Thursday, August 20, 2015

New from Cool Mini or Not! Blood Rage!

Street Date: October 1st!
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Blood Rage Core Box
$79.99 SRP

“Life is Battle; Battle is Glory; Glory is All.”

In Blood Rage, each player controls their own Viking clan’s warriors, leader, and ship. Ragnarök has come, and it’s the end of the world! It’s the Vikings’ last chance to go down in a blaze of glory and secure their place in Valhalla at Odin’s side! For a Viking there are many pathways to glory. You can invade and pillage the land for its rewards, crush your opponents in epic battles, fulfill quests, increase your clan's stats, or even die gloriously either in battle or from Ragnarök, the ultimate inescapable doom.

Most player strategies are guided by the cards drafted at the beginning of each of the three game rounds (or Ages). These “Gods’ Gifts” grant you numerous boons for your clan including: increased Viking strength and devious battle strategies, upgrades to your clan, or even the aid of legendary creatures from Norse mythology. They may also include various quests, from dominating specific provinces, to having lots of your Vikings sent to Valhalla. Most of these cards are aligned with one of the Norse gods, hinting at the kind of strategy they support. For example, Thor gives more glory for victory in battle, Heimdall grants you foresight and surprises, Tyr strengthens you in battle, while the trickster Loki actually rewards you for losing battles, or punishes the winner.

Players must choose their strategies carefully during the draft phase, but also be ready to adapt and react to their opponents’ strategies as the action phase unfolds. Battles are decided not only by the strength of the figures involved, but also by cards played in secret. By observing your opponent’s actions and allegiances to specific gods, you may predict what card they are likely to play, and plan accordingly. Winning battles is not always the best course of action, as the right card can get you even more rewards by being crushed. The only losing strategy in Blood Rage is to shy away from battle and a glorious death!

Miniatures are supplied unpainted.

Contains:
46 Highly detailed miniatures
52 Colored plastic bases
99 Cards
4 Clan sheets
36 Cardboard tokens
4 Plastic glory markers
1 Game board
2 Support sheets
1 Rule book

CMNBLR002
Blood Rage: 5th Player Expansion
$29.99 SRP

This expansion introduces the option of playing Blood Rage with 5 players and introduces the mighty Ram clan into Blood Rage! The game board supports this by simply not having any province destroyed by Ragnarök before the beginning of the game. However, more players need more cards, so this expansion box comes with 24 Gods’ Gifts cards (8 for each Age deck). All of these cards have the 5+ players pre-requisite listed on them. While most of them are extra copies of cards from the base game, there are a few new ones, like the “Widespread!” Quest, where you need to dominate any two provinces.

Ram clan contains:
8 Warrior figures (in two different sculpts)
1 Leader Figure
1 Ship figure
1 Clan Sheet
1 Plastic Glory Marker
4 Cardboard Clan tokens
11 Small colored bases
2 Large colored bases


Street Date: November 1st!
CMNBLR003
Blood Rage: Gods of Asgard Expansion
$19.99 SRP

Gods of Asgard adds gods to the game play and brings Blood Rage to a whole new level! Only two gods will be part of each game session and these are randomly drawn and placed next to the board so all players can see their powers. At the end of the initial setup, players will shuffle the Ragnarök tokens that are not on the board or on the Age Track and draw two of them. The names of the two provinces listed on the tokens and players will place each god figure in one of them (these Ragnarök tokens are then put aside).

Each god’s ability is always in effect, changing the rules of the province they are in and the rest of the provinces are not affected. After a player attempts to pillage a province containing a god figure, whether he succeeds in the pillaging or not, he must then move the god to a different un-pillaged province that does not contain a god figure. So the two gods can never occupy the same province, and they never go to a pillaged or destroyed province.

At the beginning of the 2nd and 3rd Ages, the two gods are again placed in random provinces, determined by drawing two unused Ragnarök tokens.

The combination of the two gods used in each game creates a unique texture to that session. They affect draft choices and influence the flow of the battles. Will your try to benefit from a god’s power again and again by moving him where you want and always pillaging his province? Or will you do your best to neutralize him by pillaging around his province? Perhaps you’ll want to attempt a hopeless pillage on his province just to move him onto another province where he will hinder another player’s plans. They add a whole new layer to the game, without adding hardly any complexity to the rules.

The miniatures each come with a tarot-sized God card.


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Blood Rage: Mystics of Midgard Expansion
$24.99 SRP

Known by many names and possessing different powers granted by their connection to the gods, these warrior-shamans will be a boon to any clan able to recruit them!

Mystics are special units (neither Warrior nor Monster) that players can only employ once they’ve given their clan one of the Mystic Clan Upgrades. Each of these Clan upgrades adds one Mystic figure to your clan’s reserves and can recruit a maximum of two, which you can then use to Invade and battle normally. All Mystics have STR 2 and the special ability that allows them to Invade at no Rage cost.

Besides adding Mystics to your reserves, each of these Clan Upgrades grants your Mystics a special ability. If you collect several different upgrades, each of your Mystics will possess all the abilities you accumulated, making them incredibly resourceful and strategic additions to your clan!

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