Nerdly » ‘Fjords’ Board Game Review

18th Apr2022

‘Fjords’ Board Game Review

by Matthew Smail

Whilst many sports are considered to be a “game of two halves” I don’t find myself referring to board games in that way especially often. Where Fjords is concerned though, I need to make an exception. This 2022 reprint from Grail Games takes the original two-player game, extends it to three and four players, adds a mini expansion and introduces refinements from Phil Walker-Harding and art by Beth Sobel. That’s quite a credit roll, but what has it got to do with more exhausting activities like kicking a ball around a field?

Well, honestly, Fjords is literally a game that features one half where the players choose hexagonal tiles and then place them, and then a second where the players populate the space they have created. During the first phase, Fjords offers a spatial planning puzzle, where the players choose one of four available tiles (replenished blindly from a bag) and then place them onto the map. Restrictions include having to place the tile adjacent to two others and ensuring that water, mountains and grass match the neighbouring tiles – which can be easier said than done.

After a tile is placed, the player placing it has the option to add one of their four outposts to the same tile. This is important, because in the second half of the game, outposts are where their Vikings will emerge. Often, the landscape will lead to dead ends where water surrounds a small number of useable tiles – players want their outposts close to the entrance to these areas where the land gets narrow, which can allow them to “block” access to opponents later. Get an outpost stuck towards the end of such a landmass, on the other hand, and it will likely be cut off by opponents in better positions.

Coming to the placement of Vikings, we must discuss the second half of the game. When – and only when – every tile has been placed (or all players are sure that any remaining titles cannot be legally placed) – the second half will begin. Beginning with the player following whoever placed the last tile, players will switch to putting Vikings on the board. Placement rules are simple – you will place one Viking at a time, and they must be on a grass space (which is almost all of them) and adjacent to either one of your outposts or one of your Vikings. If you run out of spaces to legally place your Vikings, then you’re out of the game.

At four players, this will happen for one or two players earlier than they like, whilst at two players, Fjords can be remarkably tense. Using your Vikings to strategically claim territory with a view to cutting off your opponent(s) is key, and I can see why this was originally a two-player only game. At three or four players, there are more tiles and so the game board is larger, but due to the number of outposts being increased accordingly, it still feels tense. One thing I did notice at three or four is that a player who moves to block another May then be blocked by the next – and waiting for three other placements to happen before your next turn can be agonizing.

There is also a mini-expansion included in the new edition of Fjords, and this focuses on the very subtle inclusion of Rune tokens. These come into play when certain marked tiles appear (these marks are ignored in the regular game) and provide various scoring opportunities. A couple ask the players to simply surround them (and score based on majority) whilst others expect Vikings to be placed in a certain way. Claiming and/or blocking these Runes is a key strategy when they are in play, because otherwise the winner is simply whoever can place more of their Vikings than the other. What I like about the Runes expansion is that it is super simple, adding basically no additional rules (except scoring) and very little extra set up.

I honestly hadn’t heard of Fjords before I saw this new edition – and thanks to the new Beth Sobel artwork it really caught my eye – but I wish I had discovered it earlier. Fjords is now a fantastic two, three or four player experience that works superbly at two players and brings a real intensity with it, whilst at three and especially four, there’s a slightly more chaotic yet equally challenging experience to be bad. The new expansion adds a little more variety and offers several ways to change the game, all combinations of which I have enjoyed. Overall, Fjords is a very worthwhile remake of a solid game, and it’s a keeper for me.