by CrazyRich428
Unfortunately this is not the case, as you can destroy fake runes in order yo place real ones.However, they do count as runes for the Fighter/Warrior guild title card that gives +2 strength in battles that occur on spaces with runes.
We use fake runes in 4p epic games, because we enjoy have the slight uncertainty on the board (and it avoids the pitfals of some cards/heros being less useful without them in play). We've yet to run out, I imagine we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
I have won one of my games due to the fact an opponent assumed one of my real runes was false - I played it near my front as he was pushing in to capture, and since I placed it close to him he assumed it was fake and did not want to waste a combat on it.