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Raiders of the North Sea Review

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06 Jun 2018 00:00 #274810 by Josh Look

The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands.

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06 Jun 2018 11:08 #274811 by Jackwraith
We played this at our FLGS game event a few weeks ago. One thing I both liked and disliked was that initial resource setup determines a chunk of the game path. We had very limited iron available in our setup, so most of the armor options were difficult to pointless. I realize that it gives replay value, but it was mildly frustrating for some players who ended up with cards that emphasized the armor aspect and had to reset their crew a couple times, which left them behind.

I did like that the bonus VP aspect at the end was both limited and very theme-heavy (bonus points for how many crew members you sent to Valhalla.) That's a great mechanic for people that have been boxed out of regular VP gain and have no real option but to try a couple suicide raids in order to get points at the end.

I liked this game (I won, so that probably adds to it) for many of the reasons you cite. When I was in the store the other day, I noticed that there's already 3 or 4 expansions for it, too. My GF was lukewarm on it, though, and she's the Eurogamer, so it might not ever make it to our place.
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06 Jun 2018 11:20 #274814 by Josh Look
I’m certainly interested in the expansions. Sounds like that add some really cool stuff without adding too many new rules, which is always the best kinds of expansions.

I don’t think there’s a ton of iron in the game period, so not getting enough on the board at setup can certainly make armor a useless feature. I know some of the Vikings can collect plunder from the reserve, but I’d like to see one more smaller option to do so.

We had a similar situation last week where the offerings were all low points that required money. Nobody went for them because the 2-3 points didn’t seem worth it. One player went for one in last few turns which kind of opened the flood gates for the rest of the game.

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06 Jun 2018 11:23 #274815 by Gary Sax
This sounds great! I love more aggressive worker placement (eg Argent The King).

I have this weird thing where I miss euros I would really like because I can't navigate the ugly morass of questionable "pro" reviewers, I'm so happy we're doing tons of reviews again!
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06 Jun 2018 11:32 - 06 Jun 2018 11:48 #274816 by Josh Look

Gary Sax wrote: This sounds great! I love more aggressive worker placement (eg Argent The King).

I have this weird thing where I miss euros I would really like because I can't navigate the ugly morass of questionable "pro" reviewers, I'm so happy we're doing tons of reviews again!


I have the reputation with the CT crew as the “closet Euro fan.” I used to deny it, but yeah, I guess I do like them. I only own 3 worker placement games now, all of them about Vikings, so now Al jokes that I have the largest collection of Viking worker placement games on the East coast.

I wouldn’t say that RotNS is necessarily aggressive, though it does have that option, but it’s almost entirely driven by what players do and not by the game adding anything. The player turns feel very connected. Where you leave the game on your turn is where I pick it up on mine, which is true of most games, but here it’s more literal.
Last edit: 06 Jun 2018 11:48 by Josh Look.

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06 Jun 2018 12:17 - 06 Jun 2018 16:49 #274819 by ubarose
Well, here’s my minority report on Raiders of the North Sea. Out of the four of us that played it, I was the only one who wasn’t crazy about it. But Josh knew that would be the case going into it. I liked that it was straight forward and didn’t have layers of mechanics obfuscating the actual game. However, I would rate it as “mostly harmless and not particularly exciting.” If I were at a game day and my only choice was this or the typical stacks of convoluted Euro worker placement games that have been usually showing up; I’d go with this one. But, for worker placement, I’d rather go with Argent, Village, Waterdeep or even Agricola. Maybe the expansions will add something to make it more worthwhile.
Last edit: 06 Jun 2018 16:49 by ubarose.
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06 Jun 2018 12:27 - 06 Jun 2018 12:30 #274820 by Sagrilarus
I'll spend a moment to compliment you on your exposition. I don't prefer reviews that speak to the rules of a game, and don't prefer worker placement games at all (in fact I hate 'em), but your writing had me eagerly reading through to the end. Don't do that much, don't know how you did it. Need to look into that.

So the question is this -- are the thematic elements tied to the gameplay at all? This should be an empire-building/conquering sort of game, but I don't see how worker placement (spit!) can support that. The setting and theme are fine, but it would be nice if the action on the table makes sense. From the sounds of it there's a map of some sort that is appropriate to the era.

Given the nature of the game I think it's inevitable that this shows up at my game group, purchased by somebody else, and that I'll get a shot at it. Here's hoping the worker placement (spit!) part of it isn't too intrusive to wreck the game for me. If what you wrote is true, it may not be. That will be a nice change.

S.
Last edit: 06 Jun 2018 12:30 by Sagrilarus.

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06 Jun 2018 12:38 #274822 by Josh Look
I don’t think it’s going to convert anyone who isn’t into the genre. Mechanics relating to theme is rather loose. All the Vikings are coming from one village, so I guess it would make sense that they’d be shared rather than individually owned. The pacing of the game, that’s a different story. You spend some time preparing for a raid before you go, and when you do raid, you’re not going to go too far North out of the gate. You need to work your way up.

For what it’s worth, Champions of Midgard is by far more thematic, but aside from adding dice combat, it’s not doing anything new.
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06 Jun 2018 16:42 #274857 by Jackwraith

ubarose wrote: Well, here’s my minority report on Raiders of the North Sea. Out of the four of us that played it, I was the only one who wasn’t crazy about it. But Josh knew that would be the case going into it. I liked that it was straight forward and didn’t have layers of mechanics obfuscating the actual game. However, I would rate it as “mostly harmless and not particularly exciting.” If I were at a game day and my only choice was this or the typical stacks of convoluted Euro worker placement games that Have been usually show up. I’d go with this one. But, for worker placement, I’d rather go with Argent, Village, Waterdeep or even Agricola. Maybe the expansions will add something to make it more worthwhile.


This is almost exactly my girlfriend's reaction. She was OK with it, but not really interested in playing again. I wasn't crazy about it, but liked it and was interested in playing again.
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06 Jun 2018 18:47 - 06 Jun 2018 18:48 #274873 by ecargo
Regarding the expansions:

They are good, but mostly just add more. If you like the base game, the expansions are fun, but likely won't do anything to change your mind if you're meh on the game already. They also add a decent amount of time to the game, especially when played all together.
Last edit: 06 Jun 2018 18:48 by ecargo.
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06 Jun 2018 20:12 #274878 by Josh Look
I’m all for getting at least one, probably not both. I’m never really into throwing every expansion into game, it’s a surefire was for me to not like the game anymore.

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08 Jun 2018 15:27 #275020 by engineer Al
Great review Josh! Enjoyable reading and really gets to the essence of what this game is all about. I not only had fun playing "Raiders", but more importantly have not stopped thinking about it. I would love to play again and try some different strategies now that I've played it through once and get the overall concept better. Fascinating new take on Worker Placement, and I never felt like I was "pushing cubes". I was preparing troops and going on raids!
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09 Jun 2018 09:17 #275045 by Josh Look
We’ll definitely have to play again!
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