This game is a balls-to-the-wall, kick-in-the-teeth, action-packed, buddy-fuckary war game - I love it!

The game centers around a Ragnarök event which hits at the end of each of the three ages, as this is the motivation to fight, pillage, and fulfill quests as any good viking would do. Players will begin each age by drafting cards that will help formulate your strategy to secure a place next to Odin in Valhalla. Once cards have been drafted the players set about invading and pillaging the provinces for its rewards - here players will fight opponents in epic battles, and valiantly die in battle or you can die in a blaze of glory during Ragnarök. I love that you just can't flood the board with units and roll your way to a victory - this game has a bit more depth in strategy when it comes to its battles or lack thereof for some players, and doesn't focus on luck at all. Let's get to the set-up of the game and some pros and cons

• each player must select a clan, placing the clan sheet in front of them
• grab your clans mins
• glory marker is set to 0
• take three of your clan tokens and place them on the first spot of each of the three clan stats - Rage, Horns and Axes (more on this later)
• final clan token is placed on the Rage track, starting on 6

• Valhalla sheet and age track next to the board
• place all pillage tokens on the board in a random selection process - the green border token is placed in Yggdrasil
• 8 Ragnarök tokens are shuffled - place one in each of the three spots on the age track. The doom token is then placed on the province indicated in the first age track. This reminds all players that this province will be destroyed at the end of the age
• destroy a certain number of provinces before the game starts by placing Ragnarök tokens the with the destroyed side facing up, the number you destroy depends on the player count and serves to reduce the size of the board at lower player counts
• prepare the cards by separating the decks for each age and removing any cards indicated by the player count symbols. Each deck is then shuffled and placed in the space indicated for each age on the age track. Once completed, the saga token is placed in the first spot of the first age in the story track and the first player token is given to one player

With set-up now complete, let's duke it out. Each Age (round) begins with a draft(Gods Gifts) of the various cards a player may utilize on their turn, taking one and passing (take two and pass in a 2 player game) - leaving the two remaining cards for the box. These cards include quests, combat cards, monster cards and upgrades which may all be deployed during an Age if a player has enough rage or if all provinces have yet to be pillaged. The cards are full of flavor and great art - matching Gods to a particular play-style, creating a very thematic experience. With drafting now complete players will now drive straight into the heart of the game deploying units, fighting, questing and pillaging. Let's take a look at what these actions are and how you as a player can perform them.

• invading a territory by placing a figure from your reserve on to the map in a province that was not destroyed, and that has an available town space - Yggdrasil can only be invaded by a figure that states so on the card like the Dark Elves. Otherwise a player can enter Yggdrasil by
• marching your warriors to anywhere on the map that follows the same restrictions stated above, but it is here that players may now enter Yggdrasil with basic units
• upgrading by playing one of your upgrade cards - there are three available spots for clan upgrades, but players are also able to upgrade basic warriors and their leader
• committing to a quest, by playing a quest card - quest cards can be stacked as in more than one quest can be played each Age, allowing players to make big moves on glory
• pillaging a territory to attack and gain plunder - only the initiating player to a pillage will get the plunder

You will fight or you will fight, there is just no getting around it, which is great. The map is small and only gets smaller as the game goes on throughout the Ages, more provinces are destroyed keeping things quite tight, tension high, and the conflict high. I really enjoy the combat and how the cards help drive it along, sure you can enter the fight as the clear winner with 9 strength to a 4, but when those combat trick cards start flying you never know. Once all cards and base unit values are combined, the winner is declared - if you initiated a pillage then take the plunder, if not then the loser is out and the winner gets the territory with the chance to plunder on another turn.
The action will end when all players have consumed their rage or have passed their turn (which consumes the rest of that player's rage). You then discard down to one card or none, complete any quests - receive the glory, then a province is destroyed during Ragnarök - this will eliminate any units on that province. All units that perish either in battle or Ragnarök enter Valhalla, these units will return to the respective players supply once the Age is finished - even monsters as these will have a colored ring placed on them to denote which player is the owner.
Player will repeat this process until all three Ages are complete, with the third Age triggering the end of the game and final scoring round.

I did say I was gonna talk more on the clan stats:

• Rage - think of this as your action phase currency - as it is what allows you to march, add units, play upgrades, cast monsters. The more you have the more you can do, when you're out your turn is done
• Axes - everytime you battle and win you want glory, right? Well, the more axes you have the more glory you receive after battle
• Horn - this stat allows you to place more units on the field - 5 horns equals 5 units and so on

*Yggdrasil will grant the winner of the pillage the ability to raise all three clan stats - this is huge.

Blood Rage is best played at 3-4 player as the conflict is always happening and doesn't feel forced - as in a two player game you don't want the other just pillaging for free, you want them to earn it so you end up placing your units next to or on the same province fairly often. Blood Rage may also feel like there may not be a lot going on, but you'd be mistaken as the cards drafted and if played, add so much depth and strategy. You will have numerous details to keep track of such as leader and warrior upgrades, clan upgrades, monsters, and combat cards - as the loser of any combat gets to keep the card(s) played, the winner discards the cards played. I love the fact that even though you may be alone in a province when initiating a pillage, you may very well end up not being alone as other players flood the area - players are allowed to move any units from adjacent provinces into an active pillage as long as there are open spaces. Yggdrasil can get crazy this time of year with no limit to the amount of units that can join - just remember, you can only march into Yggs, unless a card states otherwise.

You can check the game out here on BGG Blood Rage, and the expansions: here. This game is worth expanding upon as the added value is immediately felt especially with the 5th player expansion, adding more cards and more players - simply do not destroy any provinces before play starts to accommodate the 5th player. The production value is fantastic, the minis look great, the art has this nice feel of a world at peril with itself and the gaming components are wonderful to handle. If you are one you is a sucker for Norse mythology this game is for you, as the theme oozes on everything from Ragnarök, to creatures, artwork and the cards - new players should try to draft cards aligned to the same God, as in draft Thor cards or draft Odin cards etc.

You can pick up it to play digitally only on Steam: Blood Rage. Check out the publishers website CMON for more info on Blood Rage and a huge library of offerings.

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