A First-Timers Thoughts on Ruin.

Being the only person on the design team not to play Ruin, I was the butt of many a joke for some time but I finally grit my teeth and sat down (actually stood up) and played the game I had been helping design. I must start by saying that the game was fun and easy to understand even if it took some time to set up, especially since I had not created my team (army, war band) yet. I went for continuity of race and stuck with the humans. The war band was o.k. and could be successful and not successful as I was about to find out.

We flipped for terrain and I got lucky, flipping my favored map with plenty of forest which most of my army did well on. Also what I didn't know is that the lack of rock was also most excellent. Then was the building of the map which took some time. When we got started I took a defensive strategy (with a melee Explorer and caster assistants, I thought this might be a good idea) and let John's army cross sides first (which wasn't hard because he started out with mostly his scout units anyway). When combat did start I knocked out his assistants in usually one turn (because My explorer was slightly over-powered). Fighting continued in my favor until we had to leave for a party which we were already late for.

The next game I played was the day afterward, same armies, different terrain. My army did not do as well. The lack of forests meant I lost many units and often found myself overwhelmed by numerical advantage and "Polearm Formation". (a mechanic which increased his units with the ability when they were local or adjacent with each other)

This happened 2 times in a row and my conclusion is this: continuity in an army (not just in race) is important, an explorer that can stand up for itself in combat with assistants that support it is very effective, and terrain and numerical advantage can change the tide of battle.

Over all I enjoyed my first game(s) of Ruin and look forward to working on it more.