Blood Rage Core Box

This is a great game for a small group. The components in this game are amazing, high quality and contain a lot of detail. If you like miniature games and/or enjoy painting these are perfect for you (this is not required by any means, but would make the figures that much better). PROS: +The game runs pretty quick, I would say around 45 minutes after the first play through, which is nice as you can play multiple times during one gathering. +As stated above the game has incredible miniatures, and has some good bases to snap on the bottom to easily identify what components are yours and your enemies. +2-4(or 5 with expansion Blood Rage 5th Player Expansion- Multi-lingual Game ) The range is nice and the number of players really changes the game strategy, so playing with 2 feels much different than playing with 4. However the rules stay mostly the same (the card drafting changes very slightly) +Each game is different board to play on, there are different areas that are destroyed depending on the number of players and they change every game. There are different pillage tokens that are placed randomly on the board each game. Finally in the game there are 3 different areas that are destroyed after each age. All of these rules help to make the game-board different every game and keep it fresh and repayable. +The drafting of the cards in this game is outstanding, this is a great mechanic to play the game. This removes the need for rolling dice or drawing a random card, for the most part everyone has a chance and you need to decide what is best for you before you pass the reaming cards to the next person. +Finally one great part of the game is playing cards to aid in a battle (which by game design, you do not always want to win) these are played down and reveled all at the same time and it allows for some heavy strategy and bluffing in the game. CONS: -Even though the miniatures are very nice and are a natural base color (probably for painting) it would have been nice if they would have distinguished each different type of figure with a slightly different color base color, it is sometimes hard to remember who is the warrior, leader, monster ect.... -The game goes quick which is nice, however it seems like by the end of round 3 (the last round) you could really enjoy playing for another round or two as you finally have some good combinations set up with units and upgrades. Overall this is a well designed game with great components and plays quick. I would say it is an easy game to play but a good amount of strategy is needed to win. Below are a few pictures of some of the figures (not painted) right out of the box.

I love games. All kinds of games. Card, board, dice, you name it. I've had my eye on blood rage for months. I watch a lot of youtube video about board games. One of these channels is dice tower where they mention blood rage all the time. Being the cheap-o that I am, I waited over a year for the price to hit a point where I would purchase it. It was one of the best game purchases in recent memory. And thats saying something. From the very first play through, I loved this game. Here is a list of the things I liked and didn't like about it: Liked: * Th game is gorgeous. The miniatures are the best I've seen. The art work is fantastic. It's first rate. * It allows everyone to have their own unique strategies to win. This is probably the best part of the game. Everyone can come up with a different strategy to win the game, which makes for some really intriguing play. I've never seen a game where you can win ... by dying! * For me it's the perfect balance of strategy and fun. You don't spend forever trying to figure out what to do like some heavy strategy games. And every card/action matters, unlike a lot of lighter games. I've never had a round where I thought "I didn't get the cards I wanted, I'm screwed". You just make a strategy that works with what you have available. * Everything can change in a blink of an eye. People jockey for position through the entire game and you really don't know who's going to win till the last action is made. It's just so well-balanced that everyone can surprise each other multiple times in a round. Disliked: * It take a while to setup. This is a quibble I know, but it's true. * Many of the wonderful miniatures were bent, because of the packaging. These things are way too pretty to be contorted by the packaging. * I hate mini cards. I know this is another quibble. Everything in this game so so nice and sleek, except for the card size. A lot of games use mini cards, and they annoy me. So this isn't so much a ding on the game as it is about mini cards in general.. I can't suggest this game enough. I hope get get to play it at least once a month for the foreseeable future.

Probably my favorite game atm. First I would like to tell you not to buy it from a 3rd party seller as I did. Coolminiornot does not ship to Alaska where I live so I was forced to. When I got the game it was poorly packaged in a box much too large with no filler so the game slid around during shipping damage all the corners. I could have returned it but that would have took weeks and I was eager to play that night. With that out of the way: this game is freaking fun! It is good with any number of players however when you go to 4 or more forget about any card drafting strategy as after a complete rotation the card you were eying but couldn't bring yourself to choose will most likely be gone. 3 seems to be the perfect balance of fun and strategy but more friends isn't a bad thing. I have determined that there are four main strategies to winning: (1)Draft high strength battle cards and monsters and win battles, (2)Draft Loki cards and lose battles, (3)Draft quest cards and focus on completing as many as possible, (4) try to pillage and re-pillage(if you have the re-pillage card) as much as possible. Or you can do a combination of these but I found that it is difficult as you will spread your resources too thin because you only have 6 or 7 cards per age and 6-12 rage to do actions. I think it is best to look at the board at the start of the age and decide 1 or 2 goals to complete because if you try to do too many things you will likely complete none of them. Another tip that I have learned from teaching the game to about a dozen people is to give newcomers a while to read all the cards carefully so they know what they are getting into when they do battles. They may do something stupid like using their +6 strength card when someone will most use a card that counters it. Many times it is best not to use your best card in the first battle. If there is a card that makes you discard then redraw a battle card you will have already lost your best card and might lose the battle. Great game highly recommended.

I've been putting off this game for a while as I was not sure my gaming group would like a confrontational game. I am glad to say I was wrong. Personally I found this game a joy as it jump to the top of my own personal favorites that I cannot wait to play again. The game is simple in rules, but gives so much depth. If you lose in the game you can see exactly you may have did something wrong. The game begins with card drafting that helps dictate what you will be doing in the coming round. The game has a total of three rounds, and so three rounds of card drafting. This drafting system is great as it makes your clan unique in what they can do. After drafting, the players begin playing actions which lasts as long as they have rage, what is used to pay for actions, or when players pillage all nine areas of the board. Actions are either invading an area of the board, march from one area to another, upgrade your clan, pillage, or play a quest card. Invading is how figures get on the board and marching is simply how figures move to other areas. Upgrades are what can change a players clan, this can be gathering more glory or discounting upgrades. Upgrades can also allow players to take some of the unique monsters that can be available to them. An example of this is the giant sea serpent that gives three strength and acts like another boat. The pillage action is what leads to great conflicts with either one or all players. The upgrade modifications taken by players can grant glory points for either winning or losing the battle. Cards drafted can also be simple attack cards that help add or change the way combat will work. Finally the last action is playing a quest card that will grant points for having the most strength in an area, or having enough dead figures in Valhalla. At the end of every round Ragnarok will annihilate an area of the board to make the game even tighter. Even when warriors die from this explosion of Ragnarok the players are given glory points for having a grand death. As mentioned before there are three rounds before the game ends, and then scoring can commence. Fast game as the longest part is drafting the cards in the game. The game can easily hit an hour and a half, and plays four players out the box with a 5th player expansion available. As a confrontation game I would recommend this, and even if players do not like that the game gives options of taking some alternate routes to victory that does not involve winning. Incredible game that will get many more play throughs before I will even get tired of it.

This is a very fun board game. At first glance it looks like a miniatures combat/area control game but that's not entirely accurate, though elements of those types of games are present. Blood Rage is more a game of card drafting, clever warrior placement/movement, and misleading your opponents about your intentions. That's not to say that the cool Viking theme doesn't come through, because it absolutely does. I usually think that the Viking theme is a bit overdone, especially in board games, but it works here because Blood Rage is more about wanton death and widespread destruction than it is about bearded dudes in longboats fighting trolls. The rules of this game have just the right amount of complexity to them. It's a very accessible game, and you can get your friends set up and moving models around the board pretty quickly, and then explain the more advanced rules to them as you go. This, combined with the nice models and the eye-catching art, means that this is a game that you could easily break out during a game night and get all your friends instantly drawn into. And then they'll be even more interested once they learn the more complex nuances. The miniatures are really the highlight of the box here and they are quite nice, easily the nicest I've seen in a board game that's not made by Games Workshop. There's a lot of really nice details and variety to them and they are just begging to be painted, if you're into that sort of thing. Although painting them isn't entirely necessary since the box comes with colored bases that can be affixed to the models. I can't really give Blood Rage five stars though, because I do have a few issues with it. I'm a bit of stickler for quality of game components, and outside of the miniatures, everything else feels a bit sub-par. The board, though thick, is made of a cheap-feeling cardboard and didn't sit flat right out of the box, and the player mats and "Valhalla" mat feel way too thin, as do the cards. The rulebook is quite nice, though. It explains the game very well and has a lot of nice illustrations in it. My other issue is with the way that the miniatures come packed in the box. A lot of the miniatures are armed with spears or javelins, and they are made of a plastic that bends very easily. The issue is that they come packed in a plastic insert that they can fall out of very easily. When I opened my box of miniatures they were all just kind of jumbled together at the bottom of the box, and thus their spears were all hopelessly bent. I've been trying to slowly bend them back but they've been very resistant. This might not seem like a huge deal to some people, but it does really effect how cool the models look when a bunch of the dudes have super bent spears. Sure, I could blame the shipping company for roughly handling the box, but I think that it's the fault of the game manufacturer for not realizing that they needed better inserts for the models. The minis fall out of place so easily that it seems like even if I bought this game at my local game store, my models would still end up with bent spears. That said, the game itself is very, very fun and very welcoming for new players, with just the right blend of strategy and coolness factor. I can see myself playing quite a lot of Blood Rage in the future.

A must own game for a wide range of board game fans. This is so much fun, you have to try it for yourself. It looks like it is super complex, but it really isnt. It is a very open ended game with many different ways to approach gameplay, and many ways to win. Being that gameplay is won by glory (points), purely conquering land doesn't mean anything. There is alot of strategy involved with picking cards, fulfilling quests, invading countries, etc. Pros: - Amazingly fun - Doent take long to learn - Multiple ways to approach and win - High quality materials - Figurines (especially monsters) are amazingly detailed and spectacular looking - Despite the name, it is family friendly (even though young children would probably not understand the strategy part of it. Pre-teens and older should have no issues with that) - Games are fairly quick. Newbies can take 2-3 hours. For people who know the game, it can take 1-2 hours. Cons: - Getting everything setup can take a little while. Though it isn't going to take an hour, it does typically take 10 minutes or so, for one person to do it. - Although the packaging fits back in the box well, putting the figurines away can take a while. There is no markings as to which goes where, and they only fit into one place. So putting 40+ figurines into the correct locations takes a while - Some of the figures with spears or long weapons can be bent alittle when they arrive. Not a huge negative. But just a little annoying.

This is my first serious game, beyond family board games. I had a wonderful time painting the monsters. The armies are a little tedious to paint...so much detail in such small figures. The only negative on the miniatures was the wolf clan. They were either horribly designed or it was a bad mold but that clan was far below the other figures. If you paint them, plan on swearing to never paint another viking in your life. The gameplay is extremely fun, after you play a couple of games to get everyone up yo speed. It's a difficult game to learn if this is your first foray into these types of games but at least it's nowhere near gloomhaven diffulty to learn. I also bought a laser cut wood organizer after the first time taking down the game. It's almost a must buy. Putting the game away, the way it comes, is tedious and an organizer cut that down a ton.

After years of hearing about it, we finally got around to playing it. This is a great game. Gameplay is fairly easy to learn, and runs pretty smoothly overall. The production quality is solid, with some nice minis and solid artwork. Replay value depends strongly on how much you enjoy the game really. The different clans don’t offer different abilities or gameplay styles. Also the game feels much faster than I initially expected. There are some expansions that can offer a bit more variety, but the core box can feel like a hefty investment already. We had played Ankh before this, and both games offer things we like and things we wish were different. I definitely recommend checking this game out at least once.