One of my many recent Kickstarter pledges was a game called 'Blood Rage'. I had been first attracted to it by some pictures of model renders posted on various social media and also by the fact that those renders were based on the artwork of Adrian Smith whom I'm a fan of.
This will be the first of a week or so's worth of features on this game covering the core set, current expansions and some of the Kickstarter exclusive stuff that will more than likely have any of you buying this game later kicking themselves that they didn't support it at the Kickstarter phase...though I suppose there's always those unscrupulous opportunists on eBay that might be selling some, lol.
Editors Note - You can get larger pictures of the ones below by clicking on them and they're high enough definition that you can copy them to your own PC and zoom in should you be so inclined...
Introduction
Just so you have some context for the following images here's what they have to say about their own game.
In Blood Rage, each player controls their own Viking clan’s warriors, leader, and ship. Ragnarök has come, and it’s the end of the world! It’s the Vikings’ last chance to go down in a blaze of glory and secure their place in Valhalla at Odin’s side! For a Viking there are many pathways to glory. You can invade and pillage the land for its rewards, crush your opponents in epic battles, fulfill quests, increase your clan's stats, or even die gloriously either in battle or from Ragnarök, the ultimate inescapable doom.
Introduction
Just so you have some context for the following images here's what they have to say about their own game.
In Blood Rage, each player controls their own Viking clan’s warriors, leader, and ship. Ragnarök has come, and it’s the end of the world! It’s the Vikings’ last chance to go down in a blaze of glory and secure their place in Valhalla at Odin’s side! For a Viking there are many pathways to glory. You can invade and pillage the land for its rewards, crush your opponents in epic battles, fulfill quests, increase your clan's stats, or even die gloriously either in battle or from Ragnarök, the ultimate inescapable doom.
The Box
The game comes in a box...I'm sure that's of no surprise...
Instructions
The instructions are in the form of a nicely illustrated book with appropriate and easy to follow diagrams. Here are some sample pages...
The Game Pieces
As expected the game uses a number of counters, markers and the like to keep track of in game events and the progress of your own clan. The counters are mainly of the 'pop-out' variety and are printed on decent quality card though there are a few plastic ones as well. A selection of other plastic markers were unlocked during the Kickstarter but they're unfortunately in one of the 'Kickstarter Only' bonus packs though it's possible they may be released separately at a later date.
Here are pictures of both sides of the cardboard counter sheet.
There are also a number of cards that represent the various game pieces and other effects.
Each of the four clans has it's own sheet and there's another that keeps track of the overall game progress.
The Board
You of course need something to play on. The board folds out and is constructed of the usual thick material and is of the same high quality as the rest of the game components.
The Miniatures
The overall quality of the miniatures is excellent and they're easily the equal of many miniatures purchased for skirmish game systems and other wargames. Each of the four 'clans' consists of nine models (two different sculpts make up the warriors and there's a single leader model) and there's nine monsters of various types as well. We'll look at these in detail in part two of this un-boxing but for now here's how they look when you open the box...
There is also a selection of plastic pieces in different colours that clip onto the models bases in order to easily distinguish them from one another when playing. The expansion has different coloured ones for the 5th clan but we'll look at those in that sets own feature.
We'll have a detailed look at the clan miniatures in part two and the monsters in part three and links for those features will appear here as soon as they exist.
Thoughts and comments are (as usual) most welcome.