Vendel to Viking Preview

I'm not sure if anyone knew this or if I haven't made it explicitly obvious but I'm a fan of Viking related games. When I had an opportunity to check out Vendel to Viking, the prequel to Pax Viking, I immediately jumped at the opportunity. This game focuses on the Vendel era, which is roughly 250 years before the Viking period. Players are clans that are working to develop their family trees with historic characters to the time period. This is done by venturing across three regions and placing family members of various professions and ranks. On your turn, you will get 4 actions. This includes venturing and placing a venture tile, purchasing a formidable for your family tree, exhausting a family member to use their ability, or using an ability on a venture tile with a family member on it.

When you purchase a formidable, you must confirm 3 things; that the family member is the same symbol, the region is correct, and that you can afford it. Assuming you can, you'll pay its cost, place the formidable into your family tree and collect any bonus. Then you'll take the family member you've exhausted and put them onto the ancestry board. The ancestry board contains achievements that grant victory points and an immediate bonus. The game will play until you reach the year 793 and the players will score points based on achievements, ventures, and any missions completed.

The most unique part about how Vendel to Viking plays is that it can tie into Pax Viking. Depending on the achievements that you've earned during the game allows you to have a choice of leaders and how much extra money you'll start out with. It's a really nice way to tie into the game so you can play out your Viking fantasies one after another.

I did find it somewhat challenging to keep track of how many actions that you've used. When you venture and need to place a boat and a tile, it counts as two actions. The game I had was a prototype but I'd love to see additional player aids to spell that out a little more or some sort of tracker on the boards.

Vendel to Viking is a fantastic area control game where you need to have a majority in order to do certain things but that's not the only way to win the game. You have a lot of freedom to work on other things while another player is exploring and you can still come out on top if you manage to get the right achievements and complete your missions. The small map makes it a really tight game with tons of decisions to make and how to plan for what formidables you want to add to your family tree and what achievements you're trying to go for. Vendel to Viking is on Kickstarter now if you want to check it out for yourself.

Thanks to Ape Games and Ion Games for letting me take a look at the prototype.