F@#$ Blood Rage

 welcome back to the annual FTG post on Blood Rage, a game released 6 years ago so right in line with my review schedule.

I've previously played Eric Lang's Ankh, which is absolutely a spiritiual successor to Blood Rage, but this was my first time time playing the original.

It's Norse themed.  Ragnoarok is coming and all your clan can do is die gloriously, the player who accumaltes the most glory wins!

Mechanics

part card draft, part area control and part resource management.

There are 9 provinces, 8 of which have a single resource (rage, axes, horns) to acquire through combat.  The center province, has all 3 resources available.

You acquire these through deploying troops (invade action) and then the pillage action.   Pillage triggers a fight within province and adjacent provinces may also send troops to participate.  The winner increases the corresponding resource track

(picture from Board Game Geek)

The card draft:  special upgrades, allied monsters, quests and battle cards you may select.

Area Control :  two aspects of this.  Having the most units in the area makes a fight easier, and also during the quest phase most quest cards read "have the most power in this region"

Gameplay

The good:

Gameplay is very fast, a 4 player game took my group about 90 minutes.

Decisions are not trivial for such a quick paced game.

Large deck of cards make replays different.

If figures are your thing, Blood Rage comes with some cool ones.

For a fighting game, losing battles isn't a horrible loss and at provides a benefit too as your clan gloriously enters Valhalla.  I won a game where I did not win a single battle, because with the right upgrades, losing a battle is benefit enough.  Losing your entire army is not the least bit crippling.

The bad:

there's 3 resources to manage but Rage matters most.  Rage determines how many actions you can take and that just is so much more important than Axes (VPs earned for winning a battle) or Horns (cap of how many units you can have on the board).  Rage matters so much, that the other two tracks might not matter at all.

the upgrades really swing the game.  I won both times we played and both times it was luck of the draw because I got great upgrades and took advantage of what they did.

The undecided:

My table didn't contest the provinces all that much, and maybe that should have happened.  Wins were too easy especially in the Rage granting provinces.

There's some nuance in the central province (Yggdrasil?  the name was based on the tree but I don't remember if it was a heim a burg or a gard) that I don't get.  The game flow is structured so that battle happens later in the round, and can be an epic contest involving 15 to 20 figures.  The defeated lose all units, the victor loses no units, so the winner has a huge advantage next round when the provinces reset as they're already in the super province with a big army.    For sure  not every player should commit their entire army to that fight, but I'm not sure what circumstances determine that.

Final Review

This game is not a favorite, but would play again.  It's fast paced enough that the flaws don't matter much, and the mechanic that losing your entire army is expected and easily recoverable is fun.  I'd maybe like to see a 2nd edition with alternate ways to increase the Rage stat and better card draft balance.  

FTG Top 20 games!

The inspiration

I listened to Boardgame Barrage's top 50 game series, and decided to throw my hat into the ring.  They're way way way more prepared than a guy with a mostly abandoned blog, so I'm only doing 20.

Boardgame Barrage?

So far I like the podcast (after 6 episodes, the 2021 top 50 series and their exploration of Martin Wallace games).  BB's tastes differ from mine greatly, but I don't need a critic to agree with me; I need a critic to be consistent.  The BB table seems to really like crunchy Euro and Party games.

The methodology

Literally, I spent 30 minutes browsing Board Game Geek's top game list, I went to the 1000th ranking but could have stopped at 500.

Some criteria

    

1. I have to had played that game within the last couple years OR played it so much I'm intimately familiar with it.
2. I have had to have played that game enough to get an informed opinion.
3. Games that I consider 'played out' were also omitted.

Rankings were generated into tiers of what I think I like most, then within those tiers subdivided further by a quick gut response "what would I rather play".  So SCIENCE!

Honorable mentions

Furnace

Only one play so far, but I really want to play again.  It's really fast paced with reasonably difficult decisions.  The auction mechanic is very interesting and I watched bidding tactics evolve during that one play through.

Galaxy Trucker

This is played out for me but rarely is there a game I am so bad at so entertaining.  

Notre Dame

Also played out for me.  There was nothing truly novel about this game, but it was well balanced and well designed.

Terraforming Mars : Ares Expedition

Only one play so far.  It's diet Terraforming Mars combined with Race for the Galaxy role selection; all the resources none of the area control.  Still have the million cards to sort through, still have the plants and heat and oceans.  I'd say it's a good way to introduce a n00b to TM. 

Alhambra

I really really like this game, but we're not likely to play it at my table any time soon.

1. My table usually has 5 players, and Alhambra has problems at 5+.  The game situation changes too radically between turns to adequately plan.  I don't mind the chaos, but I have an appreciation as how that is frustrating.
2. So we can occasionally play with 4?  Well you'd think so but there's just a tremendous glut of 4P games that we under play or have never played.  Sorry Alhambra.    

Keyflower

I haven't played Keyflower for probably 5 or 6 years.  I remember liking it, but not really sure why anymore.  We might get back to it in 2022 as we cross the backlog of 5 player games off our list.

20 Arkham Horror 3rd edition

This is a good game, and if not for the existince of Eldritch Horror would be much higher on this list.  As it is, every time I play it I end up comparing to Eldritch.   The one thing it does much much better than EH is it sets up much quicker.

19 Space Base

This is currently 'played out' for me.  But the reason it's played out is because I played it a lot this year.  It's quick, easy and the decisions are surprisingly impactful for a game who's core mechanic is roll 2D6.  It's an excellent choice to close out the night.

18 Maracaibo

At first glance, this game looks fantastic.  But the fighting actions may prove too powerful for a 'fighting specialist'.  It could be that the secondary fighters are playing wrong, there's a factional Area Control mechanic that fighting specialists love but everyone else should probably ignore.  Either way, not using the area control mechanic is not the least bit intuitive and the other paths for victory points aren't nearly as efficient.   I'm interested enough to try another couple times, but this barely made this years list. 

17 Everdell 

I've only played Everdell on Tabletopia, and the game is cute enough to make you want to teach your muggle family but complex enough to stop you from trying.

16 Skull King

Trick taking game where the bidding strategies and play have totally evolved.    First we thought decided 'nils' was too powerful, but then we started setting them.  So maybe not?   It's not like I'm good at this game anyways.

15 No Thanks!

The godfather of end of night, unwind games.  about 5 to 10 minutes a round, and you have to play to the personalities; I play with spite and I don't have a chance to win I will for sure bust your inside straight.

14 Trajan

Trajan is probably on the list because I think I'm good at it.  I feel my strength in games is analyzing the board and finding tactical oppurtunities.  That basically is Trajan, and the rondell action wheel proves difficult for a lot of players to manuever.  By my 2nd play through I was quite happy with my manipulations of it. 

13 Tzolkin

Only two plays so far.  This game is one gimmick, but it's a really interesting, unique gimmick.  I haven't come close to figure this out yet but I want to try more!

12 Eldritch Horror

Fantastic coop game where the players are faced with a tug of war between not losing, and making progress towards the win.  Fun fact!  I think trying to keep a crippled character alive is more damaging to the game than just going full speed ahead with him until he dies.  Top of the World Ma!

11 Brass : Lancashire

Cheating to include this and Brass : Birmhingam?  Fine, I'll feel shame.  But the game is radically different.  Lancashire is a spiteful knife fight, and you've got be very sure when you unlock anything.  And when emptying a resource track, overbuilds are common in Lancashire.

  10 Race for the Galaxy

We played Race for the Galaxy etnirely too much.  It's one of the few games that play reasonably well with more than 5 players and at the time, we regularly had more than 5.   It got played out, but it's also been years since we played.  I'd totally play again :)

9  Railways of the World

Steam, as a stand alone game isn't terribly intriguing.  RotW improved on that by better end game scoring, better in game goals, and several differnt maps.  Vastly more replayable than steam.

8  The Crew

Such a clever idea for a game!  Completely cooperative trick taking card game!  That's great but the no talking/communication rule just seals this as a good time.

7  Wingspan

Wingspan was a victim of Tabletopia implementation.  Tapletopia and Board Game Arena have some really clunky implementations so when I find one that works well I tend to stick to this.  We played this a lot last spring, to the point that I got really burnt out.  But it's still a fantastic game that's well paced!

6  Gloomhaven

We ran out of content.  Interestingly, it wasn't the lack of missions that played this game out.  It was running out of new character classes.  When the party was faced with recycling a bunch of guys because no one drew the right retirement goal, we lost interest.  But still, we played this game every week for 9 months.  Hours and hours and hours of enjoyment.

5  Castles of Burgundy

This is the epitome of a game where you can't eliminate luck, but you sure can mitigate it.   Also amazingly paced for the decisions a player must make.

4  Terraforming Mars

Combines the "Drink from the firehose" card selection of Race for the Galaxy with complex resource management.  To me the most intriguing thing is, how much is something worth?  Because it you raise the terraform level, you get more money, so it's worth more isn't it?

3  A Feast for Odin

If this was just worker placement, this game would be dumb.  If it was just tile placement, this game would also be dumb.  But it combines the two into something special.  And the on tableau bonuses!  I've seen games that skip all of them or strive for all of them and both have been amazingly successful or ridiculous failures.

2  Azul

The first time I played Azul I thought it was so brilliantly simple that I got angry at myself for not thinking of it first.   My favorite part of the game is that there is some spite involved; you can hate draft and force an opponent to take a bunch of tiles they can't play and cost them points!

1  Brass: Birmingham

If I do this next year, this is the best candidate to take a big tumble.  Iron Works seems the most powerful industry, but I'm 100% not convinced of that yet.  For one thing, we've let the Iron Monger auto-flip up to the L4 industry in the canal phase; it definitely needs to be more competitive.