Enter the Rune Age: An Unboxing and First Solo Session Report

My copy of Rune Age came in the mail today. The folks at Miniature Market were very patient with my anticipation for this game (I can be a pain when I am waiting for games to release. I expect the same level of patience when Elder Sign releases, folks :) ), and I would like to thank them for their patience. Their customer service is excellent!

My expectations for this game were high as I have been waiting to enter the deck-building arena. When I saw Fantasy Flight was throwing their hat into the ring with this one, I jumped at it. I have played Dominion and Ascension (on a side note: I have Ascension for my iPad and love it. It is an awesome game on the iOS. I highly recommend it). I liked both, but I was looking for something more. Was this game it? Let's find out...

Max is always excited when a new game arrives. The box is a bit slimmer than the boxes for Call of Cthulhu Card Game and Warhammer: Invasion Card Game. 

Here's what you get in the box. The best thing about the packaging is the counters and cards come in ziplock bags. So, I don't have to break out any old Magic the Gathering pre-constructed boxes for storage. Yes, yes, I know it has the horrible cardboard insert. I am so over those. The Attrition Die is hiding under the insert by the way. You'll see it in all of its horrible glory below.

 Here is the initial set up for my solo game. 

I chose the The Daqan Lords (A union of lords, great in power and prestige, an ancient coalition held together by long tradition of nobility and rule of law. from the rulebook) as my faction. I, of course, plan on playing each of the other three factions to get a feel for them all. I will post the results of those games here as well.

I chose to play Resurgence of the Dragonlords scenario for my first game. There are four total scenarios in this set. Two of them can be played solo. Each of the scenarios caters to a certain play style: cooperative, confrontational, and two of them have a dash of both. 

 This is about half way through my first game. As you can tell, my Home card was feeling some pain. 

 I tried to defeat an Enemy from the Event deck on my turn, but the Attrition Die forced me to destroy two of my Footman, sending the rest to the discard pile. Just like my die from Death Angel: Space Hulk the Card Game, I think this die is Warp-touched as well...

At the endgame, the Dragonlord Phrynelex brought the coup de grace to my kingdom. It now lies in a burning ruin. Let's see if I can do better next time.

Final Thoughts: I love this game. It met my expectations and more. With the 4 factions and 4 scenarios, I think there is a lot there for me to play with many combinations to explore. Each of the scenarios seems to have its own feel. I will know more when I play them, of course, but just reading them was interesting and whetted my appetite to play them. 

Like most games, once I got the feel for the rules and got into the groove, the game played really fast, and I found myself trying to balance purchasing the many cards there are to buy with defeating the Enemies that were pouring out of the Event deck. I like having to make decisions and plan a strategy in my games. Rune Age  does not disappoint. 

Solo it is a good time, and I look forward to more games, including multi-player. So, I am looking forward to presenting it to my gaming group this Monday to see how they like it. Knowing them, I think they will enjoy this game immensely. Off to shuffle some more cards and smash some Dragonlords. 

Thanks for reading and until next time, good gaming!