More Vikings!
You’ve played Raiders of the North Sea a few times, you enjoy the fun worker placement part where you have to pick up a worker at the end of your turn to perform that action too. You like the raiding and the dice throwing but perhaps you’ve played it one too many times, followed the same strategy or got frustrated with poor dice throws and being stuck with a hand of rubbish cards, well have I got an expansion for you!
There are two main expansions for Raiders of the North Sea, Hall of Heroes and Fields of Fame. Hall of Heroes adds a few things and I believe is something that not only improves the game for the better but is something which you can teach to new players from their first play, meaning you don’t have to separate out the components every game!
What’s included?
What makes it so great I hear you ask? Well it includes a whole load of new cards with new crew of different types on it, opening up new options and synergies! It adds a new resource, mead! It adds quests and a new location to visit, the Mead Hall! That’s a lot to pack in so let me pick it all apart and tell you what it means!
Firstly the new boards, we have a new player board, and the Mead Hall. The player board gives space for your resources, spots for your 5 crew (helpful for teaching new players the game) and spaces for the new quests and points you will gain for completing them, which I will come on to shortly!
Secondly, we have the Mead Hall, here you can gain a card to your hand from one of three face up, rather than blindly get two from the Gatehouse, which is nice if you are after a specific Townsfolk card, and depending on who you pick you will get some additional resources including Mead. Or you can go on quests! Quests I hear you ask, what are they? Well in base Raiders of the North Sea, when you’ve plundered an area, it sits empty, now you will draw a quest tile into its place, which will provide you with a strength total for completing, however this time, rather than use your crew, the strength comes from cards discarded from your hand! Gain the quest and it will be worth points at the end of the game and sit above your new player board, match 3 of the same type and you’ll gain a new one off bonus tile.
More Vikings!
You’ve played Raiders of the North Sea a few times, you enjoy the fun worker placement part where you have to pick up a worker at the end of your turn to perform that action too. You like the raiding and the dice throwing but perhaps you’ve played it one too many times, followed the same strategy or got frustrated with poor dice throws and being stuck with a hand of rubbish cards, well have I got an expansion for you!
There are two main expansions for Raiders of the North Sea, Hall of Heroes and Fields of Fame. Hall of Heroes adds a few things and I believe is something that not only improves the game for the better but is something which you can teach to new players from their first play, meaning you don’t have to separate out the components every game!
What’s included?
What makes it so great I hear you ask? Well it includes a whole load of new cards with new crew of different types on it, opening up new options and synergies! It adds a new resource, mead! It adds quests and a new location to visit, the Mead Hall! That’s a lot to pack in so let me pick it all apart and tell you what it means!
Firstly the new boards, we have a new player board, and the Mead Hall. The player board gives space for your resources, spots for your 5 crew (helpful for teaching new players the game) and spaces for the new quests and points you will gain for completing them, which I will come on to shortly!
Secondly, we have the Mead Hall, here you can gain a card to your hand from one of three face up, rather than blindly get two from the Gatehouse, which is nice if you are after a specific Townsfolk card, and depending on who you pick you will get some additional resources including Mead. Or you can go on quests! Quests I hear you ask, what are they? Well in base Raiders of the North Sea, when you’ve plundered an area, it sits empty, now you will draw a quest tile into its place, which will provide you with a strength total for completing, however this time, rather than use your crew, the strength comes from cards discarded from your hand! Gain the quest and it will be worth points at the end of the game and sit above your new player board, match 3 of the same type and you’ll gain a new one off bonus tile.
Mead is a new resource in the game, and can be used before rolling dice when raiding to add one to the value of your roll. It’s good to help give you that little extra push if needed and reduce some of the randomness of die rolls. There are also some new cards that interact with mead when using the card through the Town Hall action.
Final thoughts
The new additions to Raiders of the North Sea with the Hall of Heroes expansion add little in complexity to the game, although perhaps a little more time to play given the new options around the Mead Hall and Quests. Overall, having played the base game of Raiders of The North Sea a few times, all of these are welcome additions. Adding in mitigation to dice rolls and card draw is always welcome, as is the additional Quest tiles as something to work towards. I find this expansion to be something that is so seamless an addition that I would always use it going forward when playing with people who know the game, or who have played similar board games, and I would be tempted to always use it when teaching new players. I feel that this expansion takes a game I already thought was good, into something I think is much stronger, and would definitely want to play more. There is another expansion, Fields of Fame, which I’ve not yet tried but if it is on a par with Hall of Heroes, I’ll be looking to pick it up too shortly!
