Grim brought another new game along recently: Champions of Midgard.
Each player is a Viking leader vying to become the new jarl of the township. This is achieved by racking up Glory.
The best way to gain Glory is by defeating Monsters, either the Trolls that constantly threaten the town, the Draugr that lurk nearby threatening villages, or the legendary Monsters found overseas.
But to do this you need Viking warriors (dice of different colours) and you get these in various ways by placing your worker meeples.
Worker Phase
There are various locations about town that grant resources such as food, coin or wood, or the various warrior types, swordsmen, spearmen or axemen. Some locations allow you to build a private ship or hire a public longship.
Placing a worker meeple in a location blocks it for the rest of the current turn. Once this phase is over, combat begins. You did remember to place meeples where you want to fight, didn't you?
Fighting Phase
Players then assign Viking warrior dice to fight. Only one player per target, and no fighting among yourselves!
Combat is straightforward, the monster has a set offense (the number of warrior dice it automatically kills) and a set defence (the number of hits required to kill it). The warrior dice are thrown and the results applied. The dice have some blank faces, and shield results block kills from the monster. Swordsmen are the weakest warriors, and axemen the strongest.
The game plays over eight turns, and although T'Other One and myself were new to Champions of Midgard, we'd all got pretty fast as play went on.
There are lots of nice details, such as Destinies, which grant extra Glory at the end for certain achievements, as an example, I had Draugr Slayer, and got extra points for killing the most undead.
Runes are one off special abilities and the Merchant's Quay provides new goods each turn.
My favourite bit is fighting the legendary monsters, such as Fenris Cubs or Lyndwurm. They are all found overseas, so you need a ship. There are a couple of public ships available or you can build your own. The ships are equipped with warriors, but they also need meat to feed them. A deck of cards represents potential hazards on the way, such as storms or whirlpools, and these can rob you of meat or warriors. Then the survivors get to fight the Monster.
The board at the start of play. T'Other One won with just short of 100 Glory! Grim and myself trailed around the 70s.
Final Thoughts
Champions of Midgard is a great fun game. At it's heart it's a resource management game, but there is enough 'dressing' that it really feels like a Saga. The artwork, especially the board itself, looks great, my only complaint being the horned helmets. I thought we'd buried that bit of Victorian nonsense back in the eighties.
Component quality is good, with wooden meeples (deluxe versions are available with horned helmeted meeples, just wrong).
I'll definitely put this in S Tier, it provides a great evening's entertainment. I grew up reading the Icelandic Sagas, so this is just my sort of game.
Champions of Midgard is designed by Ole Steiness and produced by Grey Fox Games, and there are a couple of supplements introducing more Jotuns and Valholl and a couple more options for expeditions.