Kris Hall: The Year of the Viking Game

I thought 2007 was going to be the year of the pirate game, but so far it has been the year of the Viking game.  Last week I played Walhalla, the third Viking game I’ve encountered this year.  The other two were Midgard and Fire and Axe.  All three are either outright area-majority games, or at least have some area majority mechanism as part of the game.

Let me say before going any further that all three are decent games, and I am not at all sure that my personal preferences about them will be shared by others.  Sometimes I can clearly say that one game is better than another.  This is one of those times when my answer will begin with “Well, it depends…”

But let’s start with Walhalla, a game designed by a gentleman named Alessandro Zucchini and published by Amigo Spiele.  I have no idea if an American version will be available soon. 

In Walhalla, players try to colonize strips of land with a handful of Viking units.  Each turn, a player draws a boat tile which has spaces for three Vikings on it.  The catch is that one space is reserved for a Viking of a particular color which is most likely going to belong to an opponent.  The opponent has the option of putting his Viking on your boat.  The opponent will most likely take advantage of this offer because players can’t get all their pieces on the board each round without hitching rides with other players.  Once the boat is loaded with Vikings, the active player places the boat near his chosen strip of land, and the Vikings attempt to colonize the adjacent spaces.  Obviously, the active player will try to place his boat in such a way that will do him the most good, and help his opponent the least.

The various spaces available for colonization have different functions.  Some spaces yield immediate victory points, some generate extra points toward scoring for the whole strip of land, and some generate cards for the active player.  In my game I pursued a strategy of placing my Vikings in fields because at the end of the round, all Vikings are removed from the board except those out standing in their fields. 

Some Vikings end up in Walhalla, the afterlife space that determines how many Vikings each player gets in the following round.  There is an area majority mechanism at work here because the player with the most Vikings in Walhalla gets the most Vikings added to his draw pile. 

Walhalla is easy to learn and can be played in an hour or less.  I found the Viking theme to be pretty thin, and this is my least favorite of the three Viking games.  But I would be happy to play it again, if I end up at a gaming table with a Walhalla fan.

Midgard, from Z-Man Games, is also easy to learn and also plays in under an hour.  In fact, the last three-player game I played lasted just over half an hour.  The game board is a map of a mythical Viking land and contains spaces for three separate Viking heavens.  Midgard is an out-and-out area majority game, and players will play cards to send their Vikings to various regions and the afterlife spaces hoping to gain control and score the most points in each region.

One aspect of Midgard that I enjoyed was the card drafting phase that begins each round.  Players are dealt a hand of cards, but are only allowed to choose one card to hold on to.  All the other cards must be passed to another player.  Players continue to draft cards and pass cards until each player has completed his hand.  This mechanism requires the players to plan their strategies in advance and gives them plenty of tough choices.  Midgard is a game with a lot of random elements, but so far every winner I’ve seen has been the player who played the smartest.

The Viking theme is a little thicker in Midgard than in Walhalla, but it is still not a truly integral part of the game.  I can easily imagine a game designer using the exact same mechanisms to create a game about ancient Greek or Egyptian or Aztec culture.

The Viking theme is thickest in Fire and Axe, a toy-heavy edition of a game that was originally published by Ragnor Brothers and is currently published by Asmodee Editions and Pro Ludo.  The large and colorful game board shows Europe in the early Middle Ages, and the players in this game try to do many of the things that the Vikings did historically.  Players will trade with, sack, and colonize various cities in Europe, and trading with a city makes it easier for that city to be later sacked or colonized.  Go figure.

Players will compete to accomplish various missions that appear on saga cards and getting the most of one of the three sets of saga cards can yield huge numbers of victory points.  I’ve learned from bitter experience that one ignores that saga cards at one’s peril. 

While the heavy theme makes Fire and Axe my favorite of the three Vikings games, I am aware that luck can play an overly-important role in determining who wins.  A player who has bad dice karma can lose an awful lot of Vikings when assaulting a city and end up with nothing to show for his sacrifices and efforts. 

Both price and playing time are higher with Fire and Axe than with Midgard.  Gamers in search of lighter games that play in under an hour should consider Midgard or Walhalla.  Gamers who don’t mind spending a few extra bucks to get more toys should consider Fire and Axe. 

Now I’m waiting to see if someone invents a game called Asgard, the last major Viking afterlife territory that doesn’t have a game named after it. 

Comments:

< Back Home