Caroline and I found this game a couple of weeks ago in the gamestore – I looked at it and was not really sold. It was not until we watched some video reviews of it that convinced me to fork over some cash for it. Cash well spent!
This game is a very nice worker placement/resource management game with a heavy Viking theme. Someone jokingly wrote that this is what Lords of Waterdeep would be if Lords of Waterdeep had a theme. That may be stretching it (LoWD is a fantastic game), as in Champions of Midgaard a lot of focus is put on managing your little warband and their fighting of trolls, draugr and epic monsters to earn glory.
Each player takes on the role of a Viking leader, and receives a character board with special rules for your specific character and 8 slots to place warrior dice on. Your warband can never exceed 8 warriors, and you can always replenish casualties during the game, even if your warband is completely wiped out in a epic fight.
During each turn players take turns in placing their "workers" on various spaces in the Viking village, in order to hire warriors, gather supplies, hire boats to take you to faraway lands, hunt for meat in the forest, visit various traders and also set up expeditions to the nearby hills where you slay trolls and draugr that threaten the existence of the village. For killing monsters your warband earn glory and gold, at the end of the game the player with most glory wins. Glory is earned not only from killing monsters, but from collecting monster cards. Collecting sets of a specific monster card in all colors (for instance draugr: red/yellow/blue) earn you extra glory. You also get glory from additional objective cards that you can pick up in the Viking village – objectives that put gold, Viking warriors, meat and wood into play to earn you more glory as well.
Check my blog for the full review and more pictures.
begins to think about terrain for Team Yankee.
