Thursday Night At Julians

 With it being Christmas, Julian offered a choice of either Thurs or Fri evening for a game, so Chris and I headed over there yesterday after work. We played a board game called Blood Rage, which Julian had bought himself for his birthday a couple of months back. He used speed paints to do all the plastic figures that come with the game, and they have turned our really nicely - as you will see in the images shortly!

First up though, a brief outline on the game itself:

Blood Rage is a Viking themed board game designed by Eric Lang and published by CMON Limited in 2015. Each player controls a clan of mythological Vikings seeking glory as Ragnarok* approaches. Played in three ages or rounds, Blood Rage features card drafting, battles and territory control via forces represented by sculpted plastic miniatures. All conflicts are resolved through playing cards, and cards are also used to improve and differentiate the different clans and the leaders, warriors, ships and monsters at their command.

Based in part on Lang's 2007 design Midgard, the game was originally released on Kickstarter, raising just under $1 million. The game was well received, landing on the recommended list for the 2015 Kennerspiel des Jahres award for strategy game of the year.

Gameplay

At the beginning of each of the game's three ages or rounds, each player is dealt eight cards, keeping one and passing the rest to the player on their left, until all players have selected six cards. There are cards which give bonuses in battle, upgrades which give special abilities to a player's forces or allow players to recruit monsters to fight on their behalf, and quests that give short term victory point objectives. Each player's clan of Viking forces begins the same, but quickly differentiates itself based on the drafted cards.

After drafting cards, each player takes turns sequentially, using the game's resource, Rage, to perform actions. These include upgrading a clan's abilities and forces, having those forces invade the map, or pillaging provinces. Pillaging further improves one's clan and scores points and can lead to battles with other players. Battles are resolved without luck - players secretly play a card and add that to the strength of their forces in that region to determine the winner.

At the end of each age, an area of the board is removed from play as Ragnarok* approaches, sending any forces on that part of the map to Valhalla and earning players glory (victory points) for each of their forces that were thus destroyed. The game supports a variety of different strategies depending on which cards the players draft, from controlling territories, winning battles, or even having one's own forces be destroyed, if a player has drafted cards that give points and bonuses for being defeated.

In strategies and mechanics, the game merges the traditions of American style games and Eurogame's, combining the conflict and strong theme prevalent in the former with the statistics, upgrades, and lack of chance common in the latter.

*An Explanation of Ragnarok

In Norse mythology, Ragnarök (/ˈræɡnəˌrɒk, ˈrɑːɡ-/ Old Norse: Ragnarǫk) is a foretold series of impending events, including a great battle in which numerous great Norse mythological figures will perish (including the gods Odin, Thor, Týr, Freyr, Heimdall, and Loki); it will entail a catastrophic series of natural disasters, including the burning of the world, and culminate in the submersion of the world underwater. After these events, the world will rise again, cleansed, and fertile, the surviving and returning gods will meet, and the world will be repopulated by two human survivors, Líf and Lífþrasir

(Sounds a bit like Global Warming to me!)

Box Artwork

The playing board.

Not that I am typecast or anything......but this is the Serpent Clan that Julian thought I would like to use!

Serpent Clan Leader

The clan consisted of four each of the above and below figures.

Having an all-female clan allowed me to indulge in lots of misogynistic jokes, such as their level of Rage is defined by the fact that they all have their period and they only fight 4 days per month etc!

The "Monster" figure of the Goddess Hel - Hel (from Old Norse: hel, lit. 'underworld') is a female being in Norse mythology who is said to preside over an underworld realm of the same name, where she receives a portion of the dead. Hel is attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century. In addition, she is mentioned in poems recorded in Heimskringla and Egils saga that date from the 9th and 10th centuries, respectively.

And here is a gratuitous image of a pretty model done up as the Goddess Hel!

The Valkyrie "Monster" figure

I only took a few pictures of the first game (we had two and I won them both - GIRL POWER!) because it's not quite the same thing as a normal figure wargame!

Two of my figures (including my leader) in a territory with one of Chris's figures. In this instance, if either declared they would pillage the province, the combat would be 1 for Chris v 4 for me (warrior = 1, leader = 3) plus any card additions. There is no "luck" involved - you know what the outcome will be, barring the impact of the enemy's cards - and if you have the right cards yourself, you can generally estimate how any cards will affect the combat.

Figures killed in combat during an "age" ended up in Valhalla - they came back to life at the start of the subsequent "age". If you have picked the right cards in the Draft stage, you can claim Glory points for each reincarnated figure after Ragnarök.

The Raven figure is placed in the territory that is scheduled to be destroyed by Ragnarök - getting your figures in there meant you got automatic "Glory" points at the end of the "age" (game phase)

This is another one of the "monster" figures that can be recruited if you choose to keep the relevant card during the "Draft" process - I think it is a Dark Elf

Glory points (how you win the game) are kept track of on the edge of the board as above - yellow marker is mine, brown Julian and red Chris. The track goes up to 99 - in the first game, I had about 120 and Julian had 115 - with Chris on 16! Game two I had about 75 to Julians 50 and Chris on 30 or thereabouts.

This was another monster figure that Julian brought into action in game one - A Sea Serpent or something - I can't remember exactly what it was called :)

These are all grey plastic figures that Julian has painted using speed paints and I think you will agree, they have come out very nicely!

We each had one of these boards to keep track of the three progress measurements of success.

This is the only pic from game two - taken to show the Troll which was yet another monster activated by Julian!

The playing area - a bit smaller than the Sunday game at Barrys place!

I am not usually a big fan of board games - mainly because I don't do very well at them! I have played the GoT game Songs of Fire and Ice (I think it's called) a couple of times at Julian's place, but have never done very well - but for whatever reason, I found Blood Rage really easy to get the hang of and it seemed like my strategy for card picking in the draft stage worked really well - I generally chose one "Quest" (mission) that would be something like "Have the greatest strength in the blue area at Ragnarök"  and then a few combat cards adding +3 or a card that made the opponent discard their first card etc. - I don't think I lost a combat in the entire game (except when I wanted to with a card that said "Lose your ship in combat and gain 12 Glory points!)

Finally, I hope all my readers have a great Christmas and New Year - I may post again before the Big Day - but in case I don't, I just wanted to pass on my season's greetings to you all!

A post work drinks session around 1200 today in our office "lunchroom" - just to cause envy amongst those who may work in a PC environment where such things are frowned upon or prohibited!

And here is our Christmas tree at home - Merry Christmas everyone!