How To Play Raiders Of The North Sea

Raiders of the North Sea is an amazing worker placement game all about hiring the best Vikings, collecting provisions then setting out to raid harbours, outposts, monasteries and fortresses. The game looks amazing on the table but can be a little intimidating, but fear not as this game is a lot easier to play than you would initially think and this blog will teach you how.

Set Up

After placing the beautiful board in the middle of the table give each player a ship, 2 silver coins and 1 black worker. Then place all of the plunder (gold, iron, livestock) as well as the Valkyrie in the cloth bag. Randomly place items from this bag on each possible raiding spot according to the number on the spot.

Then place white and grey workers at these spots according to the colour on them. Place a black worker on the gate house, treasury, and town hall.

Place 3 offerings face up on the board in the spot at the bottom right of the board and keep the others next to the board in a face down stack. Place the remainder of the silver coins, unused plunder and all of the provisions next to the board.

Shuffle the cards and form a face down stack. Give each player 5 of these cards and they must choose 2 to discard.

Finally place each players score markers on the 0 space of the armoury track, Valkyrie track and scoring track.

Worker Placement But Not As We Know It

This is a worker placement game but it is unlike one you have ever played before because you do not ‘own’ the worker. Instead on your turn you will place your worker, collect the reward for the placement and then immediately take another worker from a different location and collect that reward. You can never have more than one worker in your possession and you can never take the same worker you just placed.

This game also includes 3 different types of workers (black, grey & white) and whilst the rewards will often be the same for the placement / taking sometimes the rewards differ depending on the type of worker. Some spots are only allowed to be used by certain workers.

Time In Town

The whole aim of the game is to accrue points by raiding in the north, spending plunder on offerings, and letting your Vikings die in battle so they can go to Valhalla. To do this you need to build a crew and get enough provisions so they can go raiding. At the beginning of the game you are going to need to visit different locations in town to get everything ready.

• Gate House – Here you get 2 new cards to add to your hand (limit of 8 cards by the end of your turn).
• Town Hall – Discard a card from your hand to take the immediate benefit as shown in the bottom right of the card.
• Barracks – Hire a Viking from your hand to your crew (maximum of 5 crew) by paying the cost in silver coins as noted on the Viking. Each Viking then gives a benefit whilst in your crew as per the bottom left of the card. This could be to take more cards when visiting the gate house.
• Long House (only white or grey workers) - Used to making offerings for points or to get provisions.
• Silversmith – Used for collecting silver coins needed to hire new Vikings (maximum 8 silver coins can be held by a player)
• Mill – Used for getting provisions or gold if you use a white worker (maximum 8 provisions can be held by a player).
• Armoury (only white or grey workers) – Used for increasing your armoury (needed for strength tests for the higher raids).

Going Raiding

So you have hired a crew, got some provisions and it is now time to raid - going pretty good in Raiders of the North Sea. Look at the board just above the town and you will see the harbours which you can initially only raid. Each of these has a requirement of provisions and crew. Once you reach the minimum requirements you can place your current worker in one of the spots (they stay there for the rest of the game) give yourself the points for the raid (written in a yellow box) and then take all of the plunder (including any Valkyrie) and the worker that was placed there.

Valkyrie

For each Valkyrie that you take you must kill one of your crew. But fear not, as this is glorious for a Viking to die in battle. When you kill a member of your crew discard one Viking from your ship and move your scoring marker one space up on the Valkyrie track. In addition some Vikings will give you bonus gold or points when they die (check their special ability in the bottom left of the card).

Offerings & Armoury

After your successful raids you will want to get ready for another raid but don’t forget that many points can be obtained by making an offering in the long house. Here you can view the current requirements and then exchange your plunder and coins for precious points. These tokens are not scored immediately instead you keep them a secret from your opponents and replace the one you have taken.

Now you have a grey worker you can also visit the Armoury. Here you can exchange your iron for 2 armour or 2 silver for 1 armour.

Strength And Going Further North

You will notice the further north you raid you will need better workers (grey or white), you may need to pay gold as well as provisions and you also have to consider the strength of your crew.

The strength of your crew is made up by the red numbers on each of them in your ship, your current armour rating and then you roll either 1 or 2 dice (according to the location). This total number must meet the minimum requirements to gain the points. For players that hit the higher numbers big points are available. Should you not meet the minimum requirements you will not obtain any points for your raid.

Game End & Scoring

The game can end in 3 different ways. Either there is only 1 set of plunder left in the fortresses, the offering draw pile is empty or there are no Valkyrie left on the board. When this is triggered all players (including the player who triggered the end of the game) get 1 final turn.

You then add your scores from the Valkyrie and Armoury tracks to the score track, reveal and score your offerings, add any score from your current crew and then gain 1 point for any leftover gold, iron or 2 cattle. The player with the most points wins, in the event of a tie the tied player highest on the Valkyrie track wins (then the Armoury track).

Conclusion

I hope this has helped you to learn the rules and how Raiders of the North Sea plays. Obviously I would always recommend people use the official rule book to learn the rules in depth but this blog should give you a really good flavour of how the game flows.

I really enjoy the game and if you want to find me on twitter to discuss how brilliant Raiders of the North Sea is please do @boardgamehappy.