Vikings Scourge of the North Review

Vikings Scourge of the North Review by David Lent

Vikings Scourge of the North is a solitaire mini game from Decision Games where you control a band of Vikings as they raid towns for gold, create their own settlements and recruit troops. In the process, you try to increase your reputation known as edda. Vikings seems to use elements from both Decision Games’ Commando Series and Surface Combat Free Mars ruleset.

The components for Vikings are surprisingly good for a game costing less than a 6-pack of high quality beer. There are 40 counters, an 11”x17” map, 18 cards and a rulebook.

The counters consist of Viking and enemy military units, quest markers, settlement/pillage markers and some informational markers with fair, but simple artwork. The Viking military units consist of famous leaders such as Leaf Ericson, long boats, Huskarl, berserkirs, and Varangians. Each ground unit has its combat strength listed on the counter and whether or not it is an elite unit. Naval ships list their combat strength, transport value and elite status. Enemy forces simply have their combat strength and whether or not it is an elite unit.

The map is point-to-point and shows Europe and the mysterious North American locations of Groenland/Greenland and Vinland/Canada. The map’s terrain is Viking homelands, sea spaces, towns, fortresses, trade centers and warrior kingdoms. There is also an edda and gold track on the map along with various charts such as a recruiting chart, terrain effects chart and random location placement table.

Like most mini games from Decision Games, there are 18 cards included. They are voyage and saga cards. Voyage cards are essentially events cards and some of the events are enemy attacks, encounters where you roll to see what happens, edda checks where good or bad things happen depending on whether you succeed, etc. Most cards are played during your turn, but others you hold onto until you wish to use them. Saga cards are the missions you play per game. In a campaign game, you have to succeed at all four sagas. Sagas tell you how many cards are in your deck and how much gold you start with. They also tell you what objectives you need to meet to win and how many quests you must complete. At the bottom of the card, it lists your reward for successfully completing the Saga. Please note that in the campaign game, the gold listed on saga cards is only used if it’s the first saga in the campaign. On subsequent sagas, you do not get this gold.

The rulebook for Vikings is different than other mini games from Decision Games. Most of their mini games have a base rulebook and a scenario rulebook. Vikings only has one rulebook and I found that I like this approach better than the previous approach. In addition, the rulebook is in full-color with good illustrations. It’s a much better looking rulebook than any of their other mini games.

Edda checks are an important part of this game. You start the game with 0 edda and an edda check is performed by rolling a dice and if it’s less than or equal to your edda level you pass. This is very problematic, because you automatically fail all edda checks until you raise your edda level to 1. It was a really bad idea to have the edda track from 0 to 5. It should have started at 1, because having a “skill” check that cannot be passed in the beginning of the game feels wrong. I wish the author Joseph Miranda handled edda the same way “Net Level” was handled in Phobos Rising and Ceres Operation Stolen Base. Net level was a two-edge sword where there were some instances where it was beneficial for it to be low and other instances where it was better for it to be high. In addition, there are only a limited number of ways to raise edda and almost as many ways for it to be lowered with a bad die roll. There are only two guaranteed ways to raise edda and that is by revealing two specific quests (which are removed from the game afterwards). The last saga in this game requires you to reach an edda level of 5, which is unbelievably hard to do since you’re just as likely to roll bad and reduce your edda level. All of these edda problems could have easily been solved by not allowing edda to ever be less than 1 and increasing the edda level by 1 for each saga successfully completed. After all, edda is “reputation” so wouldn’t your reputation get bolstered each time you complete an epic saga?

Vikings allows your force to be either old religion or Christian. Old religion players get to use berserkirs, but Christians get to use the new religion table. This table can be rolled on at the conclusion of the first battle and two of the possible effects are gain one edda or lose one edda. If you lose the battle, you add +1 to your die roll and that completely eliminates the possibility of gaining an edda since that occurs on a roll of 1.

Berserkirs are a special unit that allow you to ignore one hit for each berserkir you have during the first round of a battle. In addition, they have you roll on the berserker table (which is exactly the same as the new religion table) at the conclusion of the first battle of each saga.

Vikings is setup by placing all hostiles in a cup and drawing a saga card (and using it to determine how many voyage cards and gold you get). Next, you randomly draw a leader who has a special trait. You now buy your units with gold to build your force and then determine what Viking homeland to start in. If you are playing the campaign game, you can start in a settlement instead if you wish.

The sequence of play is:

Trade: Get one gold if your force is in a trade center space with a settlement
Leidang: Recruit units if you have enough gold to do so
Movement: Self-explanatory
Voyage Card: Draw one voyage card and implement it
Combat: Fight any battles generated by the voyage card
Quest: If you are in a space with a quest, reveal it and fight a battle. If you win, you accomplish the quest and get the benefits prescribed for it.
Pillage/Settlement: You may pillage a town or fortress for gold or build a settlement

There are two types of movement in Vikings ground and naval. Ground movement is one space, but if you are on a portage route you may drag a boat with your force. Naval movement is done by rolling a dice and halving the result and rounding up. That is the number of space the force may move. If you enter any sea space you roll for sea storms and add the number of sea spaces you entered and subtract 1 if you have a leader. If the result is a 6 or greater, you must eliminate one of your units. I lost a lot of units during sea travel, so it should only be done when necessary and preferably by entering as few sea spaces per turn as possible. The good thing about sea movement though, is you do not have to draw a voyage card if you end on a sea space. If you run out of voyage cards in your deck; your saga immediately ends in failure if you have not met the objectives.




Combat in Viking is similar to many of the other mini games from Decision Games. In a nutshell, you determine tactical edge to see who goes first with a D6 die roll and a +1 modifier for whichever side has the most elite units. The side with tactical edge attacks first and casualties are removed immediately. Each side takes turn attacking with their next unit until all units have fought. If there is still enemy on the board, you continue battle unless you break off by discarding a voyage card.

Vikings is a fun game, but really hard to win in campaign mode. It successfully has used a lot of mechanics from the Commando Series and improved on it with the sea movement, religion and other other rules that make this game super thematic. Playing this game really does feel like a Viking campaign. In addition, the rulebook was superior to all other Decision Games’ mini games. However, there are some shortcomings. As I mentioned earlier, I feel the way edda is handled could have been improved by having a minimum edda level of one and increasing it whenever a saga is completed. In addition, combat can occur at sea with an enemy force that doesn’t have a boat. That doesn’t feel right.

Overall, I do like Vikings and recommend it. However, I feel it did not meet its full potential. This is a fantastic concept for a mini-game and I think with a little more play testing and development it would have been on par with Khe Sanh ’68 and Phobos Rising!

View the components in the unboxing video below: