RONE: Invasion

RONE: Invasion got onto my radar because of its interesting custom dice. We've seen custom dice from other games, such as Dice Realms and Dice Forge, but this one took a step further where you screw in the pips on the side of a die to change it. That extra level of customization intrigued me. Factor in that it advertised itself as a hybrid deck builder with these dice, had co-op, solo and competitive modes, and with interesting post-apocalyptic art I figured it could be worth a shot. Delivered almost three years later, I took some time to learn the game after sorting and organzing the large box.

Honestly the rule book was a little hard to follow and my first solo playthrough I certainly felt like I wasn't playing correctly for the Invasion opponent. Which was the case when I finally browsed the BGG forums and more for how to play. Watching a playthrough from the designer greatly helped, I would say its necessary in order to learn the game. While I had a good amount of the core gameplay right watching the playthrough definitely explained what I was missing. Also doesn't help that the rulebook out of the box was missing clarification, but at least they emphasized it in the updated rulebook online.

The biggest issue is the compounded randomness in the game. The combination of deckbuilding and dice rolling for resources and actions sounds compelling at first but to doesn’t feel that way in practice. With the difficulty curve in ramping up your dice plus the push your luck nature of choosing to draw cards, it’s just a lot of luck upon luck. Granted, the game provides some measures to help mitigate all this randomness, between re-roll tokens, storing resources for little bonuses and reducing cost. It’s a puzzle, but not always an enjoyable one when things are difficult to go your way and a loss can happen at a literal die roll.

Contrast to other hybrid games, such as Lost Ruins of Arnak or Dune: Imperium, RONE: Invasion tries to flip the order of activating on its head. Most other games, the cards are the resource to manage, but here because it has the dice cafting they're the main focus and the limiting factor in doing anything at all. But this means you're at the whim of your dice every turn, and that can make for some really unfulfilling rounds where you just collect resources and pass without anything meaningful to show for it.

There's a novelty of the dice crafting for sure, but I don't think the toy factor alone will be enough for it to stick around. Originally I got this with my husband in mind and I still like the idea of customizing your dice the way you want them to be, but I think its just at odds with itself.