Enter the realm of Norse mythology during the fiery calamity of Ragnarök, draft cards, fight for nigh unpronounceable territory, and claim glory for your clan! Welcome to Blood Rage.
Also: minis.
This is a medium-to-lightweight area control game paired with a classic card draft. Cards determine your clan's upgrades and which monsters join you in battle. It's played over three rounds, each with exponentially bigger scoring opportunities.
The map shrinks every round, as Ragnarök devastates areas (randomized every game).
There's one currency and two key stats to manage:
You can see the stat counters and some card examples on my player board below. There was some terrible glare in this photo, hence the 😎
I'm at 9 Rage, 4 Axes and 7 Horns. The cost (in Rage) to play cards is shown on the cards in a little red circle. Blue diamond is Glory reward for completing those quest cards. Let's go over actions:
A little hard to see, but notice the empty circles below the Blue player above. If Blue wants to pillage that spot, their opponents (in clockwise order) can optionally move an adjacent unit in for free. The initiator of the pillage also gets the option to bring in reinforcements.
Once all choices to go in (or not) are done, it's fightin' time.
Add up the battle power of each mini (these can be upgraded). Each combatant then plays a card from their hand facedown. Any card! But usually the red combat cards.
Combat cards do all sorts of things, from simple addition of strength to weird stuff such as stealing Rage or Glory from the winner if you lose (these particular powers come from Loki, appropriately).
Oh, and in a tie? Everyone dies. Glorious.
The card draft is worth mentioning, as it forms the basis of much of your strategy. You start with a mittful, take one, pass the rest to the left (or right, if it's Round 2). Figuring out what to take for yourself or to block your opponents is the core of any good draft, and Blood Rage does not dissapoint!
I had a strong game but ended up losing by 2 points, thanks to a huge Round 2 blunder.
My strategy evolved into getting lots minis onto the map then getting them killed (gloriously! They liked it! I swear!)
😴 The first round was fairly quiet as it usually is, with folks mostly setting up and being leery vs going crazy with attacks. There's room, no one has tons of Rage, so aggression is usually checked. I ended up getting positioned well in the middle, so when Round 2 started I was able to pillage Yggdrasil uncontested. This bumps all three stats by 1.
😈 I had some of those rude Loki cards, so I was able to steal lots of points by throwing my minis into fights and losing on purpose. I eventually grabbed an upgrade that gave me points for minis who were in Vahalla—my mistake was not playing it at the end of Round 2 (it was 16 points vs. a choice I made that got me like 3. Baddd blunder 😩).
In Round 3 I found Odin's Throne, which doubles quest rewards. I stocked up on Quests, two of which were quests to die! I was good at dying, so this netted me massive points in Round 3... but not enough to make up that shortfall from earlier 😭
Sad story. Here's a Frost Giant to help make it better:
Want a video review? Here's Shut Up and Si—wait what? There's no SUSD review video for Blood Rage? I... uh. Hm. This is new for me.
Well, here's a solid video from The Dice Tower instead. Good overview, but bereft of absurd and cheeky English humour. I think the Norse Gods would appreciate that, actually.
Thank you for reading. All images taken by me, except where otherwise credited. I've also written about other games, if you're interested!
