Review of Midgard

Midgard is a new majority-control board game by Eric M. Lang, published by Z-Man Games.

Players: 3-5
Playing Time: 60 minutes
Difficulty: 3 (of 10)

The Components

Midgard comes with:

• 1 board
• 60 vikings
• 5 score markers
• 10 doom tokens
• 120 kingdom tokens
• 100 cards

Board: A 4-panel linen-textured board depicting the 10 provinces of Midgard.The board also features the three heavens (Valhalla, Asgard, and Vanaheim), and a score track, and additionally has reminders of how many actions you can take a round and how many points a lot of things are worked.

The artwork on the board all looks computerized, and this got mixed reviews. Some players liked it, while others (myself among them) found it somewhat out of character.

Much more notable is the excellent usability of this board. Attention has been paid to carefully coloring the three kingdoms, and all of the information on scoring and card playing that's printed on the board, though not entirely attractive, makes the game considerably easier to play.

Wooden Bits: 11 small pawns (warriors) and 1 large pawn (a leader) in each of the five player colors: red, green, purple, yellow, and black. In addition there's a small circular disc for each player that's used for the score track. The colors on the wood bits are somewhat lurid, but they look quite good when arrayed upon the board.

Cardboard Bits: 130 linen-textured cardboard disks. Ten are doom tokens which each list one of the ten provinces. The others are kingdom tokens which each list one of the three kingdoms. Again color-coding has been used on all of these bits to help you keep your kingdoms straight.

Cards: 15 gold cards, 35 silver cards, and 50 bronze cards. Each is clearly coded to its type, front and back. Further each has a unique power that is described both in good iconography and in clear text. Overall the cards were relatively attractive, and quite easy to use.

Rulebook: An 8-page full-color rulebook with good synopses and summaries.

Tray: The tray in the Midgard box is notable because it's quite good. For example there are insets for each of the three types of cards, each cut to a different depth, and each cut deep enough so that the cards don't overflow. There are also rows for each of the types of cardboard disks, which are quite tight, and thus might actually keep them in when jostled about.

Overall the components for Midgard are attractive, high-quality, and have great utility, thus making Midgard a game that's attractive and easy to play and earning it a full "5" out of "5" for Style.

The Gameplay

The object of Midgard is to cleverly invade--and sometimes take over--regions of Midgard to earn points.

Setup: Each player takes a color, puts his leader and five warriors on his boat (a space on the board) and his score marker on the scoring track. An additional six warriors are kept off board and may appear through the use of special cards.

The Board. All of the action takes place on the board. It's divided up into three kingdoms, each of which have three or four provinces. Each provinces further has a number of villages in it, from three to six. These all limit where vikings can be placed. Each viking is placed in a specific province (within a kingdom) and must be placed in an empty village. Besides the kingdoms there are also three "heavens": Vanaheim and Asgard can each given specific bonuses if controlled, while Valhalla is where dead vikings go.

Order of Play: The game is played over three rounds, each of which includes the following five phases:

1. Doom Phase
2. Draft Phase
3. Actions Phase
4. Score Phase
5. Ragnarok Phase

In round one each player gets four actions, then five in round two, and six in round three.

Doom Phase: Five of the ten doom markers are randomly drawn. Each one depicts one of the ten provinces on the board. The markers are then placed in their appropriate provinces; any one in those provinces will die at the end of the round.

Draft Phase: Each player is dealt a hand of 1 gold card, 2 silver cards, and 3 bronze cards. Each player then drafts a hand of card by taking one of the cards from the initial six, then passing the rest to his left. He'll then take one of the five passed on to him, then one of the next four, etc., until he has a complete hand of six cards.

Actions Phase: Now the players all reveal all their gold cards. Whoever has the highest valued (and thus best) gold card goes first. The players take turns taking actions, one at a time. On his a turn a player will play one card from his hand, do what it allows, then discard the card. The possible cards a player might have are:

• Invasion (Bronze). Place two vikings in empty villages in the specified kingdom, or in the heavens. These vikings must come from somewhere on-board--usually the boats, but alternatively from another space on the board where they were previously placed.
• New Warrior (Bronze). Put one new viking in your boat from off-board, then move any one on-board viking to any empty village or the heavens.
• Attack (SIlver). Move an on-board viking to replace any warrior in the specified kingdom or in the heavens--but not a leader. The replaced warrior is sent to Valhalla.
• Viking Hordes (Silver). Move three on-board vikings to the same province or heaven.
• Score Kingdom (Gold). The specified kingdom is scored, as it would usually be in the Score Phase (see below).
• Take Kingdom Tokens (Gold). Take three of the specified kingdom token (which are also described in the Score Phase, below).
• Draw Cards (Gold). Take two bronze or silver cards, as specified, then take another turn.
• Destroy Kingdom (Gold). A selected province in the specified kingdom is destroy; all vikings there are sent to Valhalla.
• New Warriors in Kingdom (Gold). Take two vikings from off-board and move them to empty villages in the specified kingdom.

Score Phase: Now each area on the board is scored.

First, for each kingdom, any player who has the most vikings in at least one province in that kingdom earns points. Leaders act as vikings, but are also tie-breakers. If a player controls one of the provinces in a kingdom he earns 3 points, two he earns 7, three he earns 12, and four he earns 20. Second, each player earns "kingdom tokens", one per province that he has at least one viking in. Each of these tokens is marked with the letter of the kingdom that it belongs to ("M"annaheim, "A"lfheim, or "J"otunheim). They will be worth points in sets at the end of the game.

Asgard earns 5 points for whoever has the majority.

Vanaheim gives the player who has the majority two kingdom tokens of his choice.

Ragnarok Phase: Now each viking in a "doom"ed province dies. They're sent to Valhalla, but they earn their players two points each in the process. The doom tokens are then cleared from the board.

Finally each viking in Valhalla is sent back to their boat, earning their players another point each.

Now the next round begins. Each player has a couple of cards left, some vikings on the board from non-doomed provinces, and some back in the boats.

Winning the Game: The game ends after three rounds of play.

Each player now counts up his kingdom tokens. For each complete set (of a "M", "A", and "J") he earns 5 points. The best players seem to have 5-7 sets in a 4 or 5 player game. The player with the most points wins.

Relations to Other Games

Midgard is a simple majority-control game with a card drafting mechanic. Majority-control games largely hark back to El Grande. This one is a lighter game that feels a lot like El Grande, but plays in about half the time. As such it reminds me the most of last year's Mission: Red Planet, another game which felt like a faster-paced version of El Grande.

Comparatively this one is simpler and less baroque than MRP, though it also goes back to an El Grande element that I've never liked too much, which was the ability to really beat up on a leader.

The card drafting mechanism hasn't been used that much in board games. My one other experience with it is another Z-Man Game, Fairy Tale. As then, I really like it here, because it adds interesting strategy to the game. (Drafts of course also show up in a lot of Magic: The Gathering tournaments, which is probably from whence they entered the modern game design gestalt.)

This is the second Eric Lang game I've played, the first being Senator. In both cases I was pretty befuddled by how game would work after reading the rules (though the rules themselves were clear enough). I suppose that suggests that he has some original designs that are a bit apart from board gaming norms.

The Game Design

Overall Midgard is a quick-paced, strategic, and enjoyable game.

The game has been well-designed to go fast. When you're drafting you'll always be quickly receiving cards from other players, while in the action phase you just take one quick action and then it's the next person's turn.

Though the turns go quickly, there's also considerable strategic depth to all these decisions. When you're drafting cards you're often thinking about what areas you want to get into that turn and what "special" cards might complement those goals. Trading off between "invasions" and "attacks" can be particularly critical. The first can get more warriors into a region while the second can let you bump off a single opponent and get into a region that would otherwise be full. You can often build an entire round worth of turns around a single goal card, particularly the score kingdom cards, and that can produce some really nice momentum in the game.

Finally, when I first read over the rules I really wasn't convinced that the scoring in the game was balanced, but after playing two games and hearing of a third I'm now much more comfortable with it. There are a few different paths to victory, most notably: grabbing control of provinces; spreading warriors out to get more kingdom tokens; and sending brave warriors to Valhalla. I'm not entirely convinced that killing off your warriors is useful, but in one of the games, of the tied winners, one had a pile of kingdom tokens while another had gained points during the game, so those are clearly quite comparable.

Overall Midgard has quickly become one of my favorite majority-control games, up there with El Grande, Web of Power, and Mission Red: Planet. As such I've given it a full "5" out of "5" for Substance: an excellent, fast, strategic game.

Conclusion

Midgard is a new majority-control game by Z-Man Games, designed by Eric Lang. It's quite fast and it also has some innovative features for this sort of game, among them card drafting and the ability to sacrifice many of your troops. Overall it comes out as a great entrant to the majority-control genre, and one of Z-Man's best self-produced games.