Thorgal: The Board Game Review

boardgamequest.com:

What do you get when you combine Norse mythology, interstellar travel, Atlantean legend, and fantasy and horror elements? None other than the son of Varth and Haynee, grandson of Xargos—Thorgal!—who has crash-landed on our planet and been adopted into the Viking world. This serialized comic started in the late 70s and still has stories being released in print form to this day.

Portal Games has taken this internationally popular IP and turned it into a cooperative adventure game. It features seven standalone scenarios, several characters, and a central Book of Tales that provides flavor for each undertaking. Thorgal is designed by Joanna Kijanka, Jan Maurycy Święcicki, Rafał Szyma. It can be played from one to four in approximately 90-120 minutes.

Thorgal immerses players into a single scenario by asking them to read the introduction and setup from the Book of Tales, choose their characters, and take some time to review the atlas map for important information. Each scenario has its own win and lose conditions, specific event cards, and unique rules. Each scenario also has a preset grouping of action cards.

Many scenarios take place over eight to ten rounds and each round consists of four player actions. When playing solo, two characters must be played. The flow of a round consists of players taking an action disc and moving it to a new action card. Based on the location of other action discs, there may be powerful bonuses associated with placement.

Players attempt to gather resources, move throughout the atlas map discovering clues or gaining important artifacts, and begin to whittle away at the win condition. In the first scenario, for example, players must gather and assign specific resources OR battle against rising doom to stop a temple from being constructed against the will of the shackled masses.

The action types available to players remain the same between scenarios, though their specific power and placement are dictated by setup. Players can move between