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Game details Designer: Eric M. Lang

Publisher: Cool Mini or Not

Players: 2-4 (5 with expansion)

Age: 14+

Playing time: 60-90 minutes

Price: $79.99 ( Eric M. LangCool Mini or Not2-4 (5 with expansion)14+60-90 minutes$79.99 ( $58 on Amazon

If there’s one thing popular media has taught us about Vikings, it’s that they really loved dying in glorious battle. Winning a fight was all well and good, but the most you’d get out of a victory was a flagon of mead and a warm bed at the end of the day. Death carried the promise of Valhalla, a majestic hall in Asgard where you could feast with the gods.

In Blood Rage, one of the most-hyped Kickstarter board game successes of 2015, the end of the world is upon you. Ragnarok has come to a fantasy-tinged Norse world, and your clan of warriors is ready to shower in the embers of the apocalypse. Everyone’s gonna die, so you might as well crack a few skulls before going down in a blaze of glory. You’ll pillage villages to increase your clan’s power, bolster your forces with giant monsters, and generally just stomp around the board like a badass, stopping only to clobber your friends with the business end of an warhammer.

And the entire bloodbath begins with a quiet card draft.

Pick a card, any card

“Quiet” doesn’t mean “boring,” though. If you’ve ever played 7 Wonders, Sushi Go, or certain formats of Magic, you’ll know how tense and exciting card drafting can be. For the uninitiated, here’s how it works: Each player is dealt a hand of eight cards. You pick a card to keep, pass the remaining cards to the player on your left, and repeat until you’ve selected six cards (the remaining two are discarded). Three types of cards are available for your perusal: battle cards, which help boost your strength in combat; upgrade cards, which give your units special abilities; and quest cards, which give you point-scoring short-term goals to work toward. Each player starts the game with the same stats and abilities, but card by card, you’ll customize your clan and craft a strategy.

And the cards are cool. You’ll want them all. You’ll drive yourself crazy trying to decide between the card that gives you a rampaging Fire Giant and the one that gives you double points for completing quests. You’ll shudder to think what will happen when the cards you don’t pick inevitably fall into your opponents’ hands.

After the draft, players take turns doing actions, many of which require you to spend the game’s only resource: RAGE. You’ll be upgrading units, plopping figures down on the central board, going on quests, and—most importantly—pillaging villages. A successful pillage lets you raise one of your clan’s three stats, which determine your starting rage each round, how many points you get for winning battles, and how many figures you can have on the board at once. Raise your stats high enough and you'll gain points, appropriately referred to as "glory" (the player with the most glory at the end of the game wins).

But you’re not the only one looking to pillage. When you declare a pillage action, opponents with figures in adjacent provinces have a chance to swoop in and try to stop you from nabbing those juicy stat upgrades. If they step up, it’s time for a good ol' fashioned brawl.

No dice, buddy

When you think of miniatures-heavy “dudes-on-a-map” games, you probably think of dice. But let’s face it: using dice to resolve conflicts is usually boring. If I win a battle because I rolled a six and you rolled a one, that’s not interesting; it’s just plain luck. Thankfully, Blood Rage takes its cues from the diceless, card-driven combat seen in games like the excellent Kemet.

Each player involved in a battle adds up the strength of their units (units have unique strength values, which can be augmented by upgrade cards) and then plays one card face-down. You’ll usually play a combat card, which adds strength to your total and can provide additional effects. But you could also play another type of card as a bluff. The highest total strength wins, and all the losers send their figures to that great mead hall in the sky.

Mechanically, Blood Rage’s combat is blessedly simple. But it’s also a strategic and tense mind game. Winning a fight never feels like a fluke—you choose your own cards, you commit your own figures, and you’ve already seen what other cards were floating around during the draft. Initiating combat is always a bit of a risk, but it’s a calculated risk that you make with the benefit of a good deal of intel. If you win, in other words, you outplayed your opponents, and that feels great.

But there’s always the chance for great upsets. In one memorable combat in my last game, my forces were utterly decimated when an opponent played a combat card that forced me to discard the +6 strength card I had just played. I needed to play a new combat card, but I didn't have any, and my opponent swooped in for the kill. I saw his card during the draft—I knew it was out there—but I got cocky and overplayed my hand. As the table erupted in incredulous cheers, I could only shake my head at my hubris.

It’s the end of the world as we know it

Blood Rage takes place over three rounds (called “ages”) and each round is essentially divided into two halves: constructing your strategy through the card draft and executing your strategy through the action phase. Many strategies involve beefing up your forces to make them more effective at controlling the board through combat, but there are other paths to victory.

Most of the cards are aligned with a certain god, and if you focus on collecting cards of one god, a strategy will naturally come together. Cards aligned with the trickster god Loki, for instance, will often give points and bonuses if you lose battles. You’ll want to keep an eye on what your opponents are doing, too. If you let one player get all the Loki cards, they may run away with the whole show. Do you pick that card that’s perfect for your strategy, or do you snap up the card that does nothing for you but would give your opponent a huge advantage?

And if your strategy is to thrash around the board and win as many battles as you can, you'll need to watch out for players who get points for losing battles—they may just suicide their troops into your rampage. There's a lot of counterplay to consider, and you'll need to time your moves precisely to make sure you're not just handing points to an opponent.

The game starts with random provinces already fallen to Ragnarok, and the board continues to tighten up as time goes on. At the end of each age, another province is destroyed, and any figures on that area are whisked away to Valhalla, giving you points for their glorious deaths. Pacifist players intent on doing their own thing may be able to keep to themselves in the first age, but everyone will need to get comfortable with swinging an axe at a friend’s face by the end of the game.

Simple depth

Putting together a winning strategy will take some time, but the game's rules are simple enough that even newer gamers should be up to speed by the end of the first age.

However, the card draft is extremely important, and it’s fairly unforgiving. You can screw yourself if you draft poorly, and since there are only three rounds, every draft is a big deal. If you’ve played the game several times (or at least are familiar with the cards) I’d recommend going easy on new players during the first age. If you beat someone down too hard while they’re still learning the cards, you’ll be at a big advantage going into the second age.

I didn't see much of a “runaway leader” problem in any of the games I played—there are always ways that stragglers can claw their way back from behind through clever play. But there is the potential for a large score disparity if someone just can’t wrap their mind around the game, so that's something to consider.

Skill and knowledge are king, in other words, and I see that as a good thing. I was thinking about my first game days later, noodling on strategy. What card combos should I shoot for next time? How do I counter that strategy that destroyed me in the final round? I love when a game has me itching to give it another go so I can do better next time.

Overall, Blood Rage is a ton of fun. It gives you enough strategy to chew on while still remaining a fast-paced and bloody good time. If you're a fan of miniatures, cards, and customization, Blood Rage will make you very happy.