Runebound is one of my favorite solitaire boardgames. I think it does an excellent job of creating a story as you play, and the components are of such high quality that the suspension of disbelief is not difficult. I recently purchased the Sands big-board expansion and have now played it a few times. As other reviewers have mentioned, Sands seems to improve upon nearly every facet of vanilla Runebound (hereafter, Vanilla). In this relatively short review, I'll focus upon those facets without going into excessive detail over the new rules. Familiarity with basic Runebound is assumed.
1. Choices. One issue I have with Vanilla is the relative dearth of interesting strategic decisions to make. The combat system is elegant and has more tactical complexity than one might first assume, but there is little large-scale strategy. <PERSON> changes this with some significant modifications.
A. There is a greater amount of space between adventure counters, necessitating some overall movement strategy. This aspect, combined with the more difficult terrain (see Map), makes movement an interesting phase now - whereas, in Vanilla, it was simply a matter of moving from one counter to the next, or to a town if you needed to heal/buy.
B. In addition to adventure counters and leveling up, you also need to worry about your quests - getting and completing them. Thus, you will actually need to purposely visit non-adventure counter hexes every now and then.
C. At the beginning of each turn, you now need to declare whether you'll be traveling during the day or at night. When I first heard about this rule, I was skeptical about the execution. I can now say that it is a great addition, in terms of both strategy and flavor. There will be times when you'd rather travel at night and take the risk of a more powerful enemy since you just can't afford the exhaustion counters. Very clever mechanic.
2. Map: the map is an overall improvement from Vanilla. There are fewer permanent towns, more interesting terrain, and actual geographic challenges (crossing a desert can be difficult). Forests don't exist, and rolling one on a movement die means you've encountered a mirage (which is bad). And as mentioned above, perhaps the most significant difference is that adventure counters are more spaced apart which makes travel an interesting part of the game. I really felt this was a weakness of Vanilla.
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Tension: there is more tension when playing Sands. Traveling is more fraught with peril, due to the map and the new travel rules (daytime = exhausting, nighttime = more dangerous challenges). Planning when and how to get to town becomes a serious concern. Preparing for long journeys by potentially stocking up on supplies is a good idea. Rolling the story-die if you don't land on an adventure counter can land you a nice, small reward (1 gold, for example), a loss of health, or even a magical city. And then there's the Sandstorm, who's presence on the map reminds you of how dangerous your environment is. The printed rules make the Sandstorm a mere obstacle to movement (you can move through it, but it is difficult). But I have added a house-rule for my solitaire play such that if my hero gets caught in the Sandstorm, he/she and all allies lose 1 health/turn.
4. Stamina matters: in Vanilla, Stamina only seemed to matter periodically, especially when one of the red challenges suddenly caused you to lose 4 or 5, pre-combat. In Sands, stamina matters all the time. If you travel during the day, which is safer, you will take on exhaustion counters nearly every turn. That can affect your ability to fight and use special abilities effectively. So now you have to plan to rest (esp. since towns are harder to reach). Yes, you sometimes take an entire turn resting! This is something I never did in Vanilla and it detracted from the role-playing experience.
5. Skills matter: another complaint I have of Vanilla is that I think skills are under-utilized. Having that +3 bonus to Diplomacy doesn't seem to help me very much over the course of the game. But in Sands, skill checks happen more frequently and are vital to your success in completing quests.
6. Goals: perhaps the greatest criticism leveled at Vanilla is that it doesn't feel particularly goal-oriented. You run around leveling until you think you can handle the red challenges (or whatever end-game variant you're using). Sands introduces a new endgame, where you have to complete 4 legendary quests. You will acquire these quests across the course of the game, and to get your 4th, you will need to defeat a red challenge. Thus, throughout the game you are concerned with both leveling your hero to prepare for tougher challenges, and completing quests. The quests often have you travel to specific regions on the map (!) and engage in skill checks, or story-rolls, or combat. 528