Raiders of the North Sea board game review

Recruit your crew, gather supplies, and set off to raid unsuspecting settlements for gold, iron, and livestock — because you’re Viking Raiders!

At least, you can pretend to be in Raiders of the North Sea.

There are various ways to gain points that impress the Chieftain. And if you earn the most points, you’ll come out victorious over the other Viking crews.

Raiders of the North Sea is a worker placement game for 2 – 4 players by Renegade Game Studios with unique game play that delivers a lot of fun.

Do you have what it takes to become the most impressive Viking leader in the North Sea?

 

How to play Raiders of the North Sea

The objective in Raiders of the North Sea is to earn the most victory points by raiding settlements such as Harbours, Outposts, Monasteries, and Fortresses for gold, silver and livestock. In addition, players earn points by increasing their strength, fighting Valkyrie, and making Offerings.

Players accomplish these tasks by using their “workers” in various locations on the game board. The unique aspect of Raiders of the North Sea is that players only ever have 1 worker to use on their turn. That worker may be Black, Grey, or White and some locations require a specific color worker to activate.

Each player starts the game with 3 Townsfolk cards in their hand, 2 silver coins, 1 ship card of their color and 1 Black Worker. Thus, at the outset of the game, players are limited to activating locations that allow a Black Worker to activate them.

Since worker placement games revolve around the actions players can take at different locations, we’ll dive into the possible locations while describing a player’s turn.

The game board is divided into 2 main sections — the Village (bottom half) and the Settlements (top half).

At the start of the game, the settlement locations are filled with random items (the number of items for each location is written in the space). In addition, settlements indicate which colored workers begin on those spots as well.

On a player’s turn they can decide to either Work or Raid.

 

WORK

If they choose to Work, they place their worker in one of the available Village locations. Each location has a circle next to it where a worker can be placed. If a worker is already in that circle, a player can not place their worker there. The player then takes the action of where they placed their worker. After completing that action, the player chooses a worker from another Village location and takes that location action.

They will have taken 2 Work actions in the Village and ended with 1 worker in hand, which they’ll use on their next turn.

• Barracks: Here is where players hire new crew members. They choose a card from their hand, pay the required silver, and places it face up in front of them. Players are limited to 5 active crew members at a time.
• Gate House: A player draws 2 cards from the Townsfolk pile to their hand.
• Town Hall: Instead of using a Townsfolk as a crew member. When in this location, a player may play a card from their hand to take the action listed on the right side of the card (with the Play symbol). The card is discarded after use.
• Treasury: The player discards 1 card from their hand to gain 2 Silver or discards 2 cards from their hand to gain 1 Gold.
• Long House: This requires either a Grey or White worker. A player may either discard one Livestock to gain 2 Provisions or Offer goods to the Chieftain. For the offering, a player pays the required items displayed on one of the face up Offering tiles and take the tile. A new offering tile is drawn to replace the one taken.
• Armoury: This requires either a Grey or White worker. The player may either pay 1 Iron to gain 2 Armour or pay 2 Silver to gain 1 Armour. They move their marker up that many spaces on the Armour track.
• Mill: A player takes the items listed depending on the color of worker they use to take this action. A Black worker gains 1 Provision. A Grey worker gains 2 Provisions. And a White worker gains 2 Provisions and 1 Gold.
• Silversmith: A player gains Silver depending on the color of worker used. A Black worker gains 3 Silver. A Grey or White worker gains 2 Silver.

RAID

When a player has hired enough Crew and gained enough Provisions, they may venture across the sea to Raid Settlements!

One big difference when raiding is that players will only take one action on their turn (not 2 like working in the Village). That’s because settlements begin with workers next to them. So when a player raids a settlement location, in addition to taking the items from that location, they also claim the worker from that same location.

Thus, once a settlement location is raided, it can not be raided again.

To raid a settlement area, the player must first meet the criteria indicated for that area. The criteria will include a specific worker color, certain number of active Crew members, a number of Provisions, and sometimes Gold.

Many of the settlement areas have multiple spaces to choose from when raiding. For example, each Harbour area has 3 spaces that can be raided. A player places their worker in one of the 3 circles next to a Harbour location and then can choose to raid one of that Harbour’s 3 spaces.

The player claims the items in that space. If the items are Gold, Iron, or Livestock, the player adds those to their stash. For each black Valkyrie token in that space, the player will lose Crew member. They choose one of their face up Crew members to discard from play. The player also moves their marker up one space on the Valkyrie track for each Valkyrie faced.

The Harbours provide a set number of victory points for a raid. It’s indicated in the Yellow flag icon next to that Harbour location.

All other settlements (Monastery, Outpost, Fortress) offer 2 or 3 levels of victory points. These are paired with Military Strength. When raiding such an area, the player combines the strength from their active Crew with their level on the Strength track plus the result of the dice they roll for that area (number of dice icons on that location). The player compares their strength to the levels listed on the red banners and scores the number of points listed on the yellow banners next to that level.

 

GAME END

Players continue taking turns of either Working or Raiding until 1 of 3 conditions is met.

Only 1 set of plunder is left in the Fortresses.

The Offering draw pile is empty.

All the Valkyrie have been removed from the board.

Once one of those things happens, the current player finishes their turn. Then all players get one more turn and the game ends.

Players score additional end-game points (points from Offerings, Strength track, Valkyrie track, some Crew members, and remaining Plunder) and move their marker along the score track accordingly. The player with the most points wins.

 

Can the whole family enjoy Raiders of the North Sea?

Raiders of the North Sea is a very approachable worker placement board game. The core rules of Play 1 worker, Take that Action, Claim 1 Worker, and Take that Action are easy to pick up and remember. However, with unique locations, random plunder, and various special crew member abilities, there are plenty of choices to make every turn.

As such, Raiders of the North Sea will mostly be enjoyed by teens and above and those that like making choices throughout their games.

Since each player’s turn is relatively quick, there isn’t much downtime between player turns to worry about.

The only catch is that players can’t completely make their decisions while waiting for their next turn since the game state changes regularly.

Yes, you can plan a general strategy of your next actions, so you have an idea what you plan to do. But since you’ll be limited on your turn by which spaces are available to place a worker, you can’t know for surety until it actually gets to your turn. So there’s a need to adjust on the fly.

For example, you may plan to place a worker at the Silversmith location to gain Silver and pick up a worker from the Barracks to hire a new Crew member with the silver you gained. However, the player before you may have placed a worker in the Silversmith location and taken a worker from the Long House. So you’ll have to choose a different location to place your worker and take that action instead. And then you’ll have to choose between taking the worker from the Barracks or Silversmith if you still want one of those actions. You just won’t be able to do both.

Likewise, the color of worker that you pick up from a location will greatly impact the options you’ll have on your next turn.

So while the basic game flow is straightforward, it’s the choices you make along the way that will determine your outcome.

That’s what makes the game challenging.

And that’s also exactly what draws us to the game!

Raiders of the North Sea is full of interesting choices and every game plays out differently. The random plunder set up at the start of the game and the impact that dice rolls can have when raiding makes every game a fresh experience.

Since we recently reviewed The River, we can’t help but compare these two worker placement games. On some levels it’s hard to compare them because they both offer such unique experiences. Yes, in both players gain resources and turn in those resources for points. And in both games players may be block from certain locations by other players. But the game flow is completely different in each.

In The River, players are acquiring buildings to place on their player board that grants more abilities. Players also have multiple workers to allocate to different actions every round. Whereas in Raiders of the North Sea, players acquire Crew members that help them when raiding settlements for plunder. And players get only 1 worker to use but also get actions (resources or plunder) when they take workers off the board.

For that reason we don’t see either as a replacement game for the other. We think they’re both great!

 

How does Raiders of the North Sea score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?

Raiders of the North Sea scores high on our “let’s play again” game meter. Since the game runs just over an hour for 4 players, it’s not a game we’ve played back to back. But it’s definitely a game where when we finish, we want to play again.

The unique game play, simple flow, engaging choices, interesting theme and cool artwork are a big draw for us.

Which is also why the game has a prominent spot on our game shelves.

And we also now have the Raider of the North Sea game expansions on our wish list.

Maybe you should grab a copy for your family.

We’d like to thank Miniature Market for a review copy of Raiders of the North Sea.