As already mentioned, our regular boardgames group paused recently the Frosthaven campaign (see here). With no quick end in sight (you need to resolve the whole puzzle book!), it was decided we need a rest from that title. That vacuum was quickly filled by several other games rather than one dedicated. Among them we play Thorgal: The Board Game, featuring my favorite comics character.

Today I am continuing a series of session reports from our adventures in Thorgal’s world. So far we played three, but I believe we shall continue further as the game – which features many innovative mechanics – is really to our liking. Also, each episode is completely different, features an unique story and some special rules. So let us start!

About the Game

First things first – let me 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!

Hide and Sea – Scenario Description

We continue our experiences with second scenario namely Hide and Sea (I like the thematic, with a blink of an eye, titles in this game). Each tale comes with elaborate introduction, which sets the scene – it is like reading the book and then continuing from the middle of it, when the setting is already made. You may skip it – still, in order to immerse yourselves in the world, I strongly recommend familiarizing with it – you may read loud, to the whole group, so everybody is on the same page).

In this particular travel, we were tasked with first locating four raiding pirate crews and then overwhelming them. Otherwise nearby kingdoms may fell into disarray and that might end badly – also for our characters.

Mission Goal:

My Polish version of the Book of Adventures – Mission Goals for Hide and Sea

Well, having the background already, you will see that the mission goal will be pretty straightforward and simple: destroy the pirates! Yup, not only find them, but get rid of the threat once and for all.

We could make things easier for us by collecting Battle Equipment (red markers) or Knowledge (blue ones). The first will make our fleet more powerful and help us in battles with Pirates; the second will help to navigate seas and reduce amount of damage received by our fleet during storms.

My Polish version of the Scenario Book – map for Hide and Sea

While it is obvious how to win the game, there are several ways to lose it! First of all, we are under time pressure and need to accomplish the goal till the end of Turn 9. Then we cannot allow any of our fellow comrades to fall – should they die, we lose. On top of this, there will be a special Fleet cards – if we cannot put a wound token on it (symbolizing our ships were damaged beyond repair) we lose too! So there is definitely a time-pressure and also some edge conditions to be avoided.

Players / characters:

This was our second game and we decided to switch characters between ourselves – good to test some different approaches, tactics and strategies! They all have different skills, items and starting materials. Also their development path – in area of combat and exploration – are 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.

This is how our team was composed this time:

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

How it worked? Let us see!

Session Report:

As always I am inviting you to a picture-rich session reports, which will visually highlight key moments of our play.

Initial set-up of Scenario 2 – Hide and Sea. 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 adventure map; the play area is divided into sectors, separated by dashed green lines (normal border), solid black ones (impassable one’s) and blue ones (where you sail using the fleet). The visible numbers (1-4) 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 location marked with 1. This is the initial island where we were thrown at during the storm. That meant we focused during our first turn on exploration and checking the locations on the island itself.
Only in turn 2 we could sail to nearby areas. I was super lucky to not only identify one of the pirates fleets, but also obliterate them completely. The fight was not easy (you use the colorful dice – depending on your items and skills) and need to inflict number of wounds equal to number of hearts on the enemy card.
The next turn Adam and his Kriss attacked another, previously identified enemy. He also used almost all his items and skills – it was worth it, as second pirate fleet was sunk. Of course, with such a speed of using our valuable resources it might soon be very difficult to 1) find 2) destroy remaining fleets.
That is why we were looking also for the help of the nearby rulers – you can see Kuba J Thorgal in location 3 on above picture.
But today the luck was with us and Adam – definitely on a killing spree! For 2-3 turns he rebuilt his stock of items and refreshed the skills – while we were trying to support him in effort – and took a challenge once again vs. pirates. They were weaker this time, with only 3 hearts – so well prepared assassin like Kriss had zero problems to destroy them
All is good you would say? Nope! The time was ticking away and we had problems with finding the last, fourth group of pirates. They evidently were warned and wary of all other crews which were destroyed by us. Still, a team work, sharing of resources and proper action sequence planning allowed us to find last pirate ship. It was a weak brig, with just two hearts and was destroyed easily. Victory!

Result:

The game finished in our victory – I would say it was maybe not decisive, but still, pretty firm. Much firmer than the Scenario 1, where we were at the brink of defeat. It was hard to find the enemies, but when we did. With superb preparation – it was not so difficult to crush them.

Evaluation & Summary:

Scenario Fun Factor

Scenario Balance

Time to Play

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

That was definitely fun game and scenario to play. The adventure is not overly complex, the goal is clear – destroy the pirates that or the other way. The balance might be a bit better – you see, finding the pirates can be a gamble and is not so straightforward. But when you find them, and you are well prepared, should be completely enough to destroy them. Also, make sure to bring Gossip tokens when you explore locations – the Side Plots are of utmost importance in the game!

My another observation – this is definitely 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 – especially now, when we understand a bit better our characters too.

More reports to come!