Our regular boardgames group paused recently the Frosthaven campaign (see here). After playing all major sub-campaign tracks and with no end in sight (you need to resolve the whole puzzle book!), it was decided we need a rest from that title.

Of course, that vacuum in the time dedicated for playing boardgames did not stay empty for long. It was quickly filled by other titles, one of which was connected to many positive memories from my childhood – namely Thorgal: The Board Game.

Why am I saying this? Because Thorgal for many years was (and I believe still is) my favorite comics character. None of the Marvel of DC Studios superheroes could even remotely get close to my fascination with that Viking who – as the tale shows us – came form the stars.

So today I will start a series of session reports from our adventures in Thorgal’s world. So far we played two, but I believe we shall continue further as the game – which features many innovative mechanics – is really to our liking. So let us start!

About the Game

Let me first say couple of words what the game is about and what are its mechanics. Thorgal: The Board Game is a cooperative storybook adventure game – pretty common genre recently, very suitable for multi-scenario experience.

Players take on the roles of Thorgal, his wife Aaricia, their son Jolan, and Kriss – a deadly female warrior – and go on a series of adventures. The game consists of 10 stand-alone scenarios, each taking roughly 90-120 minutes of play. Scenarios do not form a campaign nor have any legacy features, so they can be played by different playgroups and over an extended period of time.

Thorgal: The Board Game comes with a book of maps. Each scenario is played on a different map that players explore while fulfilling scenario goals and promises completely different adventures, hidden opportunities, side quests, and vivid characters. Players are free to choose whether they travel in one group or split to cover more areas at the same time. Each character gains experience during the game and advances their abilities. Characters gather resources and craft objects to help them survive in the dangerous world.

What I like is the game’s unique action selection mechanism. In this new approach, actions have varying power depending on which other actions have already been taken. Players must carefully plan their strategy and sequence of actions taken, as this directly impacts the strength of the effect of each action.

Enough of the theory, let us jump to the report!

Torkan’s Temple – Scenario Description

As per the author suggestion, we started our adventures from the introductory scenario – Torkan’s Temple. Each tale comes with elaborate introduction, which sets the scene. You might skip it – still, in order to immerse yourselves in the world, I strongly recommend reading it.

In this particular case, we were outsmarted by slave traders, caught by them and forced to slave labor for Torkan – an overload of some mysterious area, where he was building a temple to his glory. Of course, due to the conditions we were working in, if we do nothing, it will not end well for us…

Mission Goal:

My Polish version of the Book of Adventures – Mission Goals for Torgan’s Temple

Well, having the background already, you will see that the mission goal will be pretty straight and simple: destroy the temple! Yup, not only escape, but save other poor souls from the hardship and misery.

The game allowed us two ways of achieving it: using the power goods markers (red ones) or fate ones (blue markers). The first symbolized special moonstones, which we need to find and bring to the temple to destroy it. The second was depicting the slaves, who if well lead and instigated, will start an uprising and overthrow Torgan. It was up to us to choose the path to victory.

For all of this we had like 9 turns. However, if temple was finished before this time or any of the characters killed – we would lose instantly. So there is definitely a time-pressure and also some edge conditions to be avoided.

Players / characters:

As none of us played this game before, we have chosen characters randomly. They all have different skills, items and starting materials. Also their development path – in area of combat and exploration – looks different. Simply, you have pretty specialized characters, whom you want to use in particular areas. What is more, on top of four base game characters, we also got three additional unlocked during the crowdfunding campaign.

Components for Thorgal character

What we got was:

  • Thorgal (great explorer) – Michal
  • Aarica (versatile support) – Kuba J
  • Jolan (special tasks character) – Adam
  • Kriss (fantastic fighter) – Kuba G

Did it work well? Let us see!

Session Report:

Initial set-up of Scenario 1 – Torkan’s Temple. While the actual “board” is pretty small, there are a lot of additional components, player mats, polyomino tokens, etc. So make sure to plan for enough space!
Close up on the first adventure map; the play area is divided into sectors, separated by dashed green lights (normal border) or solid black ones (impassable one’s). The visible numbers (1-3) mark the earliest turn that particular area can be entered by the character. The small tokens (green, yellow, orange) with one, two or three lines (or rathe claws) symbolize enemies occupying particular locations.
Everybody has to start in separate location marked with 1. Most of us focused on exploration and resources gathering; we were reading a lot of background information when exploring locations and learning what the situation is for us. And it looked bleak…
And finally it come to fighting the first enemy. You do it by drawing random enemy, deciding to use soem of the items and then rolling proper color (and number) of dice corresponding to your skills / bonuses. And then you need to cover all the enemy hearts to kill it. Kriss de Valnor – as in the original comics – excelled in it.
Above example of our most difficult – and most crucial fight. There are two enemies – yellow (Moderate) and green (Minor). You need to defeat both, simultaneously, by placing the polyomino tiles on all the hearts. Only with proper preparation and high skills you can achieve it. Kriss again does the job!
Despite some hiccups, at the last moment of the last turn we are able to gather enough allies from former slaves to instigate uprising. When we leave this forsaken place, the screams of guards being murdered and noises of burning temple are vividly hearable in distance…

Result:

The game finished in our (very close) victory. We initially planned to destroy the temple with the moonstones; however, during the game it occurred that it was much easier for us to collect support of fellow slaves and instigate the uprising – thus we changed our strategy. One exploration of the Location by character without Gossip Token almost costed us the game, but the brainstorming of the whole group how to get from this problem allowed us to solve the issue.

Evaluation & Summary:

Scenario Fun Factor

Scenario Balance

Time to Play

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

That was definitely fun session and introduction to the game. The scenario is not overly complex, the goal is clear – destroy the temple that or the other way. The balance is fine, although we were pretty close to failure due to – seemingly – pretty insignificant choice. It plays quickly, 2 hours should be max what you will devote to it. And make sure to bring Gossip tokens when you explore locations – the Side Plots are of utmost importance in the game!

On a general side, while I plan a separate article on my impressions for Thorgal, I could not resist from sharing some initial observations immediately. The game is indeed a fun to play – the cooperation is there; still, everybody makes decisions for themselves. It is also an immersive travel to the Thorgal world – and for me, to the childhood days of the comics passion.

However, this is not an easy game to win – you really need to concentrate and plan you moves as optimally as possible. Our experience from Gloomhaven and Frosthaven really gives us an edge here and helps a lot.

More reports to come!