Runebound Third Edition: Unbreakable Bonds

This game gave me my board game elder scrolls fix as a solo experience. It satisfies a very specific niche for me that I’ve been looking for since I got into board games 2 1/2 years ago. I love the choices that you have to make between fighting a monster to get some extra gold for that shiny new broad sword, or go for the exploration quest to get a skill that give additional actions, OR actually do the story mission so you have a chance at completing the victory conditions for the scenario. And it really feels like you are a beginning hero like in the elder scrolls and become a much more competent explorer like in the elder scrolls games all in an hour playtime if you are going through solo. And there is plenty of variety to keep you coming back again between the contents here and the core box (I bought this and the core as a single purchase so have only played with unbreakable bonds).

I'm only giving this game 4 stars because I think I just didn't care for the game play "running out of turns" mechanic in Runebound. I think other people probably like this, and that the game is an overall really neat game. It just wasn't for me.

You really need this addon for Runebound to play it every which way you can, solo, coop, etc. Glad they added this, as Runebound needed this. I had still played Runebound solo, serving as the enemy as well, but requires you to really be thoroughly honest to make the game fair, but this makes the brain work and discipline on that so much easier. Find the price a little high, but it's a 5 star because of all that it offers. Tons of fun, and love the scenarios with each type of play.

This was the best expansion to one of my all-time favorite board games. To me Runebound 3 was better than 2, and this expansion really opened the door for what future expansions could have looked like. Unfortunately, the game looks dead getting unbreakable bounds seems pretty expensive, which is a shame because if you have runebound 3 and don't have this I would highly recommend it.

I play Runebound with my 5 and 8 year old daughters and my wife. They love it - I DM the whole game and help with the reading. I recommend the quick 15 minute walk through videos YouTube if you are new. Helped us learn quickly!

I bought this and when it showed up at my door I was excited to give it a shot. However upon picking up the box I could tell it was way to light. The game was empty except for some punchboards from another game.

Unbreakable Bonds is a breath of fresh air for Runebound 3rd edition. First and foremost, it introduces true co-op mechanics into the game. Instead of a human making decisions during combat, there are enemy class boards that guide the players on which tokens to use first. Additionally, UB includes rules that can change the prior quests into co-op versions. There is also now the ability to form parties. Parties move together and each hero in a party can use any of the (new and included) party skills that have been earned - jointly - by the players. It's a great mechanic. Simply put, playing Runebound as a co-op adventure is absolutely the way to play it. There are also new assets, new skills, two great new quests that focus heavily on co-op, and two new heroes. All these features are excellent additions to the game. In particular, I love having four groups of assets. House rule suggestion: you can assign each asset deck to a city and be guaranteed an even spread with regard to the pricing and types of items. Nine+ groups of skills is also nice, since you can now vary how much of each attribute is in the deck. No more flooding players with strength skills when each only has one strength. I will say this, however (and this is the sole reason for the four stars): this should have been included in the main game. Runebound is an adventure game, through and through, and having an adventure WITH friends is significantly better than competing AGAINST friends. For Fantasy Flight not to recognize this is simply baffling. Seriously, you're fighting the dragon--- to be the best hero? Come on... Not all of us are fame-craving chaotic neutral narcissists. And if you are, well, after we beat the dragon you can have its head. The end goal just never made sense for the setting. People noted this in reviews. And what happened? FF dropped the ball a second time (see all the negative reviews regarding the Fallout board game and its non-cooperative goals). This is becoming a troubling pattern. So, at the end of the day, UB is a 5 star expansion that is tainted by the business model surrounding it. Since I and many others chose to not vote with my wallet it this case (because, admittedly, Runebound is a great game), I hope enough people voice their concerns to FF for them to consider straight co-op as the base in future games.

The fact that this expansion turns the base game into a full (and optional) Co-Op game makes this a MUST have. It's also nice that Fantasy Flight included enough material in Unbreakable Bonds to turn almost all of the previous adventures into co-op as well! This is a no-brainer!

It allows solo and coop pretty fluidly, but what I also like is the addition of three more types of creatures, each with their own different set of battle tokens. So, not all enemies are using the same token pool. This gives a larger range of variability within the game.

Good addition to a good game