Blood Rage (2015)

How to Play Blood Rage

Goal of the Game

Your goal is to be the player with the most glory at the end of the game. Glory can be acquired in several ways, such as winning battles, pillaging, completing quests, or dying a hero.

Glory is a typical victory point system, with players moving their marker around the track on the outside of the board as they acquire it throughout the game. Once the game ends, whoever has tallied up the most Glory wins.

Most player strategies are guided by the cards drafted at the beginning of each of the three game rounds (or Ages). These “Gods’ Gifts” grant you numerous boons for your clan including increased Viking strength and devious battle strategies, upgrades to your clan, or even the aid of legendary creatures from Norse mythology. They may also include various quests, from dominating specific provinces, to having lots of your Vikings sent to Valhalla. Most of these cards are aligned with one of the Norse gods, hinting at the kind of strategy they support.

Players must choose their strategies carefully during the draft phase, but also be ready to adapt and react to their opponents’ strategies as the action phase unfolds. Battles are decided not only by the strength of the figures involved, but also by cards played in secret. By observing your opponent’s actions and allegiances to specific gods, you may predict what card they are likely to play, and plan accordingly. Winning battles is not always the best course of action, as the right card can get you even more rewards by being crushed.

Blood Rage Setup

The board is split into regions, provinces, and villages. There are five villages to a region, with each village only being able to have one miniature placed there. There are nine regions, split into three provinces. Yggdrasil is the central province, which has no villages and can have any amount of miniatures placed there.

There are also Fjords, which sit between each region and can have ships placed there.

To start, everyone chooses a clan sheet. Despite being different in appearance, to begin with, every clan is the same. However, you will adapt and evolve your clan’s strengths as the game goes on. This will be reflected on the clan sheet.

Rage is your currency in this game, as you might have guessed, which is measured on the Rage Track. You have an Axes Track, too, which tells you how much Glory you get for each win in battle, and a Horns track, which dictates how many miniatures you can have on the board at one time.

Also, take eight warriors and a ship to make up your starting clan.

Gameplay

There are six phases to a round, and three rounds overall. The phases are:

God’s Gift: This is when players draft cards into their hands for use in the later rounds. They include a whole host of powers and actions, such as upgrades for their units, monsters to add to their band of warriors, or quests.

To draft card, the first player takes the deck of cards, selects one for their hand, and passes the deck onto the next player. This continues until all players have six cards.

Action phase: This forms the bulk of the game and is when you get to release all the pent up Rage you’ve been sitting on.

Players take turns making actions. Each action costs Rage. Once every player is down to zero rage, or every province has been pillaged, the phase ends. Actions you can take include invading empty villages, marching your units from one province to another, upgrading your abilities using a card, starting a quest on one of your cards, or pillaging a province.

Discard phase: Discard all unused cards, except one which may be kept for the next round.

Quest phase: Get rewards for any quests you completed.

Ragnarök phase: The province marked in the Ragnarök slot is destroyed. Any figures in the province are removed to Valhalla and grant their owners Glory.

Release Valhalla Phase: All figures in Valhalla are returned to their owners.

Once all phases are complete, you progress to the next age and start again from phase one. After reaching the end of the third age, whoever is furthest along the Glory track wins.

Blood Rage Review

“…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.”

Aaron Zimmerman, arstechnica.com

“Blood Rage is an ultra-strategic mish-mash of card drafting and area control, with as much throat-slitting and town burning as you can shake a pointed, bloody stick at.

It’s a fantastically designed game that runs wonderfully smoothly. This means that, while it may take a lot of strategy and a couple of run-throughs for you to play it well, even those that prefer lighter strategy games won’t feel out of place.

Oh, and it’s got some awesome miniatures, too.”

Joe Jones, gamecows.com

The content of this article is originally from Board Game Geek and gamecows.com. For more information and a better understanding of the game, you can watch the videos below.