Ruling — Runebound: Second Edition

← Runebound: Second Edition

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Runebound: Second Editionbg-21523-en-1e

To play RUNEBOUND, follow these procedures:

Setup

1. Each player randomly chooses a Hero card or agrees amongst themselves which Heroes to play.[1]

2. Each player takes the plastic figure that corresponds to their Hero.[1]

3. Randomly choose who will be the starting player.[1]

4. Place the red, blue, yellow, and green adventure decks on the spaces matching their colors.[1]

5. Place the market deck in the market area.[1]

6. Place one market card face up on each market space except for the space corresponding to Tamalir.[1]

7. Place an adventure counter face up on each board space marked with a matching adventure jewel.[1]

8. Place the undefeated challenge counters (1-6) on their corresponding positions in the undefeated challenge track.[1]

Turn Sequence

Play continues clockwise around the table.[2] A player must complete their entire turn before the player to their left begins.[2] Each turn consists of these five steps in order:

1. Step 1: Refresh: Turn over all activated (face down) cards so they are face up; these may now be activated again.[2] If you have no activated cards, skip this step.[2]

2. Step 2: Movement: Move your Hero figure (which represents the Hero and all Allies) on the board.[2] On the very first turn, place the Hero figure on the Tamalir town space before moving.[2] Movement is determined by rolling movement dice (ordinarily five, but no more than four if there are any wound or exhaustion counters on the Hero or Allies).[2] For each terrain symbol shown on the dice, the Hero may enter one space of that terrain type, using only one symbol per die.[2]

3. Step 3: Adventure: (The provided text does not list the specific internal steps for the Adventure step, only that it is the third step in the sequence).[2]

4. Step 4: Market: (The provided text does not list the specific internal steps for the Market step, only that it is the fourth step in the sequence).[2]

5. Step 5: Experience: (The provided text does not list the specific internal steps for the Experience step, only that it is the fifth step in the sequence).[2]

Combat Phases

If a combat occurs, the following phases may take place:

1. Ranged Combat Phase: You may choose to attack or defend.[3]

* If you attack: Roll the dice and add your ranged combat value; if the result is equal to or greater than your opponent's ranged value, you succeed and the opponent takes wounds equal to your ranged damage value; if the result is less, you take wounds equal to the opponent's ranged damage value.[3]

* If you defend: Roll the dice and add your ranged combat value; if the result is equal to or greater than your opponent's ranged value, you succeed and nothing happens; if the result is less, you take wounds equal to the opponent's ranged damage value.[3]

2. Melee Combat Phase: If you did not attack during the ranged phase, you may choose to attack or defend; if you did attack during the ranged phase, you may only defend.[4]

* If you attack: Roll the dice and add your melee combat value; if the result is equal to or greater than your opponent's melee value, you succeed and the opponent takes wounds equal to your melee damage value; if the result is less, you take wounds equal to the opponent's melee damage value.[4]

* If you defend: Roll the dice and add your melee combat value; if the result is equal to or greater than your opponent's melee value, you succeed and nothing happens; if the result is less, you take wounds equal to the opponent's melee damage value.[4]

3. Magic Phase: If you have not defeated your opponent and your Hero has not been knocked out, you must play through the magic phase.[4]

Endgame

1. Determine the level of each player's Hero (one plus total experience counters).[5]

2. The player with the highest level Hero goes first to undertake the Endgame confrontation, followed by the second highest, and so on.[5] If tied, the player with the most gold goes first; if still tied, determine order randomly.[5]

3. During the Endgame confrontation, draw the top Challenge card from the red deck and resolve it (note: there is no refresh or movement step during this turn).[5]

4. If you defeat the Challenge and it is "High Lord Margath," you win.[5]

5. If you defeat a different Challenge and have three red Challenge cards in your inventory,

[1] RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook · p.3

[2] RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook · p.4 · The Turn Sequence · Step 1: Refresh · Step 2: Movement · Movement Dice · Terrain Symbols

[3] RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook · p.7 · Phase 1: Escape · Phase 2: Ranged Combat

[4] RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook · p.7 · Phase 3: Melee Combat

[5] RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook · p.10 · The Endgame · Endgame Confrontation · Variant: Travel Hazards (Recommended)

That settles it — whose turn was it?

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live,vps
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 86 ms · ask 6801 ms · total 6889 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 6889 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 4, "score": 0.047493, "snippet": "RUNEBOUND is played over a series of turns . A player must complete his entire turn, after which the player to his left completes his entire turn, etc. In this way, play continues clockwise around the table until the game ends. Each player turn is divided into these five steps : Step 1: Refresh Step", "headingPath": "The Turn Sequence · Step 1: Refresh · Step 2: Movement · Movement Dice · Terrain Symbols", "sharpsignalDocId": 1130}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.047371, "snippet": "3 The Game Board The major feature of the game board is the large map of the RUNEBOUND world, which is divided into hexagonal spaces. Each space is either a terrain type (plains, road, river, swamp, forest, hill, or mountain) or a town. Town spaces are “wild” and considered all terrains. Many spaces", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 1130}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.046751, "snippet": "The major feature of the game board is the large map of the RUNEBOUND world, which is divided into hexagonal spaces . Each space is either a terrain type (plains, road, river, swamp, forest, hill, or mountain) or a town . Town spaces are 'wild' and considered all terrains. Many spaces on the map hav", "headingPath": "The Game Board · Game Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 1130}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.045695, "snippet": "Determine the level of each player's Hero. (A Hero's level is equal to one plus its total number of experience counters.) The player with the highest level Hero is first to undertake the Endgame confrontation (detailed below), followed by the player with the second highest level Hero, and so on unti", "headingPath": "The Endgame · Endgame Confrontation · Variant: Travel Hazards (Recommended)", "sharpsignalDocId": 1130}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.045688, "snippet": "Each player randomly chooses a Hero card to represent the Hero he will play in the game. Alternately, players may agree amongst themselves which Heroes they will play. 9. Each player takes the plastic figure that corresponds to his Hero. Unused Hero cards and figures are put back in the box as they ", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 1130}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.044764, "snippet": "You do not have to move your Hero the full movement that you rolled. However, any unused movement dice are lost. Adventure counters, undefeated challenge counters, and other Hero figures on the board do not affect your movement. You may move your Hero figure into, out of, or through a space containi", "headingPath": "Other Movement Rules · Step 3: Adventure · Adventure Cards · Challenges", "sharpsignalDocId": 1130}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.04311, "snippet": "Defeating Challenges gives you experience points, which you may spend on experience counters. Each experience counter gives your Hero the indicated permanent bonus. If you fail an adventure, you must place an undefeated challenge counter on the board where the adventure was encountered. These counte", "headingPath": "Experience Counters · Undefeated Challenge Counters · Gold Counters · Doom Counters · Ten-sided Dice · Movement Dice", "sharpsignalDocId": 1130}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "Even the mightiest Heroes must sometimes attempt to flee from battle. In the first phase of each combat round, you may make an escape test . To make an escape test, roll the dice and add your Mind value. If your total is less than the Mind value of your opponent, you fail: Take one wound and either ", "headingPath": "Phase 1: Escape", "sharpsignalDocId": 1130}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 1130}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "The Turn Sequence · Step 1: Refresh · Step 2: Movement · Movement Dice · Terrain Symbols", "sharpsignalDocId": 1130}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Phase 1: Escape · Phase 2: Ranged Combat", "sharpsignalDocId": 1130}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Phase 3: Melee Combat", "sharpsignalDocId": 1130}, {"page": 10, "quote": null, "headingPath": "The Endgame · Endgame Confrontation · Variant: Travel Hazards (Recommended)", "sharpsignalDocId": 1130}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 1130 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 1130 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
answer fence: passed — letter density 0.91135 of 3587 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Sep 6, 2026 14:29 UTC

retrieval — what the passage search returned

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1130)	The Turn Sequence · Step 1: Refresh · Step 2: Movement · Movement Dice · Terrain Symbols	p.4	0.047493 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#2	RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1130)		p.3	0.047371 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1130)	The Game Board · Game Setup	p.3	0.046751 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1130)	The Endgame · Endgame Confrontation · Variant: Travel Hazards (Recommended)	p.10	0.045695 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1130)		p.3	0.045688 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1130)	Other Movement Rules · Step 3: Adventure · Adventure Cards · Challenges	p.4	0.044764 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1130)	Experience Counters · Undefeated Challenge Counters · Gold Counters · Doom Counters · Ten-sided Dice · Movement Dice	p.2	0.04311 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1130)	Phase 1: Escape	p.6	0.029851 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

what the answerer read — the passages it actually had in front of it

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

candidate pool: the answering read scored 33 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.

floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — not armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.

arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.

read at	document	heading	page	fused rank	fused RRF score	carried by	how it got its slot
#1	RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1130)	The Turn Sequence · Step 1: Refresh · Step 2: Movement · Movement Dice · Terrain Symbols	p.4	#1	0.047493 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1130)	Events	p.4	#12	0.028158 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#3	RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1130)	Phase 3: Melee Combat	p.7	#14	0.02748 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1130)	The Endgame · Endgame Confrontation · Variant: Travel Hazards (Recommended)	p.10	#4	0.045695 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1130)	Resolve Hazard	p.10	#24	0.012987 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one))	vector	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1130)	Phase 1: Escape · Phase 2: Ranged Combat	p.7	#20	0.024563 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1130)		p.3	#5	0.045688 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1130)	End of Turn · Other Rules · Taking Wounds & Exhaustion · Using Card Effects · Card Activation	p.6	#11	0.028175 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1130)		p.3	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1130)	The Turn Sequence · Step 1: Refresh · Step 2: Movement · Movement Dice · Terrain Symbols	p.4	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1130)	Phase 1: Escape · Phase 2: Ranged Combat	p.7	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1130)	Phase 3: Melee Combat	p.7	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Runebound: Second Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1130)	The Endgame · Endgame Confrontation · Variant: Travel Hazards (Recommended)	p.10	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 86 ms · first delta 1691 ms · total 6889 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 86 ms · ask 6801 ms · gateway work 6889 ms · total 6889 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3570
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 1024
tok/sec: 200.5 tok/sec — 1024 output tokens in 5.107 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 15s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 22h, checked 4s ago)
answerer node (the seat proxy's own header — this probe, not this ask): node1
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 1060), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.