# A Feast for Odin

## General Info
- **Year Published**: 2016
- **BGG Rating**: 8.2
- **BGG Rank**: #27
- **Players**: 1-4 (Best with: 3)
- **Duration**: 30-120 min
- **Weight**: 3.87 / 5
- **Designers**: Uwe Rosenberg
- **Artists**: Dennis Lohausen
- **Publishers**: Feuerland Spiele, Cranio Creations, Devir, Filosofia Éditions, Game Harbor, Hobby World
- **Categories**: Animals, Farming, Industry / Manufacturing, Medieval, Puzzle
- **Mechanics**: Action Points, Automatic Resource Growth, Dice Rolling, Enclosure, Grid Coverage, Hand Management

## Verdict
If you're ready to dive deep into Viking culture beyond just raiding, A Feast for Odin offers a rich, strategic journey of exploration and kingdom building that will truly immerse you.
Deep strategic worker placement and tile-laying
Rich thematic immersion in Viking history
Expansive exploration and kingdom building
High replayability with diverse strategies
Significant playtime commitment required
Steep learning curve for new players
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

## Description
Get ready for an epic adventure in 'A Feast for Odin,' a game that transports you directly into the saga of the Vikings—but not just the pirates you might imagine! Here, we revisit the cultural achievements, mercantile expeditions, and even the pillages of these Norse peoples who, by the end of the first millennium, were far more than mere raiders. They were audacious explorers and founders of kingdoms, like Leif Eriksson, who reached America long before Columbus. Remember the Normans, like William the Conqueror? Well, they also came from this lineage! The necessity to venture across the seas, incidentally, stemmed from an unfavorable agricultural situation, with often disappointing harvests.

In this game, you'll embark on explorations and invasions of new territories, but you'll also dedicate yourself to daily tasks to ensure your prosperity. The goal is to accumulate the greatest value in goods and possessions to emerge victorious. The core mechanic revolves around an individual player board with many negative spaces that need to be covered by polyomino tiles. The more you cover, the more points and income you generate. Expansions like long halls and island colonies offer rewards, but they also come with their own challenges.

Each year in the game follows a rhythm of preparation, worker placement, and, of course, the feast. The main phase is a festival of worker placement, with 61 different options on the action board. These actions are organized into columns, and the more Vikings you use in a column, the more powerful the action becomes. At the end of each round, it's time to fill the feast table with food, alternating between vegetables and other items. And don't forget to fit those green and blue tiles into your main hall, following placement rules to cover coin icons and generate resources. It's a constant balance between expanding, hunting, developing, and cultivating, all to build your engine and decide which risks you're willing to take for the rewards. It’s truly a feast of possibilities!

## How to Play
1. Objective of the Game
In A Feast for Odin, you play as a Viking tribe leader.  Your goal is to build the most valuable collection of goods, ships, houses, and explored territories by the end of the game.  The player whose home board and exploration boards together hold the highest total value of silver coins, goods tiles, ships, houses, and occupation cards wins.  The game ends after the final round (7 rounds in the long game, 6 rounds in the short game).  The winner is the player with the greatest total value at that point.

2. Preparation (Setup)

Action Board: Place the large action board in the center of the table.  In a 4‑player game, add the two extension tiles to the board, choosing a random side to face up.  In 1–3 player games, no extension tiles are needed.
Supply Boards: Put the oval special tiles board and the small ship supply board next to the goods boxes.
Goods Boxes: Open the two goods boxes and arrange the tiles as described in the manual.  Keep the boxes within easy reach of all players.
Occupation & Weapon Decks: Separate the occupation cards into the light‑brown and dark‑brown stacks.  Each player draws one light‑brown occupation card into their hand and discards the rest of the light‑brown cards.  Shuffle the dark‑brown occupation cards and the weapon cards into two face‑down piles.
Home Boards & Vikings: Each player takes a home board.  Flip the side that matches the chosen game length (7 rounds for the long game, 6 rounds for the short game).  Players choose a color and take the 12 Vikings of that color.  Place a Viking on each numbered space of the Banquet Table track on the home board and the remaining Vikings on the Thing Square.  Place the white round tracking cube on space 1 of the round overview tile.
Ships: Sort the 32 ship tiles by type and place each type in a face‑up stack on the ship supply board.
Mountain Strips: Shuffle the eight mountain strips, turn two face up (three in a 4‑player game), and place the remaining strips face down as a draw pile.
Exploration Boards: Lay out the four exploration boards with the Shetland, Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland sides facing up.
Building Tiles: Place the “shed”, “stone house”, and “long house” tiles in separate face‑up stacks on the table.
Dice & Coins: Place the orange eight‑sided die, the blue twelve‑sided die, and all 125 silver coins (80x “1 Silver”, 22x “2 Silver”, 18x “4 Silver”, 5x “10 Silver”) within easy reach.


3. Flow of the Game
Each round consists of 12 phases that occur in the following order:

Phase 1: A New Viking – Take the leftmost Viking from the Banquet Table track and place it on the Thing Square.
Phase 2: Harvest – Receive orange goods according to the current round’s harvest rule (see the manual for the exact crop list).  Place them in your personal supply.
Phase 3: Turn Exploration Boards & Place Silver – If the round requires turning an exploration board, turn it face up, return any silver on it to the general supply, and place 2 silver on all other unclaimed exploration boards.  No action in the first and last round.
Phase 4: Draw a New Weapon – Draw one weapon card from the face‑down weapon pile and place it face up in your supply.
Phase 5: Actions – Starting with the start player, each player may place Vikings from the Thing Square onto unoccupied action spaces on the action board.  After all players have passed or placed all available Vikings, the action phase ends.
Phase 6: Determine Start Player – The player who placed the last Viking in Phase 5 receives the start player moose and will start the next round.
Phase 7: Income – Cover the lowest uncovered income value on the diagonal of your home board to receive that amount of silver.
Phase 8: Animal Breeding – Turn pregnant sheep/cattle to non‑pregnant and add new animals to the stables.
Phase 9: Feast – Place orange and red food tiles (or 1‑silver coins) on empty Banquet Table spaces according to the placement rules.  If a space is left empty, you must take a Thing Penalty tile.
Phase 10: Bonus – If you have surrounded a goods‑symbol space, you receive that good as a bonus each round.
Phase 11: Update and Add New Mountain Strips – Remove the leftmost resource from each face‑up mountain strip and return it to the general supply.  If a strip becomes empty, remove it.  Then turn a new mountain strip face up and place its goods on it.
Phase 12: Remove Placed Vikings – Return all Vikings from the action board to the Thing Square, completing the round.


4. Actions and How to Play
During Phase 5: Actions, you may occupy any number of action spaces, provided you have enough Vikings for the space’s requirement (1 Viking for the first column, 2 for the second, 3 for the third, 4 for the fourth).  Each action space has a specific effect, described in the rulebook.  Below are the main categories of action spaces you will encounter:

Production Spaces – Gain goods or resources directly from the board (e.g., 1 stockfish, 1 milk per cattle, 1 wool per sheep, 1 spice + 1 silver, etc.).
Exchange Spaces – Trade goods or building resources for other items (e.g., pay 2 wood for a shed, trade a green good for a blue good, etc.).
Mountain & Trading Spaces – Take building resources from mountain strips or trade goods for more valuable ones.
Ship‑Related Spaces – Build ships, arm them with ore, or use them for exploration, emigration, raiding, pillaging, hunting, or whaling.
Occupation Spaces – Draw or play occupation cards, which may grant immediate benefits or allow you to play additional cards.
Exploration Spaces – Claim exploration boards by placing the required number of Vikings and a suitable ship.
Emigration Spaces – Turn a knarr or longship into an emigration tile and place it on the Banquet Table, reducing future feast requirements.
Raiding, Pillaging, Hunting, and Whaling Spaces – Roll the appropriate die (orange 8‑sided for raiding/hunting, blue 12‑sided for pillaging/whaling) and apply modifiers from weapons, ore, and dice rolls to determine success or failure.

All actions must be completed immediately after occupying the space.  You may also perform Anytime Actions (placing goods on boards, buying ships, making change, arming ships, playing occupation cards, etc.) at any point during the game, as long as the rules for each action are followed.

5. End of Game and Scoring
The game ends after the final round’s Phase 12.  Scoring is performed as follows:

Goods and Silver – Add the value of all silver coins, blue luxury goods, and any special blue tiles on your home board and exploration boards.
Ships – Add the value of each ship on your home board.  Large ships (knarrs, longships) increase in value if they have been used for emigration.
Houses – Add the value of each shed, stone house, and long house.  Covering negative‑point spaces with goods tiles prevents penalty points.
Exploration Boards – Add the value of each claimed exploration board, including any silver placed on it during the game.
Occupation Cards – Add the point value of each occupation card played.  Negative‑point cards (e.g., Undertaker) subtract points.
Animal Bonuses – Add points for sheep and cattle, including extra points for pregnant animals.
Thing Penalties – Subtract 3 points for each Thing Penalty tile held at game end.

The player with the highest total value after all deductions wins.  If a player’s total value is lower than the minimum required to finish the game, they lose.

6. Tips for Winning

Plan Your Feast Early – Use the Anytime Actions to place goods on your home board before the Income phase.  This can give you extra silver that may be used for bonuses or to purchase ships.
Balance Exploration and Raiding – Claim exploration boards early to gain additional placement areas, but also use raiding and pillaging to acquire high‑value blue goods.  Remember that each exploration board requires a specific ship type and number of Vikings.
Manage Thing Penalties – Keep your Banquet Table full by placing food tiles efficiently.  A full table reduces the number of Thing Penalty tiles you must take, saving you 3 points per tile at game end.

## FAQ
### What is the average playtime for A Feast for Odin?
A game of A Feast for Odin can vary quite a bit, but it generally takes between 30 to 120 minutes, depending on the number of players and their familiarity with the rules. It's a game that demands time and dedication!

### How many players can play A Feast for Odin?
A Feast for Odin is super versatile and can be played by 1 to 4 players. Yes, it has a solo mode that is highly praised by the community!

### What is the complexity level of A Feast for Odin?
With a BGG weight rating of 3.8693/5, A Feast for Odin is considered a highly complex game. Get ready to think a lot and explore many strategies!

### What are the main components of the game?
The game comes packed with components! Expect to find a huge main board, individual player boards, a multitude of polyomino tiles of different shapes, cards, dice, wooden Viking meeples, and many other resource tokens.

### Who is A Feast for Odin recommended for?
This game is ideal for experienced players who love heavy eurogames, resource management, worker placement, and polyomino puzzles. If you enjoy games with many options and paths to victory, you'll love it!

### Is there any language dependency in A Feast for Odin?
The language dependency is low. There's little text on the cards and components, and most icons are intuitive, making it easily memorizable. The national version from Grok Games helps a lot!

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