have successfully penetrated the Uthuk’s ranks, a hero has the opportunity to falsify orders. This can weaken the warband by moving their units to another locust horde. Ultimately, the hero may steal from the warband’s pillage hoard, using the demonic foe’s ill-gotten gains to benefit themselves and act toward the warband’s ultimate destruction.

To win, heroes must defeat all the Uthuk warbands, a task only possible by banding together to push back the mighty locust hordes. The demonic foes are daunting, but the power of heroes fighting side-by-side may be enough to drive the monstrosities out of Terrinoth.

Push Back the Swarm

Can the heroes of today live up to the greatness of the past, or will Terrinoth itself fall into legend, granting Llovar his final revenge?

Battle the Locust Swarm in Unbreakable Bonds (RB06) at your local retailer in Q4 of 2017!

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Unbreakable Bonds

Published 12 April 2017 | Runebound

Unbreakable Bonds

Introducing Cooperative and Solo Play for Runebound

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce Unbreakable Bonds, a new expansion introducing both cooperative and solo play for Runebound!

You’ve spent your life tramping across the fields of Terrinoth, facing danger time and again, testing your skills in battle against terrifying monsters, and living a life of unchecked adventure. You never know what you may discover beyond the horizon—a towering range of mountains, the lair of an evil beast, or the sun reflecting from the walls of one of the Free Cities. Yet throughout your travels, there’s always been a feeling of competition with other adventurers, driving you to fight harder and move faster than another so-called “hero.” Just maybe you’d prefer to work and fight together, once in a while?

Unbreakable Bonds is a new expansion for Runebound, and gives you the option to dramatically reshape the nature of the game. Rather than competing against up to three opponents, Unbreakable Bonds invites you to journey through the fantasy realm of Terrinoth as part of a group, or even to strike out on your own in a solo game! With a robust combat system to control the monsters, two new heroes, five cooperative / solo scenarios, and a wealth of new asset and skill cards, Unbreakable Bonds pushes the borders of Terrinoth further than ever and leads you into new adventures with every game.

A Common Goal

More than anything else in Unbreakable Bonds, the new scenarios change the nature of the game. Before, you could maintain a petty rivalry with the other heroes and still increase your skills, gain new assets, and defeat the evil that threatens Terrinoth—but now, you’re facing a deadly threat that forces you and your fellow heroes to work together if you’re going to survive. Within this expansion, you’ll find two brand-new Runebound scenarios for you to play cooperatively or solo: The Locust Swarm and The Red Death. And if that weren’t enough, you’ll also find new scenario cards for three existing scenarios, inviting you to play the Core Set scenarios or Caught in a Web as a cooperative or solo scenario!

Like previous Runebound scenarios, each of the new cooperative / solo scenarios outlines a new danger facing the realm that the heroes will need to face. Unlike earlier scenarios, however, the threats you face with Unbreakable Bonds are great enough that the heroes of Terrinoth must choose to unite to protect the Free Cities. You may be pitted against vicious outbreaks of disease or ravaging Uthuk Y’llan warbands, but either way, you’ll need to work together with your companions to best the obstacles placed in your way.

Fortunately, in a cooperative game, you and your friends aren’t doomed to fight alone. In fact, you now have the option to form a party with one or more other heroes by moving into the same space. While you belong to a hero party, the entire party moves as a single group. When one hero moves on his turn, the entire party moves with him, making it a highly efficient way to cover more ground. What’s more, belonging to a hero party also gives you the chance to learn new party skills! These powerful skills show you the real benefits of staying in a group, whether you’re making attribute tests with Cover Weakness or supporting each other in battle with a Coordinated Attack. Of course, sometimes the party must split up to accomplish separate goals, but when you rejoin, you’ll regain access to any party skills that your group has purchased over the course of the game.

In any cooperative or solo game of Runebound, you’ll also be able to quickly engage in combat using the four new combat boards from Unbreakable Bonds. Each of these combat boards corresponds to a different type of enemy: Warrior, Mystic, Savage, or Trickster. After engaging in battle with an enemy, you’ll simply take the combat board and the set of six brand-new combat tokens that corresponds to that enemy’s trait.

During the battle, you’ll cast the enemy’s combat tokens, and then sort them into the appropriate spaces on the combat board. Whenever it’s time for your enemy to take an action, you simply move to the next space on the combat board, resolving all tokens in that space. With unique rules, special bonuses, and a different arrangement for every combat board, your Runebound battles have never been more innovative or dangerous.

Even if you prefer to play Runebound as a competitive game, there’s still plenty for you to enjoy in Unbreakable Bonds. Two new heroes offer unique ways for you to build and advance your character throughout the game. Twenty new assets and thirty new skill cards open the door for a wealth of extra options. And ten unique twist cards—such as Secret Wares —introduce all manner of unforeseen events that may crop up as you visit the marketplaces of the Free Cities.

Join Your Friends

With two additional ways to play Runebound—as an intrepid lone wolf or with a group of your friends—Unbreakable Bonds brings the taste of the unknown into your games. Join new heroes, embark on new adventures, and look for Unbreakable Bonds at your local retailer in the third quarter of 2017!

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Into the Wild

Published 22 August 2016 | Runebound

Into the Wild

Preview The Mountains Rise Adventure Pack for Runebound

In the wild places of Terrinoth, beasts move fearlessly through the night once more, as isolated farmers and woodsmen bar their doors against the darkness. A blood-red moon is rising, and with its ascent, feral and vicious creatures grow even more bold. As chilling howls and horrific screams ring through the forests and mountains, Terrinoth’s greatest heroes venture into the wild. Only the most stalwart will return…

Take your place as a hero of Terrinoth and venture into the barren wilds with The Mountains Rise, a new Adventure Pack that invites you to enter the vibrant world of Runebound! Like The Gilded Blade Adventure Pack, The Mountains Rise can be integrated into any scenario, whether you’re playing an adventure from the Core Set or from one of the new Scenario Packs. Twenty new asset cards, ten new skills, and five new cards for each adventure deck offer a unique touch to any scenario, inviting you to customize your game and make every adventure completely unique. Finally, with a brand-new hero, you’ll find a new foundation for your adventures and experience the reckless exhilaration of battle no matter where you travel in Terrinoth.

Today, we’ll take a closer look at The Mountains Rise Adventure Pack, starting with its new hero, Nanok of the Blade.

The Thrill of Battle

Enormous, fur-clad, and full of good-natured violence, Nanok of the Blade is a fearsome barbarian with a surprising past: he actually hails from a noble family in northern Terrinoth. Nanok’s refusal to wear any armor more comprehensive than bracers and a helm is a question of philosophy, not culture. He simply believes that by inviting death in battle, he lives more fully and fights more fiercely than anyone else. Some might disagree, but by now, most of them are dead.

When you experience a game of Runebound through playing Nanok of the Blade, your love of battle will drive you throughout the game. Not only are most of your abilities focused around combat, your combat tokens are uniquely designed to deal maximum damage to your foes. As just one example, you’ll find the newly introduced charge symbol on one of Nanok’s combat tokens. This symbol deals unblockable damage to your foe, but for the rest of the combat round, you can’t block any damage your opponent deals! Still, if you’re not planning on defending anyways, there are few more effective ways to cut through your opponent’s defenses.

Click the card above to see the reverse side!

You’ll also be able to start looking for a fight as soon as possible. As Nanok of the Blade’s setup bonus, you can move to any combat adventure gem within three hexes, giving you an early lead on battling enemies and reaping the rewards. Once you get into combat, your hero abilities also relate exclusively to combat. After you use a charge symbol, you can trigger Shatter to remove one of your foe’s tokens with a single enemy damage. Assault, on the other hand, allows you to spend any number of shields to deal an equal amount of physical damage—literally transforming a strong defense into the best offense.

Charge!

As Nanok of the Blade, your abilities are obviously most effective when you have plenty of charge symbols, and the new asset cards in The Mountains Rise certainly don’t disappoint. You may wield a Moonbeam Flail, which gives you another charge symbol and the potential to recast one of your unspent tokens whenever you deal charge damage! Alternatively, you may take up a Dragontooth Hammer, which guarantees charge damage and increases your body attribute during tests. Or, if you want to armor up, you can don the Fists of Iron, which deal charge damage, increase your body, and allow you to recast a spent combat token after you deal charge damage!

Though your primary skills as Nanok of the Blade are devoted to your body, you also have a strong spirit. The Mountains Rise offers ten new spirit skills, and many of them can give you just the edge that you need to customize your hero into a deadly fighting machine. Aria of War, for instance, can improve your health based on your spirit attribute, giving you a better chance of surviving without blocking enemy damage.

Glory of Battle rewards you for victory on the field of battle by allowing you to move up to two hexes and draw two skill cards. In a game where your journeys never truly end, some extra movement can be crucial for launching you along the path to your next adventure. Finally, you may create a Cacophony, dealing every combatant a single damage that cannot be blocked, once per combat round. Since you have a higher health than many monsters, this tradeoff commonly works in your favor.

As the wild places of Terrinoth fill with dangerous creatures, you’ll find plenty of new enemies to fight in this Adventure Pack. You may test your might against a Troll, whose devastating Backswing can double the amount of damage you take in a single round. A Giant may cause an Avalanche and bury you beneath a mountain of rock, while the elusive Wendigo can tear a hero to shreds in mere moments. Of course, not every adventure will end in battle. You may hunt a rare beast in the Bitter Downs or listen to the mad words of a wild vagabond in the streets of the Free Cities. In every game of Runebound, a new adventure is always just around the corner, and there’s no end to what you may accomplish or what you may become.

A Ravening Beast

There’s danger rising in the forests and hills of Terrinoth, and as one of the realm’s mightiest heroes, it’s your responsibility to stop it. Gather your weapons, hunt down the beasts, and slaughter your prey! You can find The Mountains Rise Adventure Pack and the Fall of a Dark Star Scenario Pack at your local retailer on September 1st.

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A Dark Star Falls

Published 9 August 2016 | Runebound

A Dark Star Falls

Preview the Fall of a Dark Star Scenario Pack

Prophecies have long foretold this day would come to Terrinoth. A blazing star, streaking across the sky, that brings not light, but corruption. On remote moors and darkened forests, sinister rituals are held as black shards fall from the night sky, each imbued with the comet’s corruption. In these dark times, even the greatest heroes of the land shall turn on each other and the people they were sworn to protect…

It is a time of evil in Terrinoth. A comet rains corruption across the realm, dark priests conduct sinister rites, and even the hearts of your good and stout companions are turned to evil. Even you are not immune to the effects of this star, and when the greatest heroes clash and fight to destroy each other, only one will be left alive. Enter a sinister future for Terrinoth in the Fall of a Dark Star Scenario Pack for Runebound!

Following the footsteps of the Caught in a Web Scenario Pack, Fall of a Dark Star introduces an entirely new scenario to the game, paired with thirty new adventure cards and ten new story cards that give the scenario its own unique flavor. And of course, you’ll also find an entirely new hero, giving you a new foundation to forge your legend as you adventure across the realm.

Today, we’ll preview the darkness that engulfs Terrinoth in Fall of a Dark Star, starting with an new hero: Zyla.

A Fae Creature

No mortal can be expected to understand the fae, and so none can really claim to understand Zyla. She has flitted through the mortal realm for centuries, appearing when and where it pleases her, usually to visit ruination upon some villain or another. Her cheerful good humor does little to mask a lethal disregard for human life, especially the lives of the wicked. Yet things are changing in Terrinoth, and Zyla has foreseen the end of an age in fire and blood. She accepts this with her same uncaring smile and she hones her eldritch blade to prepare for her next opponent.

When you take on the persona of Zyla in a game of Runebound, you become a creature utterly alien to Terrinoth. Unlike a human, dwarf, orc, or elf, Zyla comes from another realm—and she often seems to break the rules that govern the rest of the world. For instance, Zyla begins the game rolling four dice in movement, exemplifying the way that she can slip in and out of the mortal realm.

Zyla also has little use for the gold of Terrinoth, and she only starts the game with a single piece. That hardly means she is inexperienced, however. Zyla has played her role in adventures that reach far beyond Terrinoth, and she starts the game with a trophy of your choice. Or, if you’re playing the Fall of a Dark Star scenario, you may choose to immediately gain a dark shard instead. (We’ll take a closer look at dark shards further on in this preview.)

Click the card above to view the reverse side.

Zyla’s combat tokens also illustrate her arcane approach to adventure. Not only does she have plenty of ways to deal magical damage, her unorthodox fighting style grants her the tactics symbol first introduced in The Gilded Blade Adventure Pack. As before, you can spend the tactics symbol to copy a symbol on another combat token, giving you an unparalleled ability to adapt to your opponent’s actions.

You’ll also be able to draw on Zyla’s esoteric abilities to shape the course of your adventures during the game. Channel Chaos allows you to suffer damage in order to reveal more cards during an attribute test, increasing your chance of success in exchange for a little blood. Alternatively, you can spend a surge in battle to magically Transfix your enemy—choosing one of your opponent’s spent tokens and preventing him from casting that token in the next round.

Reign of Darkness

The dark times that Zyla has seen approaching will take all of Terrinoth by storm, radically changing the landscape and the way that you’ll approach your games of Runebound. Throughout the game, you’ll have chance to acquire prophetic visions or dark shards. These dark shards are mere fragments of the corrupting comet that falls towards Terrinoth, but they do possess strange and unknowable abilities.

For each dark shard that your hero possesses, you can increase your health by two, but these dark shards do not come without a price. Each time you gain a dark shard, you must draw one of the fifteen corruption cards included with this expansion—and each corruption card offers a unique and dangerous drawback. Aura of Rage forces you to take damage at the start of combat, Blackened Soul prevents you from entering shrines, and Foul Fortunes allows your opponent to choose which exploration cards you receive for the rest of the game. The only way to avoid these punishing effects is to discard your prophetic visions.

You may believe that you’d be better off avoiding these corruption cards entirely, assuming that increased health isn’t worth the price. You’d be wrong however, and you’d realize it as soon as the scenario endgame comes around. At the end of Act 2, each hero heals all damage then moves into the Cursed Ruins. Then, a multi-hero fight to the death begins and the only hero left standing wins the game! At this point, the extra health you gain from your dark shards may be the only thing that keeps you alive in the face of your rival heroes’ attacks.

The game will end with you battling your rival heroes, but there will be plenty of chances to test your might beforehand. Story cards like Rifts at Gardens of Tarn and Brawl at Dawnsmoor give you chances to battle your opponents and get a sense of how dangerous they’re becoming. Alternatively, if you just want to hobble your opponents with corruption cards, you may use Peaks of Madman Pass to choose one of your corruption cards and pass it to an opponent!

You’ll also face dangers in the adventure cards you encounter as you’re shaping your hero and customizing your powers. Starborn Specters may grow from the falling shards, responding to every attack with unexpected resilience. You may navigate a cocoon of metal thorns that has surrounded a lake of magma. Or, you may listen to the babbling of a madman who has pierced his tongue with a shard from the dark star. No matter what adventures you encounter, you can be certain that your games of Runebound will never be the same with the addition of the Fall of a Dark Star Scenario Pack.

Brother Against Brother

All of Terrinoth is falling under the sway of the dark star, including you. You must begin your adventures, preparing for the day you inevitably face your fellow heroes in combat. Pre-order your copy of the Fall of a Dark Star Scenario Pack at your local retailer today!

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Outfitted for Adventure

Published 19 July 2016 | Runebound

Outfitted for Adventure

Preview The Gilded Blade Expansion for Runebound

The woman known as Red Scorpion moved easily through the crowd, slipping silently through the spaces between traders, warriors, and beggars. All around her, she could feel the pulse and life of a busy Free City marketplace—until the balance was disturbed. There, at the bazaar to the left. A rich merchant-prince, pompously appraising the worth of a crimson destrier. Almost at his feet, a small, hungry child leaned against the stable wall, too tired to even reach for the merchant’s purse. Red Scorpion twisted her wrist and a knife dropped into her hand as she stepped forward…

Every year, people gather from across Terrinoth under the sign of the gilded blade. A thousand merchants offer their wares as thieves and cutpurses move through the crowds with depressing efficiency. Even heroes can find new tools and learn new skills among the great marketplaces of Terrinoth, and you’ll find new dangers and adventures within The Gilded Blade Adventure Pack for Runebound!

The Gilded Blade is the first Adventure Pack for Runebound, and rather than introducing a new scenario like the Caught in a Web Scenario Pack, this expansion focuses on expanding your options for every scenario. Within, you’ll find a completely new hero, new assets and skills to customize your heroes, and new adventure cards that you can include in any scenario so you never know exactly what you’re going to encounter in the realm of Terrinoth.

Today, we’ll take a closer look at the contents of The Gilded Blade Adventure Pack, starting with a brand-new hero—Red Scorpion.

A Force for Balance

Wandering but not lost, solitary but never alone—Red Scorpion is puzzlingly enigmatic, unfailingly polite, and lethally dangerous. She dedicates her life to the pursuit of balance, both within herself and in the kingdom at large. Enemies of that balance will soon learn to fear her skill with blades and her keen intelligence.

When you play as Red Scorpion during a game of Runebound, you begin the game in any of the realm’s towns. You may not start with much money, but you do immediately know where you’re going: during setup, you can draw the top three cards of the exploration deck and choose a quest that you can complete to restore the balance of Terrinoth. You may not know what dangers await you among the towering forests and rolling hills of Terrinoth, but your quest will give you an early objective and can even help determine how you choose to shape your skills and talents.

Click the card above to view the reverse side!

You’ll also notice that one of Red Scorpion’s combat tokens introduces an entirely new combat symbol: tactics. As Red Scorpion, you’re a master of reading a fight and adapting to the evolving battle. By spending the tactics symbol, you can copy a symbol shown on a different combat token—either your own or your opponent’s! Whether you duplicate your own physical damage or copy some of your rival’s shields to block an incoming attack, the tactics symbol is one of the most versatile and useful combat tokens in the game.

Any hero can use a tactics symbol if they have the appropriate combat tokens, but you exist in a class above the rest. As Red Scorpion, you can trigger Outmaneuver whenever you spend a tactics symbol—exerting to remove the copied token from the game! Though you won’t always be copying your opponent’s tokens, when you do you can adapt your strategy and counter your opponent in a single, perfect stroke.

Along with tactics symbols, you’ll also benefit from having plenty of surges to trigger Flurry of Blades. This ability reads: “Deal X physical damage. X is the number of times you have used this ability this combat round. You may use this ability up to 3 times per combat round.” If you develop your character to consistently gain three surges every combat round, you could translate those into up to six damage per round—which can be quite significant. Best of all, you can use your tactics symbols to copy surges, giving you even more ways to cut your enemies to pieces and restore balance to Terrinoth.

At the Market

In addition to Red Scorpion, The Gilded Blade also includes twenty new asset cards and ten new skill cards, giving you dozens of ways to change how your character interacts with the scenario and the world. In the Runebound Core Set, most goods assets were simple, reliable ways to earn some quick money. With the release of The Gilded Blade, a measure of uncertainty enters your transactions. You may purchase Ornaments, which yield plenty of gold at a shrine, so long as you have the spirit to bring it there. Or, you may pick up some Munitions, which have a value determined by your body, your mind, and a little luck.

Other new assets improve you abilities in combat. Red Scorpion could greatly benefit from the tactics symbols provided by the Patchwork Wand or the Swindler's Coat —or you may even wield the mighty Guardian Axe, which allows you to spend surges as magical damage whenever you choose!

Alternatively, the ten new mind skill cards offered in The Gilded Blade can give you ways to gain the advantage. Complete Confidence helps you move quickly and without fear, cutting down your foes before they react, while Victory Foretold targets your opponent’s combat tokens, helping you control the flow of battle rather than simply rolling with the punches. You may even pair Investments with Negotiations to earn a tidy profit from the other heroes buying and selling.

And of course, you’ll find plenty of new enemies, quests, and events spread across fifteen adventure cards that can be slotted into any scenario, giving you an array of new challenges to face. You may cross blades with a group of Kobolds or a Goblin Raiding Party —both of which have ways to heal the damage that you deal. You may travel to the market at Riverwatch in search of more assets, or you may hire a network of spies to keep tabs on the other heroes. No matter which cards you add, your games of Runebound will never be the same with The Gilded Blade.

A New Journey Begins

Are you prepared to return to the realm of Terrinoth? What new stories will you tell as a mighty hero? Both the Caught in a Web Scenario Pack and The Gilded Blade Adventure Pack will be available at your local retailer on August 4th. You can also pick them up at our booth at Gen Con Indy 2016—we hope to see you there!

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Arachnophobia

Published 22 June 2016 | Runebound

Arachnophobia

Preview the Caught in a Web Scenario Pack for Runebound

The family ran stumbling over the crest of the hill, futilely pulling each other along. Behind them, the massive bane spider scuttled across the grass, mandibles clacking and poison fangs dripping venom. The spider had only reached the top of the hill before a steelshod staff slammed into its carapace, crushing bony plates and spilling ichor out onto the grass. Jonas the Kind set his foot against the beast and pulled his staff loose before he turned to assist the helpless family behind him…

Chittering, insect-like creatures pour out of their dens and tunnels across the realm of Terrinoth, covering cities and roads in webs and deadly ambushes. Trade grinds to a halt, while those unlucky enough to be ensnared are quickly devoured. The danger is obvious, but some suspect there is an underlying darkness at work—behind the webs, someone is pulling the strings. Battle the sorceress Ariad and her sinister machinations in your games of Runebound with the Caught in a Web Scenario Pack!

Caught in a Web is the first Runebound Scenario Pack, and as such, it sets the tone for future Scenario Packs like Fall of the Dark Star. Within this expansion, you’ll find an entirely new scenario, forty new adventure cards and story cards, and a new hero, Jonas the Kind. No matter how you use this expansion, you’ll find a brand-new framework for your adventures throughout Terrinoth.

Today, we’ll take a closer look at what you receive in Caught in a Web, starting with the new hero, Jonas the Kind.

Champion of the Innocent

Jonas the Kind was once known by another name—a much darker name, hated and feared by the nobility that he preyed upon. But Jonas ultimately chose to turn his back on a life of murder and theft, spending several years cloistered in a monastery to atone for his sins. Now healed in both body and spirit, Jonas sets out to make a new name for himself as a force for justice. He will not allow his past to control his future, but neither will he forget the man he used to be. Now, with Ariad spreading her evil webs across the realm, Jonas is among the first to stand up for the innocent.

Click on the card above to view the reverse side.

As Jonas the Kind, your adventure begins in a shrine, as you walk out into the world, reborn as a hero with a mission to cleanse your checkered past. Though you’ve transformed your life into the life of a hero, you still have the skills you learned as a criminal—skills that you can now use for the good of the downtrodden.

You’ll notice immediately from the combat tokens on the card above that you have access to an entirely new combat symbol: charge. During a battle against some foul creature, you can spend charge symbols to deal unblockable damage to your foe, slicing straight through any defenses he was able to muster. Unfortunately, the effort of this forceful attack leaves you open to counterattacks. Once you’ve spent charge symbols, you can no longer block damage for the remainder of the round. Still, your own safety is of little importance if you can defend those you’re sworn to protect.

Inevitably, you’ll take some damage in the fight, especially if your opponent waits to attack until after you’ve charged. A little damage only makes you fight harder to protect your friends though! Jonas the Kind bears the Takedown ability, which allows you to exert to recast one of your spent or unspent tokens after you take damage! Jonas the Kind’s unexpected talents aren’t limited to combat, however. Once per test, you can exert twice to immediately add one success to the results—guaranteeing that you can succeed at a test if you have enough skill cards in hand. Your exertions on behalf of Terrinoth won’t go unrewarded, but your skills will still be tested to the limits by the new scenario included in this expansion.

Spider Attack!

Ariad schemes to cover all of Terrinoth in noxious webs, bringing untold pain and suffering, but there’s still some time left before she can transform and invade the Free Cities themselves. During the first act of the game, Ariad spreads her power through her minions, placing more webs on the map with story cards like Prayers Unanswered and Entangled. Each of these cards have the power to add new webs to the map, restricting your movement and increasing Ariad’s power—but fortunately, you can remove these webs by enlisting the help of the Forge militia or by heeding the cries of an old beggar. . Of course, you’ll also need to confront terrifying enemies like the Bane Spider as you move across the realm, cutting through webs and helping the people you encounter.

At the end of the game’s first act, Ariad’s dark schemes come to fruition, and she transforms into a monstrous spider-like creature: Queen Ariad. Each time a story card is drawn, Queen Ariad moves to another Free City and places a web there. These webs can never be destroyed, and if there’s a web in all four of the Free Cities, all heroes lose the game! The only way for you to triumph is to find and confront Queen Ariad before she can cover the entire realm in horrid webs.

When you do finally bring Queen Ariad to battle, you’ll find defeating her is no easy task, even for a hero with unique skills like yours. Queen Ariad’s special combat token features the new charge symbol, allowing her to deal unblockable damage to you. What’s more, her surges can be converted into a drastic amount of damage. She may summon a swarm of her servants to attack you, dealing more damage, or she may inject you with deadly venom, wearing down your defenses by forcing you to take damage after you resolve a combat action.

As with your battles against Margath and Vorakesh, you’ll need to plenty of new assets and skills before you can take on Queen Ariad. You’ll find plenty of both in The Gilded Blade Adventure Pack, which we’ll explore in our next preview!

You've spent as much time as you can preparing—now it's time to bring the battle to Queen Ariad herself!

Defend Your People

When you adventure across the realm of Terrinoth as Jonas the Kind, you aren’t looking for loot or the thrill of battle. You’re here to protect the farmers, travelers, and peaceful merchants that are being terrorized by Ariad and her minions. Experience an entirely new scenario for Runebound with the Caught in a Web Scenario Pack, and pre-order your copy at your local retailer today!

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Terrinoth in Peril

Published 3 June 2016 | Runebound

Terrinoth in Peril

Announcing Two New Expansions for Runebound

The woods were lit only by shafts of moonlight, each divided countless times by the needles of conifer trees. It was a world of blacks and whites, and in the shadows above Nanok, two red eyes glowed like coals. Sitting crosslegged at the base of the tree, Nanok ran his whetstone along the blade of his axe. By the time the beastman sprang, Nanok was already moving…

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce two new expansions for Runebound: Fall of the Dark Star and The Mountains Rise!

New dangers have arisen to imperil the realm of Terrinoth. A dark star has been seen in the sky above, causing even close friends and allies to turn on each other without warning and fight to the death. In the wild places, craggy mountains, and primeval forests, fell beasts are rising, eager to kill and savage with bloodlust. In these deadly times, real heroes are in short supply—but maybe a few still have the power to save the realm.

Like our previously announced expansions for Runebound, Fall of the Dark Star and The Mountains Rise fall into two separate categories: one Scenario Pack and one Adventure Pack. Fall of the Dark Star is a new Scenario Pack that introduces an entirely new scenario along with thirty new adventure cards and a new ten-card story deck that correspond to the new scenario. The Mountains Rise, on the other hand, is an Adventure Pack that can be added to any scenario with new adventure cards, assets, and skills. Each expansion also includes new combat tokens and a new hero, giving you new ways to experience Terrinoth every time you play!

Fall of the Dark Star

The coming of the dark star has long been foretold among the dark prophets of Terrinoth. When it falls, they say, an age of darkness will overtake the world, and its coming shall be heralded by a rain of dark shards that corrupt every stout and honorable soul. This dark and corrupted Terrinoth becomes the focus of your struggle to survive with the Fall of the Dark Star Scenario Pack.

Like other Scenario Packs, Fall of the Dark Star introduces an entirely new scenario to your games of Runebound with a substantially different experience. There is no evil nemesis that must be destroyed to restore peace; your goal is simply to become the strongest and survive for another day. Over the course of the game, you’ll collect more and more dark shards. These dark shards boost your health, but they also force you to draw from a deck of brand-new corruption cards. Each of these corruption cards offers a drawback—for instance, Darkening Sight raises the requirements of each exploration quest and Exiled forces you to become delayed whenever you enter a town or stronghold.

You might think that increasing your health isn’t worth the trouble of taking corruption cards, but you’d be wrong—at the end of Act 2, the dark star falls to earth, and all heroes are immediately transported to the Cursed Ruins. There, the heroes enter a final, brutal combat against each other. Brief alliances may form in the chaos of battle, but in the end, only the last hero left standing will win the game!

Fall of the Dark Star also includes its own unique set of adventure cards. Within this Scenario Pack, you’ll find thirty new adventure cards: ten for each of the three archetypes. You may battle a Starborn Specter or travel to the Howling Valley in search of a fallen dark shard. Meanwhile, a new deck of story cards drives the scenario forward, raising the stakes as you search for the dark shards that fall from the heavens. Finally, you’ll find an entirely new hero, Zyla, a being from the Aenlong realm whose otherworldly powers have led her to become a hero of Terrinoth. Her strange powers are partially represented by the addition of a new symbol on her combat tokens—we’ll explore Zyla and the rest of this expansion more in a future preview.

The Mountains Rise

In the wilds of Terrinoth, strange beasts have begun to gather. Innocent townsfolk hurry home at night, barring their doors behind them, as bloodthirsty, savage creatures venture farther and farther from their lairs in search of their next meal. The realm has called upon its greatest heroes to venture into the hills and mountains to confront this threat. Only the most stalwart will return with The Mountains Rise Adventure Pack!

Like other Adventure Packs, The Mountains Rise offers new cards that can be incorporated into any existing scenario to dramatically change the flavor and feel. Fifteen new adventure cards (five per deck) introduce new enemies, events, and quests: you may need to test your might in battle against a troll or decide if you will aid a band of smugglers sneaking into the city.

Of course, it’s not just adventure cards that you’ll find in this Adventure Pack. Twenty new asset cards and ten new skill cards give you dozens of new ways to customize your hero. Many of these new assets come with new combat tokens, some of which introduce new combat symbols to the game—ensuring that your Runebound battles will never be the same. Whether you fight with an Oak Staff or create a Cacophony as you enter battle, these new assets and skills give you the creative space to forge a unique hero in every game. You’ll even gain an entirely new hero—Nanok of the Blade, a warrior who eschews armor in favor of the pure thrill of battle. We’ll take a closer look at all the contents of The Mountains Rise in a future preview.

Corruption and Monsters

In the world of Terrinoth, danger is never more than a step away. Monsters are common; evil forces work ceaselessly to destroy the righteous. Yet with this danger comes a world of adventure, opportunity, and glory. Forge your own story with Fall of the Dark Star and The Mountains Rise, two new expansion for Runebound!

Look for these expansions at your local retailer in the third quarter of 2016.

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Calling All Heroes!

Published 27 April 2016 | Runebound

Calling All Heroes!

Announcing Two New Expansions for Runebound

Webs dripped from the city, covering walls and towers alike with a foul, funereal shroud. Tiny spiders moved in rapid swarms and devoured small mammals, while muffled screams emanated from the darkened alleys where the larger insects went to feed. Jonas the Kind walked up the center of this corrupted street, his steel-shod staff held loosely in his right hand. At the center of the town he stopped, spoke a quiet word, and kindled a flame in his open palm. Tamalir had been tainted by evil long enough—and Jonas would be the hero to cleanse it.

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce two new Runebound expansions: Caught in a Web and The Gilded Blade!

The world of Terrinoth is a vibrant realm of adventure and danger. Anything can happen, and the actions of a few fearless heroes can change the fate of the entire nation. In every game of Runebound, you and your fellow players become fearless heroes, adventuring across the land, gaining new skills and assets, and testing your might against an intractable evil. You decide the path your hero follows—where your steps will take you, what challenges you’ll undertake, and what kind of hero you want to become. Now, with two new expansions for Runebound, you have even more options to decide your hero’s path and experience the world of Terrinoth.

These two expansions fall into distinct categories. Caught in a Web is a Scenario Pack, introducing an entirely new scenario with new adventure cards for combat, exploration, and social encounters and a new deck of story cards to drive the scenario forward. The Gilded Blade, on the other hand, is an Adventure Pack, and adds more replayability to every scenario. Here, you’ll find new asset and skill cards, giving you entirely new ways to customize your heroes, while new adventure cards can be used to change the flavor of any scenario. With a new hero and brand-new combat tokens in both of these expansions, you’ll be able to experience more of Terrinoth in every game of Runebound.

Caught in a Web

The sorceress Ariad once more schemes to conquer Terrinoth with the Caught in a Web Scenario Pack. Now, she commands her arachnid minions to spread insidiously throughout the realm, spinning webs, injecting venom, and preparing for their mistress to cover the world in darkness.

As we mentioned above, Caught in a Web is a Scenario Pack that introduces an entirely new scenario to Runebound. Throughout the course of this scenario , story cards and adventure cards will cause webs to be placed across the map. These webs restrict the heroes’ movement, but they can be destroyed if you’re willing to expend the effort. At the end of the first act, the sorceress Ariad transforms into her spider form and begins to move around the realm. If she places a web in each of the four major cities, all of the heroes lose the game. The only way you can win is by tracking down Ariad and defeating her in battle before another hero can reach her!

Along the way, you’ll find yourself face-to-face with new and hideous monsters or terrifying perils. You may encounter an Arachyura , a spider-like creature that can trap you in its webs and deal lingering damage even after it’s defeated. You may track a nest of spiders to the Smokeblue Hills, or delve deep into tunnels that riddle the ground beneath Terrinoth. Fortunately, a new hero also arrives to save Terrinoth with this expansion: Jonas the Kind. Jonas possesses many unexpected skills learned in a life of crime, but now he uses those same skills to defend the innocent from monsters.

The Gilded Blade

Once a year, the merchants and civilians of Terrinoth come together in a time of celebration and commerce. The most talented craftsmen and the slickest charlatans alike operate under the sign of the Gilded Blade. As new wonders are unveiled and pickpockets work the crowds, even a noble hero can find much to interest him at this gathering.

The Gilded Blade Adventure Pack expands the world of Terrinoth in every game of Runebound with new sets of skill cards and asset cards that can increase your options for any scenario. New goods like Contraband vary in their return based on how good you are at exploring. Meanwhile, you could claim a skill card like Superiority Complex , which grants you a free trophy whenever another hero is defeated! These assets and skills can be swapped for other sets in your asset or skill decks, giving you the chance to customize your hero more than ever before.

Along with skill and asset cards, this Adventure Pack offers a variety of new adventure cards that can be added to any scenario. You may face off against a Highway Gang that attempts to surround and rob you, but thankfully for the heroes, a new hero also joins the game of Runebound in this expansion. Red Scorpion is a solitary wanderer, and her unnatural agility helps her easily outmaneuver her foes. Whether you take on the sorceress Ariad or battle Dragonlord Margath with Red Scorpion, her flurry of blades spells doom for any enemy of Terrinoth.

Heed the Call

New heroes are coming for Runebound, and with them, you’ll find new adventures beyond the horizon. Whether you battle spiders and burn webs across the realm or peruse the market stalls in search of new equipment, these two expansion packs offer new options for every game. Stay tuned for more previews and look for Caught in a Web and The Gilded Blade in the third quarter of 2016!

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Keep Your Weapons Close

Published 7 April 2016 | Runebound

Keep Your Weapons Close

Runebound Combat Tokens Are Now Available

The world of Terrinoth lies open before you. Countless adventures await: in every town, in every forest, around every turn of the road, there may be a terrible monster or treasure beyond your wildest dreams. This is the world that you have the chance to enter in every game of Runebound.

Runebound is a board game of thrilling fantasy adventure for two to four players, allowing you to become a hero of the realm, gaining skills, experience, and powerful weapons before confronting a terrible nemesis. Over the course of the game, you’ll interact with the denizens of Terrinoth, embark on quests that take you across the land, and battle terrifying monsters.

Your battles throughout Runebound take the game in an innovative new direction by using combat tokens to decide the outcome of your battles. At the beginning of a combat, you’ll cast these combat tokens. Then, you and your opponent take turns spending the results to cast spells, swing your weapon, dodge out of harm’s way, shield damage, or trigger special abilities. Every battle in Runebound is tense and filled with decisions, and you can read about the battles of Runebound in action here.

A Second Supply of Weapons

Now that Runebound has been released and your epic adventures have already begun, you may want to make sure the combat tokens are always within easy reach and close at hand, no matter how chaotic the battles of Terrinoth get. To that end, you can now pick up another copy of the Runebound Combat Tokens at your local retailer or online through our webstore!

This sheet of punchboard includes an additional copy of the combat tokens already included in every copy of Runebound, ensuring that your weapons are always ready, whenever you need them.

Embrace your destiny and enter the world of Terrinoth through Runebound today!

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The Adventure Begins

Published 12 November 2015 | Runebound

The Adventure Begins

Runebound Is Now Available

A land of endless adventure opens before you. There are monsters to slay in the dark places of the world and dangerous quests that have never yet been attempted. You have the unparalleled chance to forge your story into a legend that will be told with fear and awe for hundreds of years. Choose your path and carve your name into the annals of Terrinoth—Runebound is now available at your local United States retailer and online through our webstore!

Every game of Runebound gives you and up to three friends the opportunity to become heroes in the realm of Terrinoth. A terrible threat has arisen and threatens your entire world with destruction. The hero who destroys this nemesis claims unending glory and wins the game, but if no hero manages to successfully defeat the nemesis, all players lose the game together. Along the way, you’ll find countless adventures in the Free Cities and the barren wilds of Terrinoth, alongside the opportunity to customize your hero in whatever ways you want. No matter which hero you play or which enemies you face, Runebound is an invitation to adventure like none other.

Take Up Your Sword

Before you head to your local retailer to pick up your own copy of Runebound, you can learn more about the game from the series of in-depth previews we posted prior to the game’s release.

Our first preview provided a broad overview of the adventures you may experience in a game of Runebound, and the different actions you can perform. Adventures in Runebound are divided by category into decks that encompass combat, exploration, and social adventures. Each deck offers a variety of possible encounters, including enemies to fight, quests to undertake, and events that allow you to choose how your hero will act and respond to new situations.

The second and third previews of Runebound turned their attention from the adventures to the heroes themselves. First, we explored the different stats that make each hero unique, including their special abilities, attributes, and starting combat tokens. We also looked at the ways you can customize your hero to forge him into a powerful force with the help of new skills and assets. Skills give your hero new inherent abilities: you may become better at exploring and completing quests, or you may focus on skills that give you an edge in combat. Assets provide another tool for hero customization—weapons, clothing, equipment, trade goods, and more. In one game, you may equip Elder Mok with a powerful sword to cleave through enemy armor, and in the next, you may give him the assets to become a powerful spellcaster, wielding magic against your foes with concussive force.

Unique terrain dice are used to move from hex to hex in a game of Runebound.

The fourth Runebound preview delved deep into the innovative mechanics behind combat in the game. In every combat, you and your enemy cast unique combat tokens, then alternate spending actions to outmaneuver your opponent and deal the maximum amount of damage. In addition to an explanation of each symbol involved in combat, we provided a detailed example of combat between Lord Hawthorne and a terrifying Dreadbringer that illustrates the unique back-and-forth motion of battle in Runebound.

The fifth and sixth previews turned our attention to the two distinct scenarios included in Runebound, each of which offers vast replayability with additional adventure cards to encounter and decks of story cards that provide a narrative and drive the action forwards. In The Ascendance of Margath scenario, the heroes face off against Dragonlord Margath, a powerful dragon who has risen to claim Terrinoth’s throne once more. The other scenario, The Corpse King, pits you against Vorakesh, a deadly necromancer who commands legions of undead forces. Only by ridding the lands of zombies and gathering your companions can you weaken Vorakesh enough to destroy him in single combat.

Finally, Lukas Litzsinger, designer of the third edition of Runebound, shared a designer diary that presented some of his thoughts and struggles as he modified the core systems of Runebound for a new edition. He also offers some insight into the reasons behind changing the adventure system to an organization centered on archetype, rather than difficulty.

Where Will You Go?

The realm of Terrinoth lies open before you. You can walk the bustling streets of Tamalir or battle beastmen in the darkest forests. Choose your own path and take your steps towards becoming a legend in Runebound!

Pick up your copy of Runebound at your local U.S. retailer today.

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Battling for Terrinoth

Published 11 November 2015 | Runebound

Battling for Terrinoth

Announcing the Runebound Combat Tokens

The third edition of Runebound is fast approaching, and the game will soon be released at local retailers across the United States. Over the course of every game, Runebound invites you to journey throughout the fantasy realm of Terrinoth, where you’ll experience adventure on a grand scale unlike anything else. You’ll embark on quests that lead you into dark forests and deep lakes, battle fearsome monsters among craggy mountain peaks, and browse the bazaars and merchant stalls of the Free Cities in search of new weapons or gear.

For this new edition of Runebound, combat has been taken in an innovative new direction. Rather than using dice to battle beastmen, dragons, and undead warriors, you and your foe cast a number of combat tokens, tossing them like dice or flipping them like coins. Then, you and your opponent take turns spending your combat tokens to deal damage, raise your shield, cast magic spells, trigger special abilities, or dodge incoming attacks. The tokens you cast and the order in which you spend the results make every battle in Runebound strategic and unique. (For more information about combat in Runebound, click here.)

Hone Your Blades

As Runebound releases to the public, some players may wish to swell their armories with additional copies of combat tokens. To that end, we have created the Runebound Combat Tokens—a sheet of punchboard containing another copy of the combat tokens already included in every copy of Runebound.

Don’t let anything hold you back from embracing your destiny as the next hero of Terrinoth! Look for your copy of Runebound at your local U.S. retailer this week and become a living legend.

The Runebound Combat Tokens will become available in the first quarter of 2016.

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Unexpected Adventure

Published 3 November 2015 | Runebound

Unexpected Adventure

Read a Runebound Designer Diary from Lukas Litzsinger

Terrinoth lies opens before you, a land suffused and filled to overflowing with magic and adventure. In every game of Runebound, you have the chance to take part in a growing narrative, a story of the realm. You may sell goods purchased from the bustling markets of the Free Cities or draw your blade to battle a terrifying dragon amid the mountainous peaks of Mennara’s Teeth. Whether you’re battling to stop the ascendence of Dragonlord Margath or to defeat the vicious Corpse King, Runebound offers a wealth of possible quests and adventures.

Today, designer Lukas Litzsinger offers to lead you into how the revised system of adventure cards used for the third edition of the game. For more insight into the adventures you may experience playing Runebound, read below!

Lukas Litzsinger on the Adventures of Runebound

One of the goals for the new edition of Runebound was that we wanted players to feel like they had more control over how their story unfolded as they traveled across Terrinoth. Initially, this meant moving away from the combat-centric system of the game’s second edition, where every adventure ended with a fight. I knew we still needed a robust and interesting combat system, but I didn’t want combat to overshadow the rest of the game. We wanted players to approach Terrinoth on their own terms and have the adventures that they wanted to have.

Adventure cards are divided into three decks: combat, exploration, and social.

To achieve this, I started by identifying the “archetypes” of adventure that I felt should be included in the game. I settled on three: fighting, exploring, and socializing. In the game, each of these different adventure archetypes features asymmetric card designs: you fight enemies, you explore via quests, and you socialize with events. Each of these encounters resolve incredibly differently, which increases the variety of player experience. Because I wanted players to feel like they could craft and create their own narrative, playing heroes that range from a wandering elf pacifist who travels from quest to quest or a powerful dwarven warrior who hunts down monsters and sorcerers, these card types needed to be sorted into different decks. In the second edition of Runebound, the adventure decks were sorted by level of difficulty; in the third edition they are sorted by type. There is a combat (enemy) deck, an exploration (quest) deck, and a social (event) deck.

Though I wanted to give each player more control over their adventure, I didn’t want the act of drawing a card to feel mundane. Thus, each type of adventure deck contains a small number of the other adventure types, so players can never predict with absolute confidence what kind of card they will draw. For instance, the exploration deck contains primarily quests, but you’ll also find enemies and events to challenge your hero, though these enemies are generally weaker to avoid destroying a hero unprepared for combat. Slightly mixing the adventure types in any given deck adds tension to every draw and strikes an important balance between controlling your own destiny and being blindly pushed across the map by the vagaries of fate.

Raising the Stakes

One of the major challenges with this shift away from adventure decks divided by difficulty level was creating the engaging feeling of progression. In the game’s second edition you could check your progress against the game by going into a more challenging adventure deck, but in the third edition of Runebound the enemy cards remain static: the Ogre you fight in the first round of the game is the same Ogre that you could fight near the end of the game.

To alleviate this and give players a check on their power level, the game is divided into two acts. During the second act, the enemies grow more dangerous by gaining the “master” combat token that they use in every combat encounter. This additional combat token is quite powerful, featuring two damage on one side and a surge on the reverse. With this new combat token, enemies can use their double combat result to increase the two damage to four, drastically increasing their damage potential. What’s more, the extra surge gives monsters the chance to trigger vaunted triple-surge abilities.

Characters who have trouble defeating master enemies stand little chance against the scenario’s villain. The villain is the third level of enemy in the game, and in both scenarios, you must defeat the villain to win the game. This fight won’t be easy though—in addition to better surge abilities and greater health, every villain has a unique combat token to make life difficult for the heroes. Ultimately, the newest edition of Runebound actually has three levels of enemies, just one fewer level than the second edition.

The villains are the most difficult type of enemy to defeat, but there is a significant jump in difficulty between a master enemy and a villain. Most heroes should be able to dispatch enemies relatively easily once they get a few skills or items with combat potential. This is good for two reasons. The first is that as combat gets more complicated and players have more options with weapons and other assets, the battle last fewer rounds on average. This prevents the game from bogging down in round after round of trading blows, which is obviously important for the overall player experience.

The second reason this is good is that the heroes definitely feel more heroic when they obliterate a foe that gave them trouble before. (It’s actually possible to beat any enemy with just a hero’s three starting strength tokens, but it is always risky and the hero will certainly take a lot of damage). Rather than enemies scaling with the hero, which undermines the point of hero improvement in the first place, the enemies only scale once, leaving plenty of room for the heroes to grow stronger in relation to their enemies.

Having three different types of adventures is one of my favorite parts of the new edition of Runebound. I believe it opens up the world of Terrinoth in a very exciting way and gives players more control over their story as they weave the narrative of their heroes’ paths to becoming living legends.

Thanks, Lukas!

Adventure Will Find You

Your adventures in Runebound will take you from the highest peaks of Terrinoth to the depths of lakes and underground catacombs. Whether you battle your enemies and cast them down, scour a forest to complete a quest, or make difficult choices as you interact with the inhabitants of a city, the three adventure card decks make every game unique, exciting, and unexpected. Take your first steps on the road to legend, and pre-order Runebound at your local retailer today!

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The Corpse King

Published 27 October 2015 | Runebound

The Corpse King

Preview the Second Scenario for Runebound

Walk the roads of Terrinoth and take the part of a legendary hero in Runebound, a board game of epic fantasy adventures for two to four players. In every game, you and your rival heroes race to claim victory by destroying a nemesis from Terrinoth’s dark past. Along the way, you’ll experience countless other quests, destroying fearsome monsters, exploring lost and ancient locations, and interacting with the denizens of the Free Cities.

In previous previews, we’ve explored the distinct aspects of gameplay in Runebound. Our first preview provided an overview of the adventures you’ll undertake and the actions you can perform on your turn. Next, we explored the heroes you’ll play and the ways you can customize a hero with skills and assets to make every game provide a different experience. We also delved deep into the battles of Runebound with a discussion of the combat tokens and a thorough example of combat. Finally, last week we faced the wrath of Dragonlord Margath as we looked at one of the two scenarios included in the game.

Today, we turn our attention to the second scenario included in Runebound: The Corpse King!

A Rising Tide of Undead

Like The Ascendence of Margath, The Corpse King scenario invites you to begin by studying the appropriate scenario card. In this scenario, you and the other heroes are pitted against Vorakesh, a powerful necromancer who once served Waiqar the Undying, but now pursues his own ends to claim the throne of Terrinoth.

Vorakesh is far too strong for any one person to battle alone. Fortunately, when you play The Corpse King scenario, every hero begins the game with a companion token. These companions are crucial for lowering Vorakesh’s health in the final battle, and you can gain more companions through a variety of adventure cards and story cards associated with this scenario.

Yet even as you gather companions, Vorakesh spreads the influence of the undead by creating zombies across Terrinoth. These zombies are placed around the board by certain effects, and whenever a hero enters a hex with a zombie, he must immediately take two damage. Once you’re in the same hex as a zombie, you can spend an action to kill it and gain one gold. Killing zombies is vital for all the heroes, because every zombie on the board at the end of the game increases Vorakesh’s health in the final battle.

At the end of the game’s first act, Vorakesh arrives on the board in the Cursed Ruins with a single zombie. When you think you’re ready to best the master of the undead, you can travel to the Cursed Ruins and spend an action to engage Vorakesh in battle, but as with Margath, you’d be unwise to delay too long. If no hero has defeated Vorakesh by the end of Act 2, his hordes of undead sweep over the realm, covering the land in darkness, and all heroes lose the game together!

When you do engage Vorakesh in battle directly, you’ll quickly find that this villain will not die easily. As discussed above, Vorakesh begins with ten health, and he gains health for every zombie on the board. The heroes can reduce his health, however, by entering battle with plenty of companions alongside you. In addition, Vorakesh boasts his own unique combat token that can greatly increase his number of available surges or deal more damage to you in battle.

Vorakesh’s surge abilities offer even more trouble for the hero that dares challenge the might of the Corpse King. For a single surge, Vorakesh can Raise Dead—randomly selecting a discarded enemy from discarded combat adventures and triggering any surge ability on that card! Though the exact effects of Raise Dead vary every time Vorakesh uses it, this surge ability is almost always a powerful tactic. Vorakesh can also spend a single surge to use Drain, dealing one enemy damage to his foe and healing a damage from himself. Finally, Vorakesh may Curse his foe, spending two surges to flip all of his opponent’s combat tokens, potentially leaving a hero with a ruined position.

Battle the Horde

Even more than The Corpse King scenario card, the new adventures and story cards associated with this scenario communicate a sense of rising dread and terror as more and more undead foes appear across Terrinoth. As you engage in your adventures, you’ll quickly see the dark form of Vorakesh’s influence made flesh. You may battle an Undead Horde —a fearsome enemy that gains health for each zombie on the board and uses its relentless swarms to overwhelm you by sheer weight of numbers. Alternatively, you may be unlucky enough to come face to face with a Barrow Wyrm ! This Undead Dragon can spend its surges to negate your physical damage and repair its own wounds with dark magic.

Not every adventure you encounter involves combat, of course. You may seek to uncover the Secrets of the Dead , tracking down a zombie and examining it in order to gain two trophies. You might join The Resistance : fighting the undead invaders, leading a raid to destroy zombies, or using the training of others to learn any skill in your hand for free. You may attend a morbid Shadow Play performed by uncanny mummers or help to Evacuate the Area surrounding the great fortress of Sundergard. Whatever part you play in the unfolding saga of The Corpse King, you’ll need to improve your powers if you plan to ultimately test your might against Vorakesh and emerge victorious.

The Champion of Dawnsmoor story card causes two zombies to enter play in Dawnsmoor. You can claim one companion by successfully entering the city and spending a trophy!

A unique deck of story cards also accompanies The Corpse King scenario, driving events forward, spreading zombies across the map, and offering you opportunities to claim new companions. You may head to the Free City of Dawnsmoor to enlist the aid of the Nameless Warrior , a champion of the fighting pits, as you drive zombies from the land. An unstoppable Undead Assault may place a zombie in every stronghold on the map, which prevents heroes from trading goods in those locations and potentially endangers your companions when you kill the zombies there. You can even gain unexpected benefits from story cards like Friends and Family . This story card grants a trophy to each hero with a companion, and each hero without a companion may become delayed to gain a companion. Ultimately, these story cards move the story forwards, providing threats that you must constantly battle alongside unexpected benefits as you struggle to defeat Vorakesh before his power grows too great.

Dark and Foul Magic

In the second Runebound scenario, a deadly necromancer attempts to subjugate all Terrinoth to his will. If you do not stop him, the realm will fall to darkness. Rise above your fellow heroes to become a living legend in this epic board game of danger and fantasy adventure!

Pre-order your copy of Runebound at your local retailer today and join us next week for a designer diary from Lukas Litzsinger.

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The Ascendence of Margath

Published 20 October 2015 | Runebound

The Ascendence of Margath

Preview a Runebound Scenario

Enter the realm of Terrinoth as a bold hero, questing for adventure wherever you can find it. Yet behind all of your thrilling journeys and adventures, there lies a deeper threat. The land is in peril as an evil presence from the past begins to gather power once more. In Runebound, your ultimate goal is nothing less than the destruction of this threat and the salvation of Terrinoth.

Runebound is a board game of desperate quests and high fantasy adventure for two to four players. In previous previews, we’ve explored the distinct aspects of the game, beginning with the adventures you undertake and the actions you can spend, continuing through the heroes you play and the ways you can customize your hero to ensure that every game is completely different. Most recently, we delved into the combat tokens you’ll use in Runebound, and we gave a detailed example of a combat round to illustrate the tactical decisions you make in each battle.

Today, we turn our attention to one of the two scenarios included in Runebound: the Ascendence of Margath!

The Dragonlord Returns

In the darkness of Terrinoth’s past, tyrannical dragonlords once conquered vast swaths of land. These dragonlords were defeated in the Dragon Wars, and High Lord Margath was cast down into the earth with a terrible wound. Margath’s body was never recovered, however, and certain signs now suggest that Margath has begun to rise again.

When you choose to play The Ascendence of Margath scenario, you’ll begin by taking the scenario’s special scenario card. This card is the heart of any Runebound scenario—it describes the special rules associated with that scenario including how you can win and lose. In The Ascendence of Margath , you and your fellow heroes must strive to collect ancient dragonlore to gain an edge in your inevitable showdown with Margath. After the first half of the game ends, Margath is spawned in Skydown, and any hero may enter his hex and spend an action to engage Margath in combat. The first hero to defeat Margath in battle wins the game!

However, if you and the other heroes delay too long before daring to face Margath, his plans to conquer Terrinoth advance faster and faster. As players take their turns throughout the game, you will advance the time track at the end of each round, triggering set events like refreshing adventure gems and drawing story cards, which we’ll explain below. When the time track reaches its end, the first half of the game—Act 1—is complete. Act 2 then begins with all monsters gaining a dangerous new combat token and the time track returning to its beginning.

When the time track reaches the end of Act 2 in The Ascendence of Margath, the game does not immediately end. Instead, the heroes roll five terrain dice whenever the time track would normally advance. For each wild result that you roll on these terrain dice, Margath advances one space closer to Tamalir, and if he ever reaches Tamalir, Terrinoth is cast into darkness and all players lose the game together.

To stop High Lord Margath from destroying the city of Tamalir, you must face him in battle, but Margath is no easy target. He begins the fight with fifteen health, and though his health is lowered for each lore token that you have, this can never reduce his health below eight. In addition to all of the enemy combat tokens, Margath features his own combat token that either allows him to deal large amounts of damage or provides a surge to trigger his powerful abilities.

Margath also boasts a variety of powerful abilities. He can spend a single surge to trigger Taunt, flipping one of your combat tokens and weakening your attack. Alternatively, if your hero has already landed a good hit, Margath can spend two surges to trigger Will of Margath and heal three damage. Finally, Margath can spend three surges on Empower, which doubles all enemy damage that he deals for the rest of the combat round! An appropriately timed Empower could defeat even the hardiest hero. Under normal circumstances, a defeated hero needs only to rest and recover before he can join the fight again, but if a hero is defeated while fighting Margath, he is devoured and eliminated from the game.

Join an Unfolding Story

More than unique rules for winning and losing the game, each scenario dramatically changes your gameplay experience with additional adventure cards and a unique deck of story cards. Before the game begins, you will separate the scenario’s unique adventure cards—ten for each of the three adventure decks. By adding these cards to the standard adventure cards, you ensure that you face different enemies and challenges in every game of Runebound.

For example, in The Ascendence of Margath you may face a Dragon Hybrid , a powerful enemy who gains health from your lore and who is extraordinarily resistant to magical damage. Alternatively, you may find yourself locked in combat with a Dreadbringer , one of the most powerful Dragons you can face. You may wander through the Tanglewood in search of the treasure of Dragonlord Levirax , or bathe in the Weeping Basin to heal your wounds. You may even encounter the Dread, a splinter cult devoted to worshipping the dragons as the true incarnation of Kellos’s divine fire. The Dread Prophets are known for their uncanny prophesies and doom-mongering, making them dangerous enemies in a fight.

Even more than the added adventure cards, each scenario’s deck of story cards creates a unique atmosphere and a place for your adventures to thrive. These story cards are very different than adventure cards—each scenario’s deck of story cards is completely different from another scenario’s story cards. As the time track advances each round, certain spaces reveal the top story card and put it into play. Many of these story cards are essentially shared objectives, representing both threats and opportunities surrounding the rise of Margath. What's more, the story cards for this scenario are your principal means of claiming lore tokens, and the number of these story cards means you'll never see all of them in a single game!

When Dragon Cave is drawn, a story quest token is placed on the Broken Crags, and two lore tokens are placed on the card for the heroes to claim!

For instance, when the time track advances to a story card space, you may reveal Dragon Cave . When this card is revealed, two lore tokens are placed on the card, and a story quest token is placed in the indicated mountains. As an action, a hero in that space can explore, rolling a number of terrain dice equal to his speed—if you roll two mountains, you can take a lore from the card. Because lore is so useful for battling Margath, a story card like Dragon Cave may trigger a mass race to the mountains. Only the fastest and most quick-witted heroes will come away with lore tokens.

Other story cards pertain to events surrounding the rise of Margath. The Dragon Cult forces each hero to flip an adventure gem facedown, letting you deny other heroes the opportunity to pursue nearby adventures. Alternatively, you may experience Panic in the Free Cities as Margath draws nearer. This story card gives the heroes the chance to trade their goods for a higher price as they sell them to travelers. However, you must also spend one gold or become delayed as hundreds of people flee to the countryside of Terrinoth. Between the story cards, adventure cards, the special rules of the scenario, and the unique dangers of the villain you face, each scenario included in Runebound offers a completely unique play experience with plenty of replayability.

Battle High Lord Margath

Adventure lies before you in Runebound, yet a deadly threat is also rising. As Dragonlord Margath begins his second rise to power, only a few of Terrinoth’s bravest heroes have a chance of stopping him. Gather your strength, cast down Margath once more, and become the savior of Terrinoth!

In our next preview, we’ll take a closer look at the second scenario in Runebound, The Corpse King. For now, pre-order your copy of Runebound at your local retailer today.

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Cast Down Your Foes

Published 6 October 2015 | Runebound

Cast Down Your Foes

Preview the Combat Tokens and Battles of Runebound

Terrinoth is a realm filled with wonder. Lost ruins hold hidden treasure. Strange creatures dwell in the deepest forests and beneath the waters of lakes and rivers. The Free Cities are repositories of learning, magic, and craftsmanship. Yet danger lurks in the wilds between the civilized cities. Dark forces stir once more, waylaying travelers and attacking remote settlements. Rumors even suggest that a deadly threat from the past has arisen in a bid to cover the land in darkness.

The realm of Terrinoth is yours to experience in Runebound, a board game of high fantasy and adventure for two to four players. In our first preview, we looked at the adventures that await you and the actions you’ll use to move across the realm. Next, we explored the heroes you can play and the countless ways you can customize your heroes with dozens of skills and assets.

The life of an adventurer is not merely travel and exploration, however. Sooner or later, you will draw your blade or open your spell book to do battle with your enemies. Today, we’ll look at the innovative mechanics used for combat in Runebound and examine an example of combat in action!

The Forms of Battle

In Runebound, you engage in battle whenever you draw an enemy adventure card from one of the three adventure decks. In addition, the two scenarios included in the game challenge you to battle and defeat a powerful nemesis in order to achieve victory. Therefore, you can expect that combat forms a crucial part of Runebound that you’ll experience in every game.

The large symbol on a combat token can be spent as a combat action. The smaller symbol provides a reference to the symbol appearing on the opposite side of the token.

Your battles in Runebound are resolved through the use of combat tokens, as shown above. Every player begins the game with three combat tokens unique to his hero, and you can gain additional combat tokens by acquiring assets, as we saw in our last preview. Similarly, the enemies that you face use a set of enemy combat tokens controlled by one of your rival heroes whenever you engage in battle. Once the first half of the game is completed, your foes become master enemies and the master token is added to the pool of enemy combat tokens, making them even more dangerous to fight.

When you engage in battle, you and your opponent controlling the enemy cast combat tokens simultaneously, shaking and tossing them like dice or flipping them like coins. Once both players have cast their combat tokens, you and your opponent take turns spending the results to deal damage, trigger special abilities, and dodge or shield attacks.

There are seven distinct symbols that may appear on a combat token, and each offers a different type of combat action that you may harness in the heat of battle.

Physical damage: This symbol appears only on hero and asset combat tokens, and it allows you to deal damage with mundane weapons. As an action, you may spend any number of physical damage symbol to deal damage equal to the number of symbols spent.

Magic damage: This symbol appears only on hero and asset combat tokens, and it invites you to use spells and rune magic in battle. As an action, you may spend any number of magic damage symbols to deal damage equal to the number of symbols spent.

Enemy damage: This symbol appears only on enemy combat tokens, and it represents any type of attack an enemy or nemesis might make. As an action, you may spend any number of your enemy damage symbols to attack and deal damage equal to the number of symbols spent.

Shields: Shields represent your natural defense, whether that’s armor or defensive training. When you are about to take damage during combat, you can spend any number of shields to block an equal amount of damage. Spending shields doesn’t require a combat action.

Agility: This symbol allows you to use your speed and wits to turn the tide of combat. As an action, you can spend this symbol to flip one of your tokens to its opposite side or to choose one of your opponent’s unspent tokens and force him to recast it!

Surge: Surges have no inherent ability, but most heroes and enemies have at least one surge ability that can be triggered by spending a number of surges. As an action, you can spend the required number of surges to trigger a powerful surge ability.

Double: The final symbol allows you to double the potency of your most powerful token. As an action, you can stack one of your other combat tokens on top of this one to double its symbols. For instance, if you stack a combat token that shows two magic damage on a double symbol, you now have four magic damage to spend as a future action.

Draw Your Sword

The variety granted by combat tokens and the many potential actions you can take each turn make Runebound battles tense, tactical engagements, filled with interesting choices. The outcome of battle is never certain, and the tide of battle can change in a moment.

As an example of combat, Lord Hawthorne draws a card from the exploration adventure deck that launches him into battle with a deadly Dreadbringer ! The battle begins with both players collecting and casting their combat tokens. Lord Hawthorne casts his three hero combat tokens and a single combat token that he has gained from the Staff of Light , receiving a surge, a shield, a physical damage, and an agility. The player controlling the Dreadbringer casts the five enemy combat tokens and receives an enemy damage, a shield, an agility, a double, and a dash, which has no abilities.

Before either player takes his first combat action, initiative is determined for the battle. Whichever player has more gold symbols on his combat tokens has initiative, and in this case, both players have two gold symbols showing. If players are tied for initiative, the attacker wins, allowing Lord Hawthorne to take the first combat action.

As his first action, Lord Hawthorne spends his agility result to flip his combat token currently showing the shield. After being flipped, it displays two physical damage, setting him up for a strong future attack at the cost of some defense.

Under normal circumstances, it would now be the Dreadbringer’s turn to take an action. However, Lord Hawthorne doesn’t want to see his damage symbols recast by the Dreadbringer’s agility. To avoid this, Lord Hawthorne decides to use his Reach ability to immediately take a second combat action. As his second action, Lord Hawthorne spends all three of his physical damage symbols to deal three damage to the Dreadbringer. The player controlling the Dreadbringer elects to use his shield symbol to block one damage. The rest of the attack makes it through unhindered, and two damage tokens are placed on the Dreadbringer.

As a combat action, the Dreadbringer player stacks one of his enemy damage symbols on the double symbol, giving him a new total of two enemy damage when he makes his attack.

It is now Lord Hawthorne’s turn to take an action. His only remaining combat token is a surge. He uses the surge symbol to trigger the Blind ability on the Staff of Light, flipping one of his foe’s combat tokens. Lord Hawthorne chooses to flip the enemy damage that is currently doubled, reducing the potential for incoming damage, but giving his opponent more surges.

The player controlling the Dreadbringer now takes an action and spends his agility to flip his combat token that shows a dash to an enemy damage.

Lord Hawthorne has no combat tokens remaining, so he passes and the Dreadbringer player can take another action. He chooses to spend his enemy damage to deal one damage to Lord Hawthorne. Because Lord Hawthorne has no shield symbols, this damage is immediately placed on his card.

Finally, the Dreadbringer player chooses to spend his two surges to trigger his Regenerate ability and heal two damage. With that, both players have spent all of their combat tokens, and the combat round is complete. Lord Hawthorne may attempt to retreat from battle or press the attack and begin a new round of combat with both players recasting all of their combat tokens!

Struggle Against Evil

Sooner or later in a game of Runebound, you’ll test your might in combat against one of the enemies of the realm. Take your first steps on the road to becoming a legend of Terrinoth when you pre-order your copy of Runebound at your local retailer today!

Join us in two weeks for a preview of one of the scenarios included in Runebound: the Ascendence of Margath.

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Customize Your Hero

Published 29 September 2015 | Runebound

Customize Your Hero

Preview the Skills and Assets of Runebound

The realm of Terrinoth is filled with adventure and powerful foes for you to battle and test your strength against. You can seek the wisdom of an aged mentor high in the mountains. You can walk through the markets of Dawnsmoor in search of new gear. You can battle a Death Knight sworn to Vorakesh the Corpse King. In Runebound, you choose your path and determine your destiny!

Our first preview of Runebound examined the adventures you can undertake and how your hero can move across the board, explore locations, and take other actions during your quests. We also took a closer look at a hero’s starting stats and how you begin your adventures. Today, we turn our attention to the potential for every player to customize his hero with dozens of skills and assets!

Hone Your Skills

Every hero in Runebound starts with some baseline stats, abilities, and combat tokens, as we explored in our last preview. Though your starting abilities have been earned over a lifetime of adventuring, they alone will not be enough for you to destroy the nemesis of Terrinoth and win everlasting renown. To increase your power and customize your hero into the archetype that you wish to play, you must gain new skills and assets to supplement your starting abilities.

Skill cards are readily available to every hero through training. At the beginning of the game, each hero draws a number of skill cards equal to his maximum hand size. By spending an action to train at any point during the game, a hero can refill his hand of skill cards by drawing a number of new skill cards equal to his maximum hand size.

You can learn new skills at any point on your turn by spending the trophies that you receive when you complete adventures. Each skill card has a number of orbs in the upper left-hand corner that represent the cost to learn that skill. For example, the Unpredictable skill card—which allows you draw a skill card once per turn—has three grey orbs, meaning that you can learn this skill by spending any three trophies.

Some skill cards feature different orbs that require specific trophy types in order to learn the skill. The Guiding Light skill, for instance, requires an exploration trophy and two other trophies of any type, and it rewards you by allowing you to spend an action to move to any shrine on the map.

You can’t simply learn every skill you want to, however. Every skill card has a symbol in the lower left-hand corner that corresponds to one of a hero’s three attributes: body, mind, or spirit. These attributes govern how many skills you can have of the matching type: Elder Mok has a body value of two, a mind value of one, and a spirit value of two, so he can possess up to two body skills, one mind skill, and two spirit skills. Naturally, some skill cards, such as Bulked Up or Well of Power , increase your hero’s attributes and you can always replace your existing skills with new skills.

Of course, not all skill cards are suitable to your hero. You may have a body attribute of zero, but you’ll still draw body skill cards from the deck. Fortunately, skill cards are useful for far more than just enhancing and customizing your hero. At many points throughout the game, you’ll have the option to push your own limits by exerting. When you’re moving or exploring, for example, you can always exert to reroll one of your terrain dice. Similarly, skill cards like Puppet Master require you to exert to receive a powerful effect. To exert, you simply discard a skill card from your hand—the only limit to how many times you can exert is the number of skill cards in your hand.

Elder Mok wants to travel to Tamalir, but needs to exert to reroll one of his terrain dice.

Perhaps you’re attempting to move towards the Free City of Tamalir, but you need two water results to both cross the river and move through Blackwing Swamp. On your turn, you only roll one water result, but you may exert to reroll one of your terrain dice by discarding a skill card like Defensive Stance that you wouldn’t have used anyways. You discard Defensive Stance and reroll a die, receiving a wild result that will enable you to move into Tamalir this turn!

Visit the Marketplace

If skills are one half of forging your hero into the savior of Terrinoth, assets are the other piece. The four Free Cities of Terrinoth are constantly stocked with all manner of weapons, gear, and equipment for adventurers across the realm. Each Free City has a corresponding marketplace on the edge of the board, where three asset cards are displayed. When you enter a Free City and spend an action to shop, you draw one new asset card from the top of the deck and add it to the three cards already in your city. Then, you may either buy one of the cards by paying its gold cost or discard a card, putting it beyond the reach of other heroes!

The marketplace at Tamalir, stocked with asset cards.

There are five distinct types of assets that you can acquire in Runebound: weapon, clothing, equipment, movement, and goods. You can only carry one asset of each type at any given time, and each type of asset offers a different advantage. Movement assets like the Winged Boots commonly increase your speed, helping you move and explore faster. Weapons like the Truesteel Axe offer beneficial abilities as well as additional combat tokens for you to cast in battle, as shown below. We’ll explore combat in much greater depth in our next preview.

Clothing and equipment can offer any number of powerful abilities: the Truelight Lantern helps you explore, while Mana Armor is cripplingly expensive, but gives you a powerful combat token, increased spirit, and increased health. The final type of asset that you may purchase is goods, such as Artifacts or Supplies . Transporting goods is one of the fastest ways to earn more gold on your adventures. For instance, you can purchase Supplies in a Free City for zero gold, then travel to any town on the map and spend an action to trade the goods in for two gold! Whether you’re saving up for Mana Armor or trying to purchase the Lightning Rune , a few stops to deliver goods along your adventures can quickly increase your wealth.

Choose Your Path

Skills and assets are more than just a way to increase your hero’s power. They truly make every game of Runebound unique and invite you to customize your hero in different ways. In one game, you could outfit Elder Mok with Mana Armor, a Truesteel Axe, and skills like Bulked Up and Interrogation to make him a deadly melee combatant. In the next adventure, you could forge him into a deadly magician with Battle Robes , the Lightning Rune, and the Battle Sorcery skill. In Runebound, only you choose your path and only you can decide the fate of Terrinoth!

In our next preview, we’ll explore combat tokens and battles in Runebound! For now, head to your local retailer and pre-order Runebound today.

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New Heroes Rise

Published 22 September 2015 | Runebound

New Heroes Rise

Preview the Heroes of Runebound

The realm has need of your skills, adventurer! As one of the land’s bravest heroes, you are one of the only ones who possess the abilities to oppose a terrifying threat. From your first steps on the open road, your adventures and actions will determine not only your fate, but the fate of all Terrinoth. Take up your blade and let your greatest adventure begin in Runebound!

In our last preview of Runebound, we explored the adventure that you will undertake and the actions you can perform as you traverse the ancient forests and lonely wastes of Terrinoth. Today, however, we turn our attention to the heroes themselves—the noble warriors and mages that you can play in every game of Runebound.

First Steps

Six unique heroes are included in Runebound, and each one offers a very different starting point for your adventures. Some heroes are naturally pre-disposed towards physical might, some are fast and agile, and others already boast well-developed skills as spellcasters. Your choice of hero offers you a good foundation for building your hero into a legendary warrior who can protect Terrinoth from the nemesis rising against it.

At the beginning of the game, you select one of the six heroes to play. When you choose a hero, you also take the corresponding hero card—all hero cards are double-sided, and the first side displays setup instruction for that hero.

To begin, you must take gold equal to your starting gold and draw skill cards equal to your maximum hand size. For example, if you are playing as Laurel of Bloodwood, you will take two gold and draw four skill cards from the skill deck. These resources offer you a starting point for improving and customizing your hero. Gold is predominantly spent in the Free Cities of Terrinoth to purchase assets, and skills can be learned after you’ve completed enough adventures. We’ll take a closer look at skills and assets in a future preview.

Next, every hero card shows the hero’s starting location in the lower right-hand corner—either a shrine, a stronghold, or a town. Shrines, strongholds, and towns are scattered across Terrinoth, and during setup you can place your hero in any location that matches the symbol shown for the starting location. Laurel of Bloodwood can be placed in any town on the map during the game setup.

Finally, you can resolve your hero-specific setup instructions. As Laurel of Bloodwood, you can roll two terrain dice and spend the results to move, giving you a head start on the race to adventure. You’ll also claim your hero’s combat tokens at this time. Each hero has three unique combat tokens that he starts the game with. Laurel of Bloodwood’s combat tokens feature a strong balance across the distinct aspects of combat, offering a mix of physical damage, agility, defense, and surges. We’ll take a closer look at battles and combat tokens when we look at combat in a later preview!

Become a Hero

After setup is completed, you can flip your hero card over to display the gameplay side. This side offers an array of additional information. First, along the right-hand border of the card, you will find three values. The uppermost value is your hero’s speed, which determines how many terrain dice you roll when you move or explore. Improving your hero’s speed with assets or skills makes it much easier to travel across Terrinoth in the limited time you have available.

Underneath your speed is your hero’s health. Battling monsters or embarking on arduous adventures can cause your hero to take damage. If your hero suffers damage equal to his health, he is defeated, and you must rest to recover from your injuries. Finally, below your health, your maximum hand size is shown again. When you choose to train during the game, you draw a number of skill cards equal to your maximum hand size, then discard down to your maximum hand size again, allowing you to replenish your hand with new and useful skill cards.

Each hero card also shows a number of special abilities unique to that hero, which can give you an edge in the race to become the greatest hero that Terrinoth has ever seen. Laurel of Bloodwood has the Pathfinding ability, which invites you to reroll all of your terrain dice once per turn. Pathfinding can prove extremely useful, whether you’re using it to find the perfect path through the wilderness or to thoroughly explore a puzzling location.

In combat, Laurel of Bloodwood can use the skills she learned among her people to move faster than her opponents. For one surge, you can trigger Speed of Di’zon, which allows you to recast one of your spent combat tokens, including the surge you just spent! With the Speed of Di’zon, Laurel of Bloodwood gets double use out of your best combat token, making her an effective combatant in any situation.

Each hero card features three attributes. From left to right: body, mind, and spirit.

Finally, below the hero’s abilities, three attributes are shown: body, mind, and spirit. Laurel of Bloodwood has a body value of two, a mind value of two, and a spirit value of one. At certain points in the game, you may be called upon to test an attribute. When you perform an attribute test, you reveal a number of skill cards equal to your attribute from the deck. If any of those cards has the success symbol, you pass the test!

Of course, the hero that you choose at the beginning of the game doesn’t lock you into a certain path. Your starting abilities, combat tokens, and attributes provide a solid foundation for building your character, but from those first building blocks, you can take your character in any direction you want.

In one game, you may play Laurel of Bloodwood as a deadly warrior, equipped with the best weapons, armor, and combat skills. In the next, you may customize her to be a powerful sorcerer, using spells and magical damage to fell her foes. The skills and assets that you choose for your hero offer countless options and give you the chance to expand your hero’s strengths in any direction during a game of Runebound!

Become a Legend

The hero that you choose sets you on the road to legend in Runebound, but it’s just the beginning of your quest. Choose your hero and prepare to battle the nemeses of Terrinoth in every game of Runebound!

Join us next time for a preview of the assets and skills that you can use to customize your hero. For now, pre-order Runebound at your local retailer today!

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Quest Throughout the Realm

Published 15 September 2015 | Runebound

Quest Throughout the Realm

Preview the Adventures and Gameplay of Runebound

Enter the world of Terrinoth and become a living legend in Runebound, a board game of thrilling adventure and high fantasy for two to four players! In every game, a terrible fate threatens the realm with utter destruction, and you must race your rival heroes to be the first hero to defeat this evil threat. Of course, defeating this impending doom is not the only quest you will undertake in your travels. In Terrinoth, adventure lies around every bend of the dusty road and stretches from the highest mountain peaks, to the depths of an enchanted lake, to ruins untouched in living memory.

Today, we begin our series of previews by diving into the heart of Runebound: the adventures that you undertake as you wander the realm and grow in power!

Countless Adventures Await

At the beginning of a game of Runebound, the realm is seeded with adventures of every kind by placing adventure gems in predetermined locations around the game board. These adventure gems represent the countless possible encounters that may occur as you travel across Terrinoth, and they are divided into three categories. Orange adventure gems allow you to draw combat encounters, green gems correspond to exploration adventure cards, and purple gems invite you to experience social adventures.

Adventure gems correspond to adventure cards of the matching color. These cards are divided into three types: combat, exploration, and social.

Each type of adventure gem offers very different experiences and choices. Social adventure cards are commonly events that force you to make a choice between two effects. When you draw the Smuggling adventure card, for instance, a smuggler asks you to deliver some weapons to his contact in Burrow Town. You may choose to take him up on the job, keeping the adventure card and spending an action after traveling to Burrow Town to gain some valuable gold and a trophy. Alternatively, if Burrow Town is too far out of your way, you might decide to turn the smuggler into the authorities for a chance to earn some quick gold!

Exploration adventure cards commonly set a quest before you. Quest cards generally ask you to travel to some part of Terrinoth and explore the area to see if you can find the object of your search. For example, if you draw the Swamp Tales quest, you have the chance to travel to Blackwing Swamp to investigate the strange lights that shine beneath the swamp. Once you’ve reached the swamp, you can spend an action to explore and roll a number of terrain dice equal to your hero’s speed. For this quest, if you only obtain a single water result, you accomplish nothing but ruining your favorite boots—though you still get to claim this card as a trophy. If you can roll a water and a wild, you find an ancient chest, which grants you three gold in addition to the trophy. Finally, if you’re lucky enough to roll two waters and a plains, you can visit the city below Blackwing Swamp, becoming delayed to learn any skill in your hand for free!

Lord Hawthorne has undertaken the Swamp Tales quest, and he now spends an action to explore Blackwing Swamp. He may use his results to discover an ancient chest, or he may take another action to roll again and try for a better result!

The last type of adventure card you may encounter is focused on combat. Most combat adventure cards are enemies that you must face in battle! You may draw the Razorwing enemy and be forced to fight this aerial menace before you can continue on your adventures. Each possible enemy has unique abilities as well as unique rewards for defeating it. During a battle, you and the player controlling the monster toss your combat tokens and take turns spending the tokens to cast spells, damage your foe, use surge abilities, or dodge oncoming attacks. We’ll explore combat tokens and battles in much greater detail in a future preview!

Across Hill and Dale

Of course, to reach these adventure gems and test your might against the monsters and dangers of Terrinoth, you must first traverse the realm. Every hero has three actions to spend on his turn, which he can use to move, adventure, rest, train, or shop in a city.

For a single action, you can choose to move across the realm, and every move offers a variety of options. If you only have a short way to go, you can simply move to an adjacent space as your move action, but if you want to travel further, you’ll need to roll the terrain dice. When you choose to move beyond an adjacent hex, you roll a number of terrain dice equal to your hero’s speed and spend the results to move across the various types of terrain that you may encounter. Many dice show more than one type of terrain, meaning they can be spent to move across either of the terrain pictured. Wild results can also be spent to move across any type of terrain. For example, if you roll two plains results and a forest result, you may move across two plains hexes and one forest hex in any order, as shown in the diagram below.

Lord Hawthorne spends an action and rolls three terrain dice to move. He uses the wild result to cross the river from Hunter's Circle, the forest result to move to the second hex in the Hedge, and the hills result to enter Castle Thelys.

Although you may travel quicker by cutting across the open country of Terrinoth, traveling along established roads is much more reliable. If you’re on a road, you may use any die result to move one hex further along the road, allowing you to travel quickly and reliably—so long as the road is headed in the direction you intend to travel!

Once you get to an adventure gem, it takes two actions to take on the adventure that you find there. When you choose to adventure, you first flip the adventure gem, then draw an adventure card from the matching deck, resolving the adventure as described above. Adventure cards are the principal way that you will gain trophies and gold, which help your hero to increase in power before confronting the nemesis of Terrinoth in a climactic battle. After an adventure gem has been exhausted, no hero can undertake another adventure there until the gem is refreshed, which happens at set points throughout the game.

There’s far more to do in a game of Runebound than simply travel and adventure, however. In the Free Cities of Terrinoth, you have the chance to spend your hard-earned gold to purchase new assets, including new weapons, armor, magical artifacts, and goods that you can bring to other towns for a profit. Alternatively, you can spend an action anywhere in Terrinoth to train, drawing more skill cards to aid you. We’ll take a closer look at both assets and skills in a later preview as we explore how you can customize your hero and make a different character in every game of Runebound!

Lord Hawthorne uses his first action to move, using any die results to move along the road to Forge. He now has two actions remaining that he may use to shop for assets or rest from his travels.

Your final option for actions on your turn is to rest. Your adventures are certain to take their toll, whether you’re battling monsters or climbing the heights of Mennara’s Teeth. The rest action is the principal way for you to recover health, and it can make the difference between continued adventures and ignominious defeat.

The World Lies Before You

Endless adventures await your arrival in the realm of Terrinoth. Whether you’re battling dread dragons, buying a legendary sword, or exploring the darkest depths of the Hanging Woods, Runebound invites you to enter a realm of high fantasy and dangerous quests. In our next preview, we’ll take a closer look at the heroes that you can control during your games of Runebound.

For now, pre-order your copy of Runebound at your local retailer today!

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Runebound

Published 31 July 2015 | Runebound

Runebound

Danger and High Adventure in the Realm of Terrinoth

You’re sitting comfortably in the town’s tavern, listening to other adventurers swap tales of ancient treasure and daring deeds. You walked long hours already today, cutting off-road to cross the Riverlands south of Red Bridge, but you can feel the weight of the miles falling away. As you sit, a young man bursts through the tavern doors and shouts that a dragon’s been sighted in Mennara’s Teeth. “Not to worry,” you say as you rise. “This one’s all mine.”

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce Runebound, a board game of heroic deeds and high adventure in the fantasy realm of Terrinoth!

How does Runebound compare to previous versions of the game?
Although you may recognize some elements and mechanics, this version of Runebound is a reimagined vision of the game and is incompatible with previous editions.

Welcome to Terrinoth, adventurer! You are one of a few worthy heroes, wandering across the realm and taking what quests you encounter. But now, a dark terror from centuries past has awoken, and it threatens to cast all of Terrinoth into darkness. Only a peerless hero – a hero such as you – can defeat this evil and save the realm. Perhaps you will be the one to save Terrinoth and have your name enshrined as a living legend!

Players originally entered the fantasy realm of Terrinoth with the first edition of Runebound, more than ten years ago. Since then, we've invited you back to Terrinoth with games like Descent: Journeys in the Dark, BattleLore Second Edition, Rune Age, and Runewars. Now, you can return to the realm with a new version of Runebound, the game that first introduced you to Terrinoth!

In Runebound, you take on up to three rivals in a contest to become the most renowned hero and save the realm. You and your rival heroes will adventure throughout Terrinoth, battling monsters, navigating tense social encounters, and exploring lost ruins and forgotten forests. As you adventure, your hero gains power, develops skills, and acquires powerful weapons, before using them to take on a deadly opponent in a climactic final battle. Only the mightiest hero will be remembered forever!

An Epic Tale

In every game of Runebound, you craft your own story and play as one of six powerful heroes searching for adventure throughout the land of Terrinoth. The realm is filled with encounters for you to experience – adventures to join and quests to fulfill. You may battle a fearsome Ettin in the wilds of Terrinoth, take a smuggling job or report the smuggler, or take a quest to explore the heights of Madman Pass. The choices you make, like the adventures you choose, are ultimately yours, which gives Runebound a vast amount of replayability.

Adventures are scattered across the map and represented by adventure gems. These adventure gems exist in three different colors, each of which corresponds to the type of adventure you may find: combat, social, or exploration. When you determine your hero’s story, you’re free to choose which adventures you wish to undertake. You may focus on combat, exploration, social encounters, or a mix of all three. Of course, to take on these adventures, you’ll need to brave the wilds of Terrinoth. Movement in Runebound is governed by rolling terrain dice. You may move along the established roads quickly and easily, or you may cut across country, taking a potential shortcut that risks delay if the terrain dice don’t provide the results you need.

Elder Mok rolls three terrain dice and uses the results to move across Terrinoth.

Battles in Runebound are fast and tactical, using an innovative, token-based combat system. Each hero has a number of combat tokens, and when you engage in battle, you take all of your combat tokens in your hand and cast them like dice or flip them like coins. Once both you and your opponent have cast combat tokens, you take turns spending combat tokens to deal damage to your opponent, shield incoming attacks, flip your own or an opponent’s tokens, or stack your tokens to increase their power.

Players cast combat tokens and take turns spending them to engage in tense, tactical battles.

Both heroes and enemies also have a number of surge abilities that you may trigger during battle with surges from your combat tokens. The possible effects are nearly limitless, and deciding which surge abilities to use and when is crucial to winning your battles in Terrinoth. We’ll discuss combat in much greater depth in a future preview of Runebound.

Evil Awakening

Adventures wait around every bend of the road in Terrinoth, but as your game of Runebound begins, a darkness from Terrinoth’s troubled past has returned to plague its future. Two unique scenarios offer vastly different threats for you to face in your games. You may face the dread inferno of Margath the Dragonlord, or you may contend with hordes of shambling undead as you battle Vorakesh, a powerful necromancer.

In addition to the standard adventure cards, each scenario offers specific adventure cards to add to the adventure decks, making each scenario feel distinctly different and giving both scenarios great replayability. You’ll dive for cover from marauding dragons when you battle the ascendance of Margath, and you may explore Blackwing Swamp to search for a city of the dead that holds clues for defeating Vorakesh. In addition to these unique adventure cards, each scenario introduces a deck of story cards that drives the action and gives you additional quests to undertake. As you battle Margath, you’ll scour the realm for dragonlore in hopes of uncovering Margath’s weaknesses. When you take on the undead hordes of Vorakesh, you’ll slay his zombies wherever they appear and gather useful companions who can aid you in your adventure. No matter how many times you've played one of these scenarios, the huge number of adventures and quests makes these scenarios fresh every time you play.

Slaying the minions of Vorakesh and Margath won’t do much good if you fail to defeat their master. Once you feel your character has gained enough power, you may travel to the heart of danger and confront the nemesis of Terrinoth in a fight to the death. In the two scenarios included in Runebound, the first player to defeat this nemesis wins the game, but if a hero fails to defeat this enemy, he is eliminated from the game. If you wish to defeat your foe and become a legend in Terrinoth, you must gain new skills and powerful items, but take care not to delay too long. If too much time passes before a hero defeats Margath or Vorakesh, all heroes lose the game! We’ll explore both of these scenarios in much more detail in a future Runebound preview.

Customize Your Hero

Of course, before your hero can defeat the likes of Margath or Vorakesh, he must grow from humble beginnings to become a peerless hero. You’ll need to learn new skills and acquire powerful items if you’re going to defeat your foes and become the savior of Terrinoth.

To gain new skill cards, you use the trophies you obtain from completing adventures. These skill cards offer powerful new abilities ranging from increased speed to powerful spells. Every hero has three attributes: body, mind, and spirit. You may test these attributes during certain adventures, but they also determine how many skills your hero can hold. For example, if your hero has a body value of one, you may only have one body skill in play at a time. Skill cards have added benefits beyond granting enhanced abilities, though. You will frequently need to exert yourself in order to accomplish your goal, and exerting always requires you to discard a skill card from your hand.

You may also improve your hero by purchasing new assets from the four Free Cities in this region of Terrinoth. When you travel into one of these cities, you have the option to purchase any of the assets sold in the city’s market stalls. You may pick up some goods and earn a profit by carrying them to their destination, whether a nearby stronghold or a remote shrine. Alternatively, you may gain new abilities and combat tokens by equipping new weapons, clothing, and equipment. In the course of your adventures, you’ll certainly want to put some of your gold to good use by visiting the marketplaces of Terrinoth. You'll be able to customize your hero differently in every game of Runebound, meaning that even if you play the same hero, every game can be different.

Become a Legend

Ancient evil threatens to plunge Terrinoth into a new era of darkness. Only you and a few other heroes have a chance of defeating this threat and saving the realm. Will you become a living legend, or will your name fade away with the other heroes who came too late? Decide your fate and the fate of Terrinoth in Runebound, and watch the video below for a brief video introduction to this new version of Runebound!

Look for Runebound at your local retailer in the fourth quarter of 2015.

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