Northgard

 

Northgard is a PC game released in 2017. The player leads a viking clan which has landed on a new continent (Northgard). The player's clan competes with other viking clans for domination over this new continent. There are several ways of winning the game: reaching a certain level of fame (in combination with a certain number of possessed territories within the map + building a king's altar), reaching a certain level of lore (+ building a special monument), capturing Yggdrasil (the world tree), reaching a certain level of commercial exchanges, reforging Odin's sword, etc.

The player must explore the map (hidden with fog of war) by sending scouts. The map is made of tiles which need to be controlled by the player and in which he can find resources (food, wood, iron, stone) or special items (Yggdrasil, wolves' lair, draugr tombs, etc.) or NPC settlements (dwarfs, kobolds, giants, etc.). The player will need to fight against both hostile creatures found in these tiles and the other clans. For this, he can train several types of troops and also a powereful hero whose skills depend on the type of clan he has chosen.

There are many clan types the player can choose from and each has its own strengths and weaknesses (some focus on military strength, others focus on resources gathering, others on exploring, some are well balanced, etc.). Clans are represented by animal totems (raven, stag, boar, bear, wolf, kraken, horse, ox, squirrel, rat, goat, snake, dragon, lynx, eagle) and new clans are constently added.

Link to the PC game: Northgard.net

OK... but why speaking about this PC game in a blog speaking about miniatures? Well, because they have created a board game based on the PC game. It was released in 2022 and was funded through Kickstarter. Here's the link on BoardGameGeek.

Basically, the game mechanisms are the same as in the PC game and the actions (move, explore, build, recruit) the player can take during a campaign turn are represented by cards (6 at the start of the game + 1 special card depending on the clan he chooses before playing - raven, goat, bear, wolf, boar, snake, stag). Then, after each campaign turn, each player receives an additional development card he's adding to his deck.

Each player explores the map (adding tiles to the starting map), gathers resources from the territories he owns, builds, and fights other clans or creatures. The game is played over 7 campaign turns (or years) and the winner is the first player who builds three big special buildings (in this case, the game stops) or the one that has the most fame points at the end of the 7 turns. Fame points are gained by controlling territories, killing creatures, special buildings, and many other means. There is also an alternative ending to the game (10 turns without the three big buildings' winning condition).

I fell in love with this game and I play it as often as possible with my wife, family or friends. It's a 2 to 5 players game. The basic game is already cool but if you play with the two extensions (see below), it becomes amazing.

The basic game comes with 14 fighter miniatures per clan (so 70 miniatures in total). Colours of these miniatures are green, purple, red, blue and yellow. The box also contains creatures (draugr, wolf, bear, valkyries) that you can encounter while exploring.

In addition to the basic game, two extensions have been released:

- Warchiefs: contains the clan leaders (one miniature per clan and a special leader card).

- Wilderness: contains new special tiles and new creatures (giants of two types, wyvern, spectral fighters, a big NPC badass)

About the miniatures: size is 25mm. Those representing the fighters of the basic game are very simple and not so well sculpted. The miniatures of the extensions are well sculpted and the warchiefs are a bit bigger than the troopers.

It looks like that:

Basic game with coloured clan troops.

 

Warchiefs extension.

 

Wilderness extension.

As I really love this game and will certainly play it a lot and for a long time, I have decided to paint these miniatures. I have started by painting three clans at the same time (basic troops, 14 miniatures x 3). It was a cumbersome and annoying process... I should have painted one clan at a time, alternating with other miniatures. But at least they are done:

 

The purple troops:

The blue troops:

 

The yellow troops:

 

Next, I  will be painting (certainly in this order): the warchiefs, another clan, creatures from the basic game, the last clan, and finally the creatures from the Wilderness extension.