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.