There are two historical themes that remain strong in all sorts of games, being the ancient Greeks and the Vikings. Oh yeah, and pirates. Anyway, with the Vikings, Midgard is a game about the end of world Viking style. The players are Viking factions fighting each other for glory as the world falls apart, by conquering regions, and most importantly by dying valiantly in bloody battle.

The game board is made up of the kingdoms of Mannheim, Jotunheim and Alfheim, each of which contains several provinces, and each of them contains several villages. There are also some side areas, marked as Valhalla, Asgard and Vanaheim, and a set of Viking longships that is where the players place their pawns. This is the only likely drawback to Midgard, is that your Viking warriors are represented by wooden pawns.

Still, the components are very good quality, there are three small decks of cards, a handful of doom chits and a big pile of province chits marked with an m, j or a that corresponds to the three kingdoms on the map. You start the game by dealing six cards to each player, who choose one card and pass the rest to the next player, then choose another card and pass the rest on. You continue to do this until you have six cards which you keep for the first of three turns in the game.

The cards come in bronze, silver and gold, bronze are less powerful but more flexible, while gold are more powerful. On your turn you play one card, which might allow you to place two pawns on the map from your longship, or take a pawn pool from the supply and place it on the map and so on. You use these cards to conquer provinces, while other cards remove enemy pawns from a province, or allow you to score for your control of a kingdom right now instead of at the end of the turn.

When pawns are removed/killed they go to Valhalla, at the end of the turn any pawns on a province with a doom chit on it are also removed to Valhalla. At the end of the turn any pawns on a ‘doomed’ province score points, pathos and glory, and then score points for being in Valhalla. Therefore it is to your advantage to try and conquer doomed provinces, because you effectively score twice for those pawns, and they go back onto your longship, so that you can use them again in the next turn.

The conquering element is determined by having the majority of pawns in a given province/Asgard/Vanaheim, and scoring for the number of provinces you conquered at the end of the turn. The provinces have differing numbers of villages in them, so it is easier to conquer some provinces than others. If you have the majority of pawns in Asgard you score points at the end of the game, if you have the majority of pawns in Vanaheim you can take two province chits. When you have the majority in a province you collect the corresponding province chit, and at the end of the game you score points for having complete sets of one m, one j and one a chit.

You go through the same process in all three turns of the game, drafting cards, conquering provinces and hindering other players. There are enough locations and options on the board that you can focus on one kingdom in each turn and/or go to Asgard and Vanaheim, or spread your pawns more widely. If one player does really well in the first turn it makes him a target in the second turn, while the level of majority in the provinces can swing back and forth within a single turn.

In the first couple of games it is easy to ignore Asgard and Vanaheim and treat them as a bit of a side show to the warfare on the main board, but it is essential to go to Vanaheim at least once to get the province chits you need to complete one or more sets. If they are ignored by other players, it makes it easier to send just one pawn to Asgard for example on every turn and score the extra points for having the majority in Asgard thrice over, which is sometimes enough to win the game.