For Glory, here and in Valhalla! Blood Rage

It is the time of Ragnarok, and the end is nigh. Before the coming destruction, who will gain the most glory for their clan and feast in the halls of Valhalla? It’s up to you. Glory awaits to the best clan!

Blood Rage from CMON games is a fantastic area control and card drafting game from Eric Lang. In Blood Rage, players are a clan of Vikings who strive to gain the most glory in the final times of Ragnarok. To do this, players fight and pillage the realms, upgrading their forces, gaining help from creatures and Gods, and ultimately in Valhalla.

To set up, take the main board and, based on the number of players, randomly destroy that number of provinces. Place reward tokens in all the undestroyed provinces. These are the rewards for pillaging a province. Place the reward token with the green border in Yggdrasil. Each player places their glory marker at the zero position. Take the doom token and place it in the province that will be destroyed at the end of the age.

Next, each player selects one of the four clans (an expansion can add a fifth clan) to play. At the start, each clan starts out exactly the same, and as the game progresses can be improved. Each clan has a set of 8 warriors, 1 leader, and a ship. Take the clan markers and set them at the starting positions. Rage is the currency to perform actions. Axes are the number of points awarded for each victory in battle, and horns say how the number of figures you can place on the main board.

Next, set the age tracker up by shuffling each deck of cards for each age. Randomly select 3 provinces and place them on the age track (these are the 3 provinces to be destroyed at the end of each age. Take the era marker, and place it on the first age at the God’s gift place. This keeps track of the phases in an age. Each age consists of drafting cards (God’s gifts) actions, scoring battles, scoring all quests completed and releasing warriors from Valhalla and the destruction of a province.

Each age starts out with a card drafting mechanic where each player draws eight cards, picks one to keep and passes the rest to the player on their left. This continues until each player has 6 cards. The other cards are then collected and discarded. These are the cards that they can play during the current age. For the second and third age, a player may keep one card from the previous age and add it to the 6 new cards which the player can use during the action phase.

These cards consist of quest cards, battle cards, upgrade and recruit cards.

During the action phase, each player will take one action. This can be Invade, March, Upgrade, Quest, and Pillage.

Most actions have a rage cost and must be paid to perform it.

An invade action lets a player take one unit and deploy it in any province with available space, except Yggdrasil.

To March, move any number of units from one province to an adjacent one. This is the only way to enter Yggdrasil. As there are no spaces here, there is no limit to the number of units that can march here.

An upgrade action allows a player to play a card from their hand to upgrade a unit or recruit a monster to their aid.

A quest action allows a player to play a quest card they wish to complete and score.

Finally, a pillage action is when a player is unopposed in a province or wins the battle in one. When declaring a pillage action, each player in an adjacent province may come and join the battle.

Once all players have used all their rage points, battles are resolved.

To battle, count the strength of the units in the province. Each player may select one card to play. A battle card can add points to the strength of the forces. Total up the strength and the highest strength wins. The winner flips the pillage token and reaps the reward. All losing units go to Valhalla. In addition, the winner discards all cards used in the battle, while the losers may return theirs to their hand. An unopposed victory will gain the pillage reward but earn no battle glory.

After all battles are scored, all completed quests are scored.

Next, the chosen province is destroyed and all units in the province are sent to Valhalla and gain the glory based on the age.

Finally, all units in Valhalla are returned to the player, all cards from the current age minus one are discarded and the next age begins. The pillage tokens are flipped back over and remain in the province. The game continues until the third age when the scores are finalized with the player having the most glory wins.

I love Blood Rage on so many levels. First, there are many paths to victory. One can win the game by completing quests alone, as they generate a lot of glory. In addition gaining glory for fallen heroes in a destroyed province can reap points. While battles and pillaging reap rewards, recruiting monsters can add lots of strength to aid in a battle, swaying the odds in your favor.

This game requires a balance of hand management and using the limited resources of Rage to perform actions.

Since the game only lasts three ages, it is not usually more than an hour to an hour and a half at full player count.

The combat mechanic is very simple, yet is not as random as using dice. As each player moves units, the opponents can see and calculate how much strength is there. The only random factor is the card the player will use, as this can turn the tide and those who join the battle from adjacent provinces or fjords.

The card drafting, card play, combat, and many paths to victory make it one of my favorite games.

Each game is completely different so replayability is very high. In my opinion, it is one of the best games ever. It is just a brilliant hybrid of many mechanics packaged with some of the best miniatures you will ever see.

The guys at the Dice Tower, have a wonderful overview of it.

Written by Ed Carter