[REVIEW] Champions of Midgard: The Dark Mountains And Valhalla Expansions

Want the short version? Jump straight to the low-down!

• The Dark Mountains Expansion
• New Enemies
• Valhalla Expansion
• Leaders
• The Low-down
• Pros and Cons
• Gallery

We reviewed Champions of Midgard a while back, and it’s become a bit of a favourite here at Tribe HQ. It’s a great introduction to worker placement games for those that might find the heavier euros a bit stuffy.

Whilst more “serious” gamers may frown at the presence of so many dice and the often cruel luck they usher in, by the same token they can also be great levellers of play for the novice.

We were excited to try out not one, but two expansions for the game, released simultaneously after a successful Kickstarter campaign.

The Dark Mountains adds an extra player (for a possible total of five) along with new Archer dice and land journeys to fight Mountain Giants (Begrisar) as an alternative to crossing the seas to fight monsters.

Valhalla adds three new dice types, leader abilities and a Valhalla board that allows you to use your warriors that have died in battle to gain you Valkyrie Blessings, or fight epic, legendary monsters on your behalf.

As well as the two expansions, Grey Fox Games also released a number of upgrades to the base game, that whilst not essential, bling your game up substantially, with Viking meeples, horned helmet shaped score markers and plenty of wooden components to replace the cardstock ones.

So do these expansions improve play or bog things down in complications? Let’s find out!

The Dark Mountains

One of the most common requests for Champions of Midgard was for the addition of a 5th player, so that’s the first thing this expansion addresses, providing more meeples and score markers to accommodate them.

Also provided are two new Leader boards: Jorunn, who gains you two Glory on journeys that aren’t All Quiet, and Ragnhild who allows you to choose a red or black dice at the Jarl’s Longhouse location instead of having to take a (rubbish) white one.

Of course with a fifth player the board needs a little more space, and this is provided in the form of a small extra board placed to the side of the main one. Here you will find the titular Dark Mountains, with two extra spaces to place workers.

Straight away you can see the similarity with the Monster spaces at the bottom of the main board, with spaces for monster cards above some horizontally placed journey cards.

However, journeying to the Dark Mountains is a different affair to travelling across the seas. Rather than needing food, you’ll need to pack some gold, as many of the land journey cards require expenditure to avoid losing warriors, or worse, simply failing in your quest before you’ve even fought anything.

Provided your journey is uneventful (or you overcome any events), you’ll face a Begrisar at the end of it — one of two Mountain Giants you’ll reveal on the spaces provided. Like the overseas monsters, these stay in place until defeated but don’t gain extra gold each round.

New Foes to Fight

Defeating the Begrisar is one of the main ways you can acquire the new green Archer dice (although you can never use such warriors against the giants themselves), and whilst they might not usually yield as much Glory (or gold) as questing across the seas, the journey is usually less hazardous. Just remember to pack ample gold as insurance!

Talking of the Archer dice, they almost guarantee you a hit in combat, but perhaps the most effective way of using them is to send them to the Hunting Grounds, where they have the possibility of earning you two food per warrior dice. Great for stocking up for oversea monster-killing jaunts!

Begrisar aren’t the only new foes to appear in this expansion. Included are 24 new Enemy cards: 3 Troll Lords, 3 Seidr Draugr and 18 assorted overseas Monsters (3 each of 6 new types.)

The Troll Lords are more dangerous than standard Trolls (obviously!) but yield more Glory and also allow you, if victorious, to allocate Blame tokens to ALL other players, as opposed to just picking one.

Seidr Draugr are tougher to kill than standard Draugr, but rather than killing your Warriors with attacks, they give a blame token each round of combat, so killing them quickly is paramount.

The 6 new types of overseas Monsters (Loot Hoarders, Vile Priests, Dark Shamans, Cave Dwellers, Rock Creatures and Mist Walkers) also change up the conditions of combat rather than just offering the usual straight attack/defence of the core game, but you can discover their nasty idiosyncrasies for yourselves!

What Else?

Also included in The Dark Mountains expansion are some new Rune and Destiny cards (relating to the new content), an expanded Market Stall board to accommodate locations when playing with five players, four extra Market Stall tiles for some variety, an extra longship for use with five players and some 100 point marker tokens, as the new content definitely offers more paths to Glory.

Valhalla

Whilst The Dark Mountains expansion offers tweaks and additions to game play from the core game, the Valhalla expansion moves into whole new territory.

The most familiar new components are the three new Warrior dice types (pink Berserkers, yellow Shield-warriors, blue Leaders), along with two new Leader boards and a smattering of Rune and Destiny cards that reference the new Valhalla rules. There’s also one more military Market Stall tile.

Berserker dice are even deadlier than the black Axemen dice from the core game, but one must always be lost as a first casualty in a combat they’re involved in.

Shieldwarriors are perhaps my favourite new dice type. The feature faces with both a weapon and a shield, meaning you can inflict damage to a foe and protect other units (such as the vulnerable Berserkers) at the same time.

After these more familiar elements, the rest of the Valhalla expansion’s components really change the game in a radical way which might just convert those put off the core game by the reliance of dice in combat.

The additional Valhalla board is divided into two sections. The top section has room for up to three Epic Monster cards, whilst the bottom section accommodates four Valkyrie Blessing cards. Both types are claimed in the same way.

Whenever you lose one of your Warrior dice, whether through dangerous journeys or in battle, you claim the corresponding Sacrifice Token, which you place on your own Burial Ground tile placed alongside your Leader Board.

You can even choose to ignore shield results on your die rolls in order to kill your warriors and claim more tokens if needs be (and your brave warriors will thank you for their expedited passage to Valhalla!)

Sacrifice Tokens can then be spent directly after a battle (win or lose) to defeat Epic Monsters or claim Valkyrie Blessings, according to the token requirements on their cards.

Epic Monsters are chosen randomly (two for a 2–3 player game, three for 4–5 players) at the start of the game from a deck of nine and are not replaced when killed. Defeating them earns you an often large bonus come final scoring, usually in relation to extra points for certain types of monsters, or combinations of defeated enemies.

Valkyrie Blessings are replaced each turn, and offer more practical items to help you during game play, whether extra warrior dice, enchanted items or additional provisions. Many of them also grant the bonus of recovering Leader dice.

Leader of the Pack

In the core game (with or without The Dark Mountains expansion) your Viking leader is a rather abstract figure, represented solely by your leader board and their special skill.

With the Valhalla expansion, your powerful Leader can appear on the battlefield at last, to often turn the tide. Everyone gets one funky blue Leader die at the start of the game, and it doesn’t count towards your maximum of eight dice/warriors.

You’ll also get a narrow additional board to place below your Leader board which not only provides somewhere to store your Leader die, but it also displays a special skill, thematically related to their core skill. This new skill can be activated when the horned helmet die result is rolled.

Whilst you can shield your precious leader with lesser Warriors, should they fall, they don’t die. Instead they are injured and removed from your Leader Board until they recover. To get them back you need to gain a Valkyrie Blessing displaying a special winged helmet symbol, which fortunately features on many of the Blessing cards.

The Low-down

For two relatively slim boxes, both expansions provide an ample amount of new content which more than justifies the asking price, but are they essential purchases?

Obviously if you’re desperate for that extra 5th Player, then The Dark Mountains should be a no-brainer, and the Mountain Giants, new Troll, Draugr and Monster types, Archer dice, Leader Boards and Market Stalls provide plenty to keep things fresh.

However, it has to be said that if you’re not playing at the 4 of 5 player counts, then including The Dark Mountains board and Begrisars themselves provides a few too many worker placement options, resulting in far less player interaction in the shape of being able to block the activities of other players.

Now this might be welcome for those that enjoy a more passive gaming experience, but seeing as the only way in worker placement games to thwart opponents is by limiting their choices and options, having so many worker spots pretty much kills this stone dead.

Champions of Midgard has never really shone as a 2 player game, but if you are going to play heads up, then I’d strongly recommend leaving The Dark Mountains board in its box. Even with 3 players there’s just a bit too much choice to go around. It feels far more balanced at four players, and with five you really need The Dark Mountains to stop too much player frustration.

On the other hand, I think I’d include the Valhalla expansion in every single game, regardless of player count. As I said at the start, many players were put off the core game by the unpredictable nature of dice, and how that affected often crucial battles.

With Valhalla a crushing defeat in battle can be transformed into victory and Glory in the Halls of the Gods, meaning that even if Lady Luck doesn’t shine on you, the mitigation this provides in terms of Sacrifice Tokens means it’s unlikely to completely spoil the game for you — as pointed out above, sometimes you even want your warriors to die to claim a particularly shiny bauble from the Valkyries!

The new dice are a great addition too, giving the option for either massive Berserker damage output, or a more balanced Shieldwarrior approach – or both for perhaps the perfect warband! Leader dice can often provide you with that crucial turning point of a battle, or simply provide more choices when it comes to taking casualties.

At the end of the day I’d say get both expansions — Grey Fox Games even offers a Jarl’s Edition which gives you both expansions along with the new Viking meeples and helmet score markers, new land and sea journey, merchant ship and promo cards, an absurd mythical chicken boat card and a great storage box for the core game plus both expansions (which can even hold sleeved cards).

Just bear in mind that at lower player counts, you can sometimes have too much of a good thing, so maybe consider leaving The Dark Mountains shrouded in mist on those occasions…

NOTE: I didn’t include any mention of the new neoprene gaming mat which is excellent quality, beings together all the expansion boards and market Stall additions into one seamless surface, and also corrects the reversed sea journey order on original copies of the core game board.

Well worth it in my opinion but it depends if you have $29.99 to spare. The colour is a wee bit more saturated than the boards.

I also didn’t mention the two wooden component upgrade kits, for the food and wood supplies and the other token components. I always like exchanging cardboard counters for wood, but it’s worth pointing out you’ll have to manually apply about a hundred stickers to them, and at five players it’s possible you may run out of coins, although I’d say don’t be such a skinflint hoarder and start spending them!

Pros:

• A welcome 5th player.
• More of everything to keep things interesting and fresh.
• Valhallan rewards ease the pain of too much bad dice luck.
• The game now feels like a suitably all-encompassing romp through Viking mythology.
• You can expand your game gradually and affordably (get the Valhalla expansion first!)
• Jarl Edition offers great value — just $5 extra for a custom box, custom meeples and scoring tokens and a handful of promos/extra cards.

Cons:

• The Dark Mountains provides too much worker placement choice for 2–3 players.
• Some find the Sacrifice Tokens too soft on poor battle/dice performance.

Gallery

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