Academy Games | 878 Vikings Invasion of England 2nd Edition | Board Game | Ages 12+ | 2 to 4 Players | 60 to 120 Minutes Playing Time

Product Information

The pleasurable nature of just sitting down to play is incidental to the grueling experience most war games offer. I love Academy Games (and any other publisher that does) for allowing designers the space to add some context to the game they’ve designed. As you can see in the example taken from the rule book below, the Leader chosen was Ivar the Boneless and he comes with a good sized and powerful army consisting of 14 Norsemen (black figures) and 6 Berserkers (red figures). There’s history if you want some, but overall it’s an exceptional four-player team on team war game.

The core of the gameplay is driven by the cards played by the active faction, which will either be an event card or a movement card. This is the game I’ll grab when I have a War of the Ring itch but don’t have the time to play that game.

In this Battle, I was rolling my maximum dice, including 2 dice for the Housecarl units and 3 dice for the Thegn units, but the dice gods didn’t smile on me. There is 100% English dominance at the start of the game, although their forces are generally pretty thin to begin.

Each player completes that sequence until either the end of the 7th Round, Treaty cards or overwhelming force end the game. This concept of a large sizable invasion and recreating this through a game brings a fascinating opportunity for some good play. Academy Games has also adding in some really cool historical references that bring the game play to life. After a couple of battles, if the English player is not channeling Monty Python’s Holy Grail “Run Away!

Reinforcements Phase: For the Vikings, the first Viking faction to go, draws the top Viking Leader card and places that leader token and the listed number of miniatures on the card. If a leader has no friendly units left on his card or in the Shire he’s in, he is defeated and removed from the game. The Vikings will often get 4 or more Hits when they roll, so unless I have a lot of Fyrd left after my first roll, I will command-decision anyone I can to fight another day. Players who don’t know if war games are for them will be rewarded with 878: Vikings, if for any reason, just to see what a really well-done dice rolling combat game is like. The treasures and stories gained from these attacks have allowed the Norsemen to raise huge hosts of eager men seeking glory and riches.