Rune Age Review

 Rune Age is distinguished by a high level of interaction between players and aggression (up to the elimination of the player), asymmetric factions and different game scenarios. The scenario shown on The Realms of Terrinoth reduced the game to an "arms race" in which the goal was to accumulate enough power to destroy the main enemy, the dragon lord card that lies in the center of the table from the start and has a power of 18. The west was mentioned and mentioned. a co-op scenario in which "trouble" is thrown into the deck of events, and players must work together to counter that deck. Scenarios also determine the cards available to players; yes, in the scenario played out at the event, there were only 3 different neutral cards available to players.

SCHEDULE

 The basic set of the game features four factions - the same as in Runewars. Each faction has its own unique set of stacks of cards that a player playing as a faction can buy into their deck, and they are unique. Most of the faction's special cards are troops. In addition, each faction is matched with one card representing the kingdom itself, which has 20 stamina. Also, each faction has its own stack of so-called fortresses - they give players points of influence.

 Common deck cards can be bought by all players. These include gold cards and neutral cards; the second includes various tactics that can affect the player's turn or battle, as well as neutral troops.

 The city maps represent the various cities of the Terrinoth universe (Vinevale, Frostgate, etc.). Cities have defense levels at their disposal and can be captured by players. Once a city is captured, it is positioned in front of the player who captured it and can rotate 90° (like resources in collectible card games) to grant them influence points to purchase cards.

 The Event Deck provides unique instant events and enemy cards that come into play and can be attacked by players. Most of the enemy cards when defeated bring artifacts to the winner - they provide the player with additional game opportunities.

 All players receive starting cards according to their faction. Thus, the human faction receives maps of troops of four types: infantry, archers, knights and siege towers. Their prices are 1, 2, 3, and 4 gold, respectively, and their power is 1, 2, 3, and 4. In addition, there are 3 fortress cards available to the human faction, each of which can be purchased and placed in front of you by spending 4 gold or capturing with battles (with a total strength of 2). A captured or purchased fortress earns 1 point of influence. All army cards, in addition to price and power, have special game features that are used in battle.

CONDITIONS OF VICTORY

 Any game in Rune Age begins by choosing a scenario, depending on which the victory conditions change, for example, to destroy a dragon lord whose power is equal to 18. In addition, it is possible to win by destroying the kingdom cards of all opposing players - the player whose kingdom card has lost all 20 stamina points and is out of the game (this game moment is being clarified and is not the truth).

FLOW OF THE GAME

 There are three types of resources in the game: gold, influence and power (the ability to fight) - all of them are represented on cards. Cards are purchased by spending the required resources and then either go into the player's discard pile, which is later transformed into their new deck, or are laid out in front of the player, ready for action.

 During his turn, a player can spend gold or influence to buy new cards, or start a battle to capture a card. Gold is spent as in other similar games: the player simply discards gold cards from his hand and acquires new cards for the amount of their value. Influence is carried out by the cards lying in front of the player. They are not mixed in the player's deck, but are returned by 90° as payment for the purchase of cards. The third possible action is to declare a battle by playing troops from your hand.

 At the end of any player's turn, everyone adds five cards from their decks to their hand. This allows you to enter the battle as a defender without being helpless on your next turn.

BATTLE

 Battle works like this. A player declares a battle during his turn and first states his objective, which can be a neutral city laid out at the start of the game, a neutral city already captured by another player, an event map showing an enemy (including the main enemy - scenario objectives), or a kingdom another player.

 In all cases, the battle is the same, but only at the end of the battle with the event card, an additional loss step is performed. The player who announced the attack is considered the attacker. He starts the battle by laying out a troop or tactic card from his hand. If the target is a neutral card, the player simply continues laying out cards until they want to stop, or until the power of the laid cards exceeds the defense level of the attacked card. If another player controls a card, players take turns laying down one card until both save. After saving, the player can no longer lay out cards; if one player saved, the other player can lay out as many cards as he wants. Maps of troops and tactics also use their game capabilities. Once the winner of the battle is determined, all cards are discarded into the hosts' discard piles.

 In a battle against a neutral enemy, a die is rolled to determine the player's losses. Two faces of the cube are empty, three - with one depicted army, and one - with two. The dropped edge dictates how many troop cards the player will be forced to destroy before calculating the final strength of the opposing sides.

 A few words about the abilities of the cards. Having played a pawn, the player reveals the top card of his deck, and if it is another pawn, he can take it into his hand, otherwise discards it or returns it to the top of the deck. The archer's ability allows you to force the opponent to discard one troop card (from those already laid out on the table for the battle). The ability of the knight allows you to reveal the top card of your deck, and if its power level is 3 or less, take it into your hand, and if it is more, discard it. A siege tower allows you to discard cards from your hand and add +2 strength for each of them for the duration of this battle. The undead faction has more interesting actions, for example, resurrection: such troops, entering the game, allow the player to find a card with the ability of resurrection in his discard pile and put it into battle. Other factions have cards that can "injure" themselves to gain extra power or allow the host to draw more cards during battle.

 A few words about the terms "drop", "wound" and "destroy". When discarding a card, the player simply places it in their discard pile. When destroying a card, the player returns it to the purchase pile from which it was purchased — including the card leaves the player's deck. If a card is destroyed during battle, it no longer adds power to the host. Therefore, troops that can destroy other people's cards are very valuable. Wound (this only happens in battle) a card, the player turns it 90 ° to indicate that it is wounded - the card still adds its power to the host's total power for that battle, but after the battle it is not reset, but destroyed.

 Tactics cards can be played during turn and battle. For example, Battle Cry and Forced March. The first is a combat tactic and gives +1 power for each friendly troop participating in the battle. Forced March allows you to destroy one card from your hand to draw two cards from your deck. Such cards are bought by spending influence.

MISCELLANEOUS

NEUTRAL TROOPS

 A neutral demon army has been spotted in the game. It costs 6 units of influence, has a power of 5 (the strongest of the observed troops). Additionally, a demon cannot be destroyed during battle unless it is first wounded. A very useful ability to battle with enemies (event cards).

EVENTS DECK

 The deck of events is formed before the game. The objective card starts the game already on the table - it was the main enemy (dragon lord) with a power of 18. At the end of each round, before the first player starts a new round, a new event deck card is drawn.

 During the familiarization game, the first artifact from the event deck appeared, which was laid out according to the text in front of the player sitting to the right of the first player. It gave the player an additional unit of +1 influence. The following events turned out to be enemies that, when defeated, left the player as artifacts that give additional points of gold or influence. Near the end of the game, an instant event appeared, which turned out to be an enemy and attacked each of the four players in turn. His power was 12 points, and the player had to exceed them by playing cards from his hand. Any points not absorbed were converted into damage to the player's kingdom map. Yes, the eyewitness (and author of the original note) who had no combat cards in his hand took all 12 damage, reducing his kingdom's durability from 20 to 8 all at once!

THE FINAL BATTLE

 The people won. At the beginning of the last turn, the player had one gold card, Battle Cry and 3 Forced March in their hand. After playing Forced March, the player destroyed the gold card and got two infantry. After playing a second Forced March, I killed one infantryman and got a infantryman and a demon. The third Forced March destroyed the footman and allowed for a second demon and a knight. People at that point already had an artifact that gives +3 might in battle with the scenario objective, so the player started the final battle by playing a demon (+5 might), a demon (+5), a knight (+3), taking from the top of the deck into a pawn's hand, a pawn (+1), revealing and discarding a gold card from the top of the deck, and a Battle Cry (+4) that gave 21 power with the artifact. Since the battle was against a neutral enemy, a die was rolled to determine casualties. A "unit" was dropped and an infantryman was destroyed, which reduced the total strength to 19 points, but still allowed for the win.

DURATION OF THE PARTY

 It took about 90 minutes to explain the rules, prepare the playing area and the game itself, so experienced players can manage an hour in a 4-player game.