Blood Rage

Components

For 2 to 4 players, each controlling one of the Wolf, Bear, Serpent, or Raven clans starting under identical conditions. Whoever has the most Glory wins.

Setup

1. 1Each player takes their clan sheet, Leader, 8 Warriors, and a Ship as their reserve.
2. 2Place the Glory marker at "0," the Rage token at "6," the Axes token at "3," and the Horns token at "4" — all clans start identically.
3. 3Randomly place the 9 Pillage tokens, one per province (Yggdrasil's is fixed reward-side up).
4. 4Shuffle the 8 Ragnarök tokens onto the Age Track's three spots, and place the Doom token on the province indicated by the first. By player count, some provinces start already destroyed (3 for 2 players, 2 for 3 players, 1 for 4 players).
5. 5Place all Monster figures within reach, put the Saga token on "Age 1 — Gods' Gifts," and determine a First Player.

A turn — 3 Ages × 6 phases

The game runs over 3 Ages, and every Age must go through all 6 phases in order, finishing each before the next begins.

1. 1① Gods' Gifts — Deal 8 cards from that Age's deck to each player (skip drafting in your first Age and just use the 8), then draft down to 6 cards by keeping 1 and passing the rest over 2–4 rounds.
2. 2② Action — Starting with the First Player and going clockwise, pay Rage to Invade, March, Upgrade, Quest, Pillage, or Pass. The phase ends once everyone is at 0 Rage or every province has been pillaged.
3. 3③ Discard — Keep only 1 card in hand and discard the rest (discard everything in Age 3).
4. 4④ Quest — Reveal committed Quest cards, check whether each is fulfilled, and collect rewards.
5. 5⑤ Ragnarök — Permanently destroy the province marked by the Doom token, send every figure in it to Valhalla, and award Glory.
6. 6⑥ Release Valhalla — Return every figure in Valhalla to its owner's reserve.

Actions — Rage costs and choices

On your turn during the Action phase, you must choose exactly one action and pay its Rage cost. At 0 Rage, you cannot take any action (even a free one) — all you can do is join a battle someone else started.

Resolving battles — Strength and secret cards

1. 1Call to battle — After a Pillage is declared, starting with the player after the First Player and going clockwise, anyone may move a figure for free from an adjacent province into an empty village to join. Once nobody wishes to join further, the battle begins.
2. 2Play cards — Every clan in the battle reveals one card simultaneously. A Battle card adds its STR bonus to that clan's total; an Upgrade or Quest card adds nothing.
3. 3Resolution — Whichever side's (sum of figure STR) + (played card bonus) is highest wins. A tie means every participant loses.
4. 4Losing clans send all of their participating figures to Valhalla. The winning clan discards its played card and gains Glory equal to its current Axes stat — whether or not it was the clan that declared the Pillage.

Ragnarök's province destruction and Valhalla

In the Ragnarök phase of each Age, the province marked by the Doom token is permanently removed from the map. Every figure in it (and its supporting fjord), monsters included, is sent to Valhalla, and each clan gains Glory per figure destroyed — 2 in Age 1, 3 in Age 2, and 4 in Age 3.

Clan stats — Rage, Axes, Horns

Glory — ongoing score and the end-game bonus

Glory is not tallied once at the end — you move your marker and accumulate it continuously throughout the game.

Game end

The game ends when Age 3's Release Valhalla phase is complete — the world has finally ended. Until then, one province is destroyed at the end of every Age, so the battlefield keeps shrinking.

Strategy tips

• Losing a battle can still be glorious. If a fight is unwinnable, send only a small force to limit your losses, or deliberately court Valhalla using Loki-themed cards.
• Many Quests compare the highest Strength in a particular group of provinces — watching which quests your opponents committed to and disrupting that province's balance of power is a valid form of counterplay.
• A low Horns stat blocks further Invading, so if you're planning to invade often, raising Horns early is the safer path.
• Since the Glory multiplier for Ragnarök destruction grows (2 → 3 → 4) with each Age, deliberately lingering in a soon-to-be-destroyed province can be a good play in the final Age.

Player count and expansions

Frequently confused rules

Designer and history

Designed by Eric M. Lang and published by CMON Limited in 2015. English Wikipedia reports that its March 2015 Kickstarter campaign raised nearly $1 million from around 10,000 backers, one of the most publicized designer-board-game crowdfunding campaigns of that year.

It was a 2016 Kennerspiel des Jahres Recommended title, an International Gamers Award nominee, an SXSW Tabletop Game of the Year nominee, and picked up several 2015 Golden Geek nominations (per English Wikipedia).

Namuwiki cross-checking confirms a Korean localization by Board M (retail price 92,000 KRW), with all 3 expansions (Mystics of Midgard, Gods of Asgard, and a 5-player expansion) also reportedly localized. Since Board M's product page is currently unreachable, the release timing and whether it's out of print need further confirmation.