Grey Fox GamesReavers of Midgard Board Game

Origin StoryYears ago I had the honor of playing a game called Champions of Midgard and although I liked it, I didn’t think I really needed to own it. Then the brother of that game popped up on Kickstarter titled, Reavers of Midgard. Now the title instantly grabbed my attention but as I looked it over I eventually decided to pass on backing it primarily because I just thought it was going to have too many similarities to Champions of Midgard.Well, Reavers is finally hitting shores and retail outlets and it popped up on my radar again recently and after looking it over I finally pulled the trigger and picked me up a copy, primarily due to the vibrant colors on the game board itself, (I go wild for vibrancy). So after playing a few games what did I think of it and how does it compare to Champions of Midgard? Read on reading to get the answers to these pressing questions plus many more!Overview of GameplayIn Reavers, players will be leading their very own Viking horde raiding keeps and villages, trading with the locals, subduing lands and of course recruiting even more Viking hordes to make all of the above easier. To accomplish all of these feats players will take turns placing their cool little wooden ship meeple on a specific action space on the game board. Once placed the player will pay whatever costs are associated with that space, such as food or particular dice and then take the action which will reward the player with glorious goodies.So, all that sounds like pretty standard worker placement fare eh? And for the most part it really is, HOWEVER the nice twist to this is that when a player places their ship and takes the action, each OTHER player can also take that same action if they also pay the required fee. The big difference is that the main player here gets a bonus attached to the action whereas everyone else gets a lesser bonus or none at all depending on player order. Not only that but as you start gaining more and more Viking cards to join you, you can slot them under specific spots on your personal player board. Now, whenever anyone takes that particular action on the main game board, you also get a bonus that is listed on the slotted Viking cards.Around and around this will continue with each player placing and taking actions until each player has placed their ships on the board then any cards remaining on the board that were not gobbled up are discarded and the entire board it refreshed with new cards drawn from their respective decks. Players collect their ship meeples and then a new round begins. Players will do this for 6 rounds and then at the end will calculate their total VP’s which in this game are called “Glory” (of course), and whoever has the most glory wins!Components/Game BoardAs I mentioned above the game board itself is what drew me back to the game and let me tell you it is a gorgeous board. The main board has placings outlined for each of the card decks and special spots for the card placements. If you flip the game board over you can play a 2 player game with slightly altered setup. The individual player boards are of a nice thickness and sturdy and have spots dedicated for dice and your leader card. They also represent you ship that you are using to sail to various places on the board to raid and trade so it adds a nice theme to it as well.The dice, and hoooo boy are there a lot of dice, are REALLY nice. There are bookoos of blue, red and yellow dice all with nice unique emblems etched into the sides and a few black battle dice as well. They have a nice weight to them and look very vivid and colorful like most everything else in the game. The cards have a nice premium feel to them as well and have the standard card size as well as the mini size. The rest of the components in the retail version are pretty standard cardboard pieces and nothing to crow over and there are quite a few of them. I do like the cool little wooden ship meeples player’s use for their placement pieces. Aside from the dice those are my fav pieces in the game. Oh, one other thing that kinda bugged me was the Glory point tracker tokens for each player. They are just basic little round pegs, would have been super nice to at least print "100" on one side of each of them to notate when a player surpasses that illustrious 100 point spot on the track. Just a small touch but would have made a world of difference.Box/StorageThere is a plastic insert with the game but mehhhhhh. I always enjoy a good insert but this one just squeals meh to me. There are spots to hold the cards which is always welcome so I don’t have to bag them up BUT there is just one other big gap for everything else so you HAVE to bag all the tokens up. And you will want to bag the tokens up individually unless you just want a giant pile of various tokens to scrounge through every time you play. No good spots to store the dice either so those will all have to be bagged up. And even after you bag up everything there is a specific spot to put the player boards but the amount of tokens that are bagged bulges those up a bit so the board that sits on top of that doesn’t sit even.And even after all that there is still a bit of a gap between the board and the lid so if storing the game on its side, you might run into a bit of a card mess from them not being secure in the insert. Overall, not a huge fan of the insert included with the game although the box itself is nice and has some great artwork adorned on all sides…….Except for the sides on the bottom box where there are random advertisements for more games……ugh. I always hate seeing advertisements on boxes as it just kills the beauty of the game.Visual Appeal /ThemeVisually the game is amazing! The colors on the board are very pleasing to the eyes and the artwork throughout is just incredible. The dice all look incredibly nice as well with each being very easily distinguishable. The artwork on the Viking cards themselves is very well done and I find myself actually inspecting each new card I acquire closely to see all the fine details.The board’s art is also very finely crafted with little hints and tugs of the eyes all about. Even though I love they have outlined the spaces for the decks and cards on the board, I find myself attracted to the 2 player side as it allows a better view of the board itself with less deck outlines. Those beautiful castles and villages sprawled all over the landscape are a marvel to behold.I think they did a really good job integrating the theme with the gameplay here. I mentioned it earlier but your player board is your ship which can be upgraded to more easily handle ship battles. It holds your leader Viking card on the ship itself which is neat and all the other Viking cards you acquire go under the edge of the ship to kinda show that they are also passengers. There are also interesting choices to make within the game that adds to this. For example when you “Raid Villages” you get to pick a combo of two cards with glorious items aplenty. BUT on some of those cards there are extra choices of stuff to take accompanying a negative thing. So, you could JUST raid the village and take what you need OR you can take that AND pillage the village acquiring even more goodies……with a cost of a terror token which is worth negative points at the end. This kinda stuff really enhances the overall theme of the game.RulebookThis is so very close to being a good rulebook. It’s got a good setup and design and is colorful and has picture examples and full page component lists and does a pretty good job of explaining what is there……BUT there are so many missed rules pieces that I did have to visit the forums more than a few times to get clarification on a number of things. And most of the stuff that was missed is pretty standard stuff that you would think would have been caught if the rulebook was read through and tested by an outside party that didn’t design the game. Overall not a terrible rulebook and certainly not the worst I have ever seen, *cough Conan *weez, but could use a errata for sure. Also, and this is a big one for me, where is the rules references? At the very minimum have the actions step by step printed on the very back of the manual for ease of reference. There are a couple reference cards that show some detail of the game that honestly, I will never use but there is no rules reference to be found.Player Interaction/Fun FactorNow this is a huge win for this game! The sheer amount of player interaction here is simply stunning. And it’s not even so much as each player is directly interacting with each other as it is each player is always engaged. As the game progresses and players start adding more Vikings to their ship they will unlock extra actions/goodies even during every other player’s turns. So, when player one takes a certain action, if ANY other player has a Viking slotted into that action spot on their player board, then they can collect the denoted items listed on the bottom of each Viking card in that slot. Furthermore, after that player finishes his turn, each other player can also choose to take that same action as well or rest to regain some food or dice. There is just not hardly a bit of downtime in this game and I loooooove that.As far as fun is concerned I can tell you this game is much more strategic than it is luck based. Take that as you will as some players love the thrill of rolling some dice and seeing what may come whereas other prefer to have complete control over their destiny. This game has a bit of both as there are dice but most of the time you have the choice whether you would roll them and see what happens or just use collected materials to achieve your plunderous ends. And I am happy to say that the thrill of dice rolling is still here for those luck based peeps! For example, when performing the ship battle action you have the choice whether you want to discard a certain variety of dice just to collect the card OR you could battle it! To battle it you still have to discard “Hammer” dice, for each hammer you get one battle dice to roll. If you roll at least equal to the defensive value on the card, you win! Also you can use those honor tokens you’ve been collecting to reroll dice. It is a thrill to go for the battle option and win but also a risk.Optimal Player Count/ReplayabilityI do think the game plays a bit better at a higher player count and seems like it was made to be a 4 player game from the get go. There are 6 possible placement spots on the board so not everything will get taken every round. At three players there is another ship meeple that the starting player gets to place again after everyone else goes so, basically 4 players. And during a two player game each player places two ships one after the other, so again there will always be 4 ships being placed no matter which player count is played.The replay value is decent here as there are numerous different cards in the decks to view. And the amount of different collected cards that form sets gives plenty of options going forward. However, even after one 4 player game I pretty much had seen just about everything the game had to offer in the form of all the cards. There are different strategies that can be tried by visiting different areas more than the other though so this will at least keep the game interesting for a bit.Positive Final ThoughtsReavers of Midgard is a very colorful and beautiful game rife with immense amounts of player engagement. I would recommend playing a full 4 player game as there is almost zero downtime and all players are always engaged. The artwork and board is just out of this world gorgeous. I love the options that are available to either roll the dice and test your luck or just go straight for the resource exchange like a true euro game. The options and the perfect blending of them means that almost any player can visit this game and enjoy it.Negative Final ThoughtsThe included insert isn’t nearly what I had hoped it would be as you basically bag everything up anyway and the rulebook needs a bit of work with additional rules to explain some of the ambiguities. There isn’t much variability with the game so pretty much every game you will see the same cards and always the same actions.The Bottom LineFor worker placement games this is by far the best one for player engagement. I mean every other worker placement I have played there is always a bit (and sometimes a lot) of downtime between turns. This game however I would never be afraid to play at the full player count for fear of boredom. Each and every player will always be engaged and “into” the game. There isn’t much replayability though so I don’t see it coming out THAT often but when it does it will be a fun time! And just good gravy man, the board is just incredibly beautiful.

I had played Champions of Midgard and its expansions before playing this. I love CoM and have to say that I enjoy this one even more. I really like the follow mechanic that allows you to take the same action as another player if you have the resources to do it. If you liked CoM, I would definitely recommend this game.

Great game. Veryyyyy easy to learn once you actually start to play. Fun and exciting. Took about an hour and a half to setup and play.

Reavers of Midgard sat on my shelf of shame for over a year until we finally decided to give it a shot. I'm not sure why it sat there as long as it did and why it just got skipped over when picking games for game night, but it did. But I'm glad it finally came off the shelf as we had a lot of fun with it.Having played Champions of Midgard, I was expecting more worker placement mechanics to it. While that is part of the game, it is not as prevalent as it is in Champions and works differently, but don't let that fool you, it is more complex than it appears on the surface. Because there are only a small handful of locations to move your longship to and everyone takes part in each location it might seem like order of selection and what is selected doesn't matter, but the bonuses you get based on what turn order you are in has a drastic impact on the strategy behind when and where you place your ship.The game is played in a series of six turns with points (honor) being gained as turns are played. However, be not deceived by the score mid-game, much like other worker placement games like Lords of Waterdeep the bulk of the points will come at the end as your competition starts revealing just how many of their prophecy objectives they have completed.The game took about 30-45 minutes to learn and a couple of turns for everyone to get the hang of it (player ages were 42, 39, 18, and 15) and our first game took about 1.5-2 hours once we understood what we were doing.The board and cards are quality with great art and longevity in mind. For those who like point strategy games with some worker-placement-lite components to it (and the occasionally slain sea-monster), while I would not give it out as my top choice, I'd give this a solid recommendation.

Reavers of Midgard by Grey Fox Games is an immersive board game with a rich Viking theme that offers a strategic gameplay experience.The game features a player action choice system that presents various decisions at each turn, such as recruiting Reavers, battling at sea, or raiding villages, requiring players to carefully manage their resources and tactics. It includes beautifully crafted components and stunning artwork that draw players into the game's world.The complexity and longer playtime of the game, especially with larger groups, along with the depth of strategic choices, make each session highly engaging. For those who enjoy a challenging game that combines strategy with Viking lore, Reavers of Midgard is an excellent addition to any board game collection.

very dry very boring euro... prefer champions of Midgard + expansions over this anytime. It seems like maybe they were relying on the success of champions to sell copies of this. mediocre.

Bought this game as it looked different from anything we've played before. Thoroughly enjoyed it!!

Olha, eu nunca tive um jogo de tabuleiro como este, e eu estou surpreendido, o jogo é muito bom, é bonito, tem várias peças e é muito massa jogar com os amigos, tem diversas mecânicas e estratégias para ganhar mais pontos, ganhar espólios, aprimorar os conquistadores, cara, sensacional, gostei demais e recomendo fortemente!

Gran juego con una super producción, vale mucho la pena, es un euro game con mecánica de colocación de trabajadores, con la temática muy bien integrada, divertido y muy entretenido

Ótima embalagem, prazo de entrega rápido. Jogo top.

Excelente jogo de estratégia com alocação de recursos. Dá pra montar diversas estratégias e fazer ajustes durante as rodadas. Tabuleiro e peças muito bonitas. Boa rejogabilidade, pois tem bastante cartas que mudam um pouco as estratégias durante o jogo