Enter the realm of Norse mythology during the fiery calamity of Ragnarök, draft cards, fight for nigh unpronounceable territory, and claim glory for your clan! Welcome to Blood Rage.

Also: minis.

The game

This is a medium-to-lightweight area control game paired with a classic card draft. Cards determine your clan's upgrades and which monsters join you in battle. It's played over three rounds, each with exponentially bigger scoring opportunities.

The map shrinks every round, as Ragnarök devastates areas (randomized every game).

There's one currency and two key stats to manage:

😡 RAGE. From your blood! This is how you pay for actions. Everyone starts with the same amount, and you fill back up to your stat—which you can increase.
🤘🏼 Horns. This stat tells you how many minis you're allowed to have on the map at one time. Vahalla doesn't count, obviously!
🪓Axes. Determines how much Glory you receive when you win a battle. Glory = points and points are how you win (gasp!)

You can see the stat counters and some card examples on my player board below. There was some terrible glare in this photo, hence the 😎

I'm at 9 Rage, 4 Axes and 7 Horns. The cost (in Rage) to play cards is shown on the cards in a little red circle. Blue diamond is Glory reward for completing those quest cards. Let's go over actions:

⚔️ Invade. Plop a mini on the map, in a designated circle. Yggdrasil in the middle has no limits on mini placement, nor do the fjords where you can play ships. Pay the mini's invasion cost in Rage.
🚶🏼‍♂️ March. Move any number of your minis from one place to another place (assuming they can fit). Costs 1 Rage.
💪🏼 Upgrade. There are tons of things you can upgrade: your captain, your troops, your whole clan. But the coolest upgrade are MONSTERS. You can have up to two at a time. Pay the monster's cost in Rage and Invade with it for free. Monsters come with all kinds of fun/mean abilities.
🗺️ Quest. Boring but powerful. Put one of your Quest cards facedown on your board. Quests score at the end of each round. This is free.
🔥 Pillage. The fun one! Costs nothing! Each area on the map has a faceup token with a stat upgrade reward or Glory on it. Pillaging lets you earn it... but not without a fight! If there are enemy players or room for enemy players, a combat round initiates. If you win, you get your Glory as determined by Axes and the stat upgrade reward.

Combat 🥊

A little hard to see, but notice the empty circles below the Blue player above. If Blue wants to pillage that spot, their opponents (in clockwise order) can optionally move an adjacent unit in for free. The initiator of the pillage also gets the option to bring in reinforcements.

Once all choices to go in (or not) are done, it's fightin' time.

Add up the battle power of each mini (these can be upgraded). Each combatant then plays a card from their hand facedown. Any card! But usually the red combat cards.

Combat cards do all sorts of things, from simple addition of strength to weird stuff such as stealing Rage or Glory from the winner if you lose (these particular powers come from Loki, appropriately).

Oh, and in a tie? Everyone dies. Glorious.

The draft 🃏

The card draft is worth mentioning, as it forms the basis of much of your strategy. You start with a mittful, take one, pass the rest to the left (or right, if it's Round 2). Figuring out what to take for yourself or to block your opponents is the core of any good draft, and Blood Rage does not dissapoint!

Recap of our game

I had a strong game but ended up losing by 2 points, thanks to a huge Round 2 blunder.

My strategy evolved into getting lots minis onto the map then getting them killed (gloriously! They liked it! I swear!)

😴 The first round was fairly quiet as it usually is, with folks mostly setting up and being leery vs going crazy with attacks. There's room, no one has tons of Rage, so aggression is usually checked. I ended up getting positioned well in the middle, so when Round 2 started I was able to pillage Yggdrasil uncontested. This bumps all three stats by 1.

😈 I had some of those rude Loki cards, so I was able to steal lots of points by throwing my minis into fights and losing on purpose. I eventually grabbed an upgrade that gave me points for minis who were in Vahalla—my mistake was not playing it at the end of Round 2 (it was 16 points vs. a choice I made that got me like 3. Baddd blunder 😩).

In Round 3 I found Odin's Throne, which doubles quest rewards. I stocked up on Quests, two of which were quests to die! I was good at dying, so this netted me massive points in Round 3... but not enough to make up that shortfall from earlier 😭

Sad story. Here's a Frost Giant to help make it better:

Want a video review? Here's Shut Up and Si—wait what? There's no SUSD review video for Blood Rage? I... uh. Hm. This is new for me.

Well, here's a solid video from The Dice Tower instead. Good overview, but bereft of absurd and cheeky English humour. I think the Norse Gods would appreciate that, actually.