Since starting my journey into board games a few years back I’ve been trying to build my collection based on a few different criteria. As I was jumping in with very little knowledge and experience outside of the classic family board games like Monopoly or Cluedo and a few games of Love Letter with friends I wanted a collection of games of differing complexity and mechanisms. I started out with card games and as a long-time video gamer I was instantly drawn to Dark Souls: The Card Game and even started getting into D&D.
As my collection grew, I picked up more complex games like Elden Ring: The Board Game and Castle Ravenloft. My collection grew quickly and I was left with a problem, I had light games, party games and complex 8 hour plus campaign games but nothing in between. As a father of three children (Ranging from age 10 to 18) who want to share my enthusiasm of this hobby I had plenty of games for them to jump into and enjoy but there was a steep learning curve to move on to some of the more complex games. Through 2025 I picked up a fair number of games I hoped would be able to transition my kids from the likes of Sushi Go and into the likes of Resident Evil and Elden Ring, which I’ve had to play solo up until this point. One of those games was Blood Rage.
Blood Rage, launched back in 2015 as part of a Kickstarter campaign and quickly became one of the most popular games in the tabletop/board gaming space. As soon as I started setting up this game, I quickly became invested in just how easy this game is to play. I have now played it a fair amount and feel that I have found the perfect centrepiece in my collection.
Here’s why:
Easy to setup and teach:
So, straight out of the box the setup and rules are easy. A nice big map as a game board, four easy to understand player dashboards, three small decks of cards, a hand full of very well-designed miniatures and a bag of counters. The game literally takes minutes to set up and all of the rules and options for moves/decisions you have are outlined on either the player dashboard, the decks of cards or on the quick reference guide on the back of the instruction manual. There’s even a tracker board for each step of each age of the game.
Blood Rage is played over three “Ages”, the three ages of Ragnarok. Every player chooses a Viking faction and other than the clan’s colour, character designs and symbol, everyone is the same. Each age you draft cards, invade provinces, assign quests and upgrade your stats and abilities. Battles ensue when you try to pillage a region and if your characters die, they go to Valhalla. At the end of each age your fallen comrades are released back to you from Valhalla, and you draft a new hand of cards from the next ages deck.
Glory points can be achieved in varying ways but build up each round and at the end of the third age the player whose faction has the most points on the board wins.
Eric M. Lang and CMON did a great job of making this game seem way more complex than it is once tabled. It’s very easy to learn and once you’ve played one game you will be able to teach your friends and begin to master the different ways to min max your stats and score.
Mechanics:
To explain the mechanics of Blood Rage and how they make this game a fundamental bridge between learning different systems and mechanics that will carry over to more heavy games that may have been less accessible to the different skill levels my kids have I will link each mechanic to either a game I have played with them and then onto games I will use Blood Rage as a tool to teach them.
Card Drafting (Sushi Go):
Each age starts with card drafting, the first player deals each person eight cards from the ages deck, and you begin drafting. Exactly like you do in Sushi Go. From the eight cards you keep one, pass the deck to the left and take the other players deck to your right, keep one and pass on until everyone has six cards. Cards can contain attacks, clan/ship upgrades, monsters to summon or quests.
Dashboard Management (Elden Ring):
All players have a dashboard card that tracks stats, characters, upgrades and monsters. You have three main stats that you can upgrade.
- Rage, this is your resource you spend to take any action (Invade, upgrade, summon). You start with six rage points and can upgrade up to 12.
- Axes, this stat determines how many glory points you win for being victorious in battles. Overall victory is achieved by the player with the highest glory point tally at the end of the third age, so this is your most valuable stat.
- Horns, this stat determines how many of your Vikings you can have on the map at any one time. If you want to pillage and battle this is a good one to upgrade once you have adequate rage.
All your quests, upgrade cards and monster cards have their own space on the dashboard and makes keeping track of things very easy.
Quests (Ticket to Ride):
Each age you can assign yourself quests from your deck of cards (If you have any), these generally consist of having the most strength (Determined by volume of troops) in one area of the map at the end of the age. These can be a huge boost to your glory score and can be stacked.
Upgrades (Elden Ring):
Upgrades cards can be applied to one of your designated spaces and offer a range of abilities from, being able to invade with extra units, passive abilities like gaining glory points for every unit that dies or even discounts on the cost of card abilities. Upgrades can become pivotal in winning games and there is several passive ways to gain glory leading to different ways of approaching a game. We had one player who intentionally lost every battle as he had upgrades that gave him glory points both when units died and then again when they were released from Valhalla at the end of that age.
Monster Summons (Elden Ring):
Each ages card deck contains a selection of monster cards; these cards can be summoned to give you units with extra strength in battles and abilities that can turn the tide of games. These come at a higher rage cost than regular units but are carried across to the following ages so make a good investment. Some of these monsters have abilities to destroy all opposing fighters in an area when they invade or can give you a glory boost when your units fall in battle. Depending on which monsters you draft it could change how you approach the game or how other players approach their interactions with your clan.
Battles (Unmatched):
If a player wants to pillage an area, they make a call to battle. A call to battle gives any players with units in that area or any adjacent area the opportunity to challenge you to battle. You go round the players, and each can either challenge if they have a unit in that area or move a unit in from an adjacent area for free to fight. All players in the battle choose a card from their hand and at the same time everyone reveals their cards. Some cards have effects that are played straight away and can void other players cards or after tallying strength allowing a player to play another card. At the end of the battle you add up everyone’s strength and the player with the higher strength wins. If the victorious player was the one to call the battle they successfully pillage and boost their relevant stat, if they were an opposing force then they successfully stopped the pillage. The victor collects their glory points, and all fallen foes go to Valhalla until the end of the age.
Battles can be very tense and even the biggest units can fall to the smallest of foes. It’s great fun.
Affordability?
Blood Rage is by no means cheap, and I don’t think you can buy it new (There is a new version of the game called Blood Rage: Valhalla which I believe is available new). However, I picked it up for £80 like new and it’s currently available on eBay for around £70, which is reasonable for the playability and value that comes in the box. It won’t be the cheapest game in your collection, but it probably won’t be the most expensive. It will be the most played though.
Conclusion:
Blood Rage is a game I play at every opportunity now and one I will be teaching the kids to play in the coming weeks. As I previously said, it’s quick to set up, easy to teach and games last anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes. There’s several hidden mechanics in this game that I am slowly learning and it will take me a few dozen plays to master these so I personally think this will be the main event of every game night for me for the foreseeable future.
Have you played Blood Rage, do you recommend any other games that would fill this space in a collection or do you disagree with my thoughts. Please let me know in the comments.
