Viking settings and Viking stories and legends are very popular nowadays – just look at the Thor franchise by Marvel comic books! Blood Rage by “Cool mini or not” is about Vikings too. They are furious and courageous warriors who are well-known by Scandinavian legends and tales and you are going to be one of the ancient tribe’s leader. You will have to lead your people to desired Valhalla to experience all the pleasures warriors deserve. Are you able to accomplish this?
Blood Rage was designed by Eric M. Lang and arts and graphics were made by Adrian Smith and Mathieu Harlaut. Eric is a famous game designer who took part in such projects as Call of Cthulhu: The Card game, Warhammer 40,000: Conquest and many others and Blood Rage was nominated for Tabletop Game of the Year! Now it’s time to know what’s a blood rage!
Game Contents
- Saga Token
- Doom Token
- Game Board
- Age Track Sheet
- Valhalla Sheet
- First Player Token
- Clan Tokens (16, 4 for each clan)
- Ragnarök Tokens (8)
- 99 Cards (3 decks of 33)
Speaking of cards, there are a lot of card sleeves available for this game which are exactly the same size used in Zombicide. And also, one guy developed the foam core for this game. You can read about this here.
Miniatures
- Serpent Clan Figures (8 Warriors, 1 Leader, 1 Boat)
- Bear Clan Figures (8 Warriors, 1 Leader, 1 Boat)
- Wolf Clan Figures (8 Warriors, 1 Leader, 1 Boat)
- Raven Clan Figures (8 Warriors, 1 Leader, 1 Boat)
- Large Plastic Bases (2 for each clan)
- Monster Figures (6)
Rules
To win, you will have to achieve the biggest glory amount before the world comes crashing. You can get glory in battles, quests for the gods and even when you die. The game process moves through three Ages as Ragnarok destroying the world. At the end of the game, the player who has the most glory is the winner.
Game Setup
Firstly, each player chooses one of the clans and placing one of the Clan Sheets in front of him. All clans are equal but soon they will get unique abilities which depend on the upgrades the player choose.
Now, take your clan’s Leader miniature and 8 Warrior figures and make sure the small plastic bases of your clan’s color are attached to all of them. This helps to distinguish your units on the game board pretty easy. Take one Ship figure and make sure it’s got a sail attached of your clan’s color. Don’t forget to keep all of your figures near your clan sheet. This area is your reserve.
Next to the Game Board you should place the Valhalla sheet and the Age Track sheet. Take all the Pillage tokens and place the one with the green border color on the Yggdrasil province at the center of the board, with the reward side face up. Shuffle the other 8 Pillage tokens and place them on the other 8 provinces surrounding Yggdrasil face up in a random way.
Separate the cards by their card backs and create three different decks – 1, 2 and 3. Some cards may need to be removed from each deck to make sure the game is balanced properly which depends on how many players are in. The cards that may need to be removed are marked on the left side, for example 3+ or 4+.
- For a 4-player game no cards are removed.
- For a 3-player game all 4+ cards are removed.
- For a 2-player game all 3+ and 4+ cards are removed.
Each deck contains eight 4+ cards and six 3+ cards. Any removed cards are placed back in the game box. Then, shuffle each of the three decks separately and place them face down on the appropriate Gods’ Gifts places on the Age Track.
Place all Monster figures next to the board and Saga token on the first spot of the First Age on the Story Track. This is the “Gods’ Gifts – Age 1” spot. The Saga token will be moved from phase to phase of each Age, one Age after the other, in order to help players keep track as the game progresses.
Finally, give the First Player token to the player who was born furthest to the north. That player will start the game in the First Age. The First Player token will be passed to the player to the left at the end of each Age.
Game Phases
The gameplay process is divided into 6 phases:
GODS’ GIFTS
During this phase players select cards. These cards provide the upgrades for troops and clan, quests for glory, monsters who will join the fight and the power to win battles.
ACTION
This is the main part of the game, where battles are fought and blood is spilled.
DISCARD
All players must discard any cards that still remain in their hands. They can only keep a single card to use in the next Age.
QUEST
Each player shows all Quests they have accomplish and discard them, if they are successful or not.
RAGNARÖK
Take the token which is on the current Ragnarok slot and place it on its corresponding province with the defeated side face up. That province is destroyed once and for all.
RELEASE VALHALLA
At the end of each Age players get one last gift from the gods – all figures in Valhalla can be returned to their owners.
To obtain more instructions on how to play and 2 player variant or list of cards you can download the PDF manual but there is no information about solo variant.
Expansions
Blood Rage: 5th Player Expansion
This expansion introduces the option of playing Blood Rage with 5 players. The game board supports this by simply not having any province destroyed by Ragnarök before the beginning of the game.
Blood Rage: Gods of Ásgard
Only two gods will be part of each game session. Randomly draw two god cards and place them next to the board so all players can see their powers.
Blood Rage: Kickstarter Exclusives
This is a set of exclusive items for Blood Rage only available during the Kickstarter campaign.
Blood Rage: Mystics of Midgard
These warrior-shamans who are known by many names (Seiðmenn, Völva, Vísendakona, etc.) will be a great force to any clan that recruits them!
Blood Rage: Hili – The Even-Handed
This expansion provides new god called Hili.
Similar Games
Blood Rage vs Pathfinder
Though these games have quite the same setting there are some features they are different. For example, Pathfinder is much more expandable and longer than Blood Rage.
Blood Rage vs Chaos in the Old World
If you want to play 4 players variant, Chaos in the old World is much better for you.
Blood Rage vs Arcadia Quest
One more game which has a lot of good opinions about 4 players variant that is better than in Blood Rage.
Blood Rage vs Cthulhu Wars
Cthulhu Wars provide players to build up their own strategy while Blood Rage has the card draft element that helps players to go through Rarnarock phase painlessly.
Blood Rage vs Small World
Small World looks a bit simpler and but race and power combos looks repetitive and obvious than in Blood Rage. But if you like Small World, Blood Rage is definitely your choice too!
Blood Rage vs Zombicide
These games have the same publisher though they are different in gameplay. For example, Blood Rage has a bigger high luck factor than Zombicide, but these games perfectly balanced.
As we can see, there are some drawbacks in Blood Rage, but still this is not negative review. This game is perfectly balanced and you will sure like it like all these other games is Similar Games list!
FAQ
Though there is no official FAQ, we did find the fans questions about cards and upgrades. Check it out!
Q: Card says that “in a battle with wolf, you add only STR of other monsters”. Do card bonuses are still counting?
A: In battle with the Wolfman, monsters are the only figures that contribute STR to the battle. All other figures (warriors, leaders, ships, mystics…) don’t contribute any STR. The played Battle cards still work normally, though.
Q: Dwarf Chieftain and Soldier of Hel cost no rage to put in play from hand?
A: The cards for Dwarf Chieftain and Soldier of Hel show that they cost no rage to upgrade or invade, so you never pay any Rage for them.
Q: The clan upgrade “Frigga’s Succor” provides you the invasion with a warrior for free into the same province one of your figures just invaded in. Does this also work while invading with a ship? Would I be able to add a warrior to one of the provinces adjacent to the fjord the ship is in?
A: The upgrade is useful when any figure invades it includes Ships. In this case, the extra Warrior must go into one of the provinces the Ship is supporting.
Q: Does the Mystic troll can be counted as a Mystic?
A: No.
YouTube
Blood Rage Playthrough
Blood Rage Core box unboxing
Conclusion
So, here we have a wonderful Viking setting game. By the way, there are a lot of additional materials like Youtube playthrough tutorial where you can find some tips of the artbook of Blood Rage by Adrian Smith! Also, you can look inside the box and here you can play the tabletop simulator! It is well-designed and balanced colorful game which you will definitely like.
You can buy it on Amazon by clicking here.