I will first include a general review that applies to all Character Deck expansions, and then I'll move on to review the Bladedancer Character deck expansion.
This is my third of six reviews on all the Character Deck expansions.
You can find the review for the WildLander Character deck here:http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/194418
You can find the review of the RuneMaster Character Deck here:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/1664686#1664686
It's a lot of work, so IF YOU FIND THIS REVIEW USEFUL, I'D APPRECIATE GEEK-GOLD TIPS!!!
General review on all the Character Deck Expansions
A very important thing you should know before you buy any of the expansions is that in order to include character decks into a Runebound game, each player must have his own expansion deck (righ out of the box, or customized). So you should buy at least one character deck per player, more if you want to build customized decks.
As stated in the instruction booklet, each expansion from the character deck series "gives your hero new skills and abilities, and they also allow you to thwart your opponents with devious spells and deadly challenges".
An expansion deck can be used right out of the box (every character deck expansion is ready to be used by a single player), or you can customize your own deck using cards from different character deck expansions. That means that different players could use the same boxed standard expansion in a game playing one against each other (<PERSON> uses a wildlander character deck, and <PERSON> uses a wildlander character deck too), or that different players can customize decks using the exact same cards from two different copies of the same expansion (<PERSON> uses one card from the wildlander character deck on his custom deck, <PERSON> also uses the exact same card on his customed deck from his own copy of wildlander character deck).
I think character decks probably were meant to be bought by the players in order to customize their own character, and not necessarily by the owner of the game.
Each expansion includes:
25 Class cards (feats, spells, locations and challenges) - Red Back
5 talent cards - Blue Back
10 menace counters
1 Rules Booklet (exactly the same one for all the expansions)
TALENT CARDS
Instead of expending points to increase your abilities, now you can acquire talents, which will grant your hero abilities (similar to the character abilities in Runebound's character cards) and Proficiencies (used for spell-casting). This is a really great addition, as it allows you to improve your character in more ways than just increasing abilities, stamina or health. The abilities are very well designed, very useful, and related to each individual character deck's flavor. You can only have one talent at a time (talents are non-cummulative). Some cards MAY seem too powerful, perhaps unbalancing at first glance, however, taking into account the increased difficulty of the game, they are actually quite necessary.
CLASS CARDS (feats, spells, locations and challenges)
You can play Friendly class cards (cards that give your hero bonuses or advantages) on your own turn to benefit your hero, but also you get to play Enemy class cards on other players turns, to make things harder on their heroes! (This is a great way to end Runebound's infamous downtime problem).
Feat Cards: Grants your hero temporary abilities and bonuses on your turn, or makes another player's hero suffer a penalty on his own turn. 581
May require proeficiencies or they'll cost more (+2 per unknown proeficiency).
Spell cards: Similar to feat cards. They grant your hero bonuses or inflicts penalties on other heroes. May require proeficiencies or they'll cost more (+2 per unknown proeficiency).
Location Cards: Played on heroes or enemies on specific terrain types, granting bonuses and advantages to your own hero, or inflicting penalties on other heroes. Some of them persist, afffecting the location after the turn has ended.
Challenge Cards: Similar to challenges from the traditional adventure decks in Runebound, but you can play them on your enemies by expending menace points (more on that later).
Main Changes to Vanilla Runebound
The menace Point System: The use of any card (except talent cards) requires you to expend menace points. You have a supply and a pool of menace counters. Your supply is located right over your hero's card, your pool beside it. In order to play friendly or enemy class cards, you have to spend menace counters.
Friendly class cards use menace counters from your own pool (moving them onto your supply ). Enemy class cards use menace counters from the other player's supply (moving them onto his menace pool). 937