A Feast for Odin: The Norwegians

Really overhauls and balances a great game into an amazing game.

Streamlined ruleset for game with large decision space. Strategic with a lot of tactical option. Needs Norwegians for balance and perfect score.

Essential expansion for the new board. Won't play without it anymore.

Didn't tighten up the board as much as I hoped, the gameplay is more or less the same sandboxy experience as the base game.

A must-have expansion. Takes a good game and turns it into maybe Uwe's best game - vastly improves the player count scaling, opens up the available strategies in a huge way, and provides more replayability.

Awhile back I asked, "when do you really need an expansion to Feast for Odin?" Now that we've actually played it, we can safely say: yesterday!

It's great. We've been big AFFO fans but were getting a little tired of the way it felt, particularly with two players...like the field was too open and the decisions not interesting enough after so many plays.

"Norwegians" adds a number of useful tweaks: a tighter bunch of actions for fewer players, a race for both occupation discard points and the fifth column, the nifty Artisan sheds that give you both a starting focus and a bit of a backstory. Our first play was so much fun!

A new edition of #mechanismsmonday, and today’s topic is Map Addition, as chosen by @rh_hobbyplace. And this provides us with the perfect occasion to talk about the only game that we’ve played over the last couple of days, A Feast for Odin (and more specifically, about the Norwegians expansion). At first, a bit of clarification, as Feast for Odin does not feature a traditional map. While that is true, over the course of the game you can add exploration boards (featuring different territories that you conquer) to your tableau. This is an important part of the game, as over time unclaimed territories are replaced by others, while increasing the value of other boards. They provide additional income and some very cool bonuses, and a big part of a good strategy is knowing when to claim such a board. With the hope that the above represents a solid-enough justification of why we picked this Uwe title, let’s assess why the Norwegians expansions is so good. First of all, the whole action board is replaced. Many of the new worker placement spots are improved versions of the ones from the base set, opening up previously self-defeating strategies (such as focusing on playing occupation cards). Not only do you have more opportunities to play cards, but you can also take a points token when you pass on such an occasion (with decreasing values from 4 to 2 points). A fifth action column is introduced, with very powerful bonuses, where you only need 1 or 2 workers (the latter option allowing you to also play a card), but with the requirement that this is the last action you take in a round. Playing around that restriction is fascinating! But some of the best additions to us are the introduction of new U-shaped tiles (which are very helpful when you want to completely surround a bonus space on a board), of new animals (pigs and horses), of specialized sheds (each player having a different one that they can build over the course of the game) and the possibility of exchanging whaling boats for other types of boats. Overall, a fascinating addition to the base set, and hands down one of the best board game expansions that we have tried.