A Feast for Odin rules: how to play and how to score

A Feast for Odin quick rules

The goal

Your home board is a grid to fill with craft products and luxury goods, like a puzzle: negative spaces left uncovered cost points. Ships, houses, explored islands, animals and occupations score points.

A round

The game lasts seven rounds, or six in the short game. Each round, a new Viking arrives, then come the harvest and a weapon card, actions, income, animal breeding, the feast and your board’s bonuses.

Placing Vikings

On your turn, you place one to four Vikings on a single action space, depending on its column, and take the action at once. Each space is used once per round. The last player to place Vikings starts the next round.

Actions

Produce, build houses and ships, take resources from the mountain strips, upgrade your tiles by one color, trade overseas with a knarr, emigrate, explore islands or play occupation cards.

Raiding, pillaging and hunting

Raiding and pillaging need a longship and a high roll, above five; hunting game, laying a snare and whaling need a low roll, paid in wood or weapons. Up to three rolls, and a failure gives a compensation.

Filling your board

Two craft products never touch along a side, and a placed tile is never taken back. Your income is the lowest visible value on the diagonal. A symbol space completely surrounded gives its bonus every round.

The feast

Every round, the banquet table is covered with farm products, animal products or one-silver coins, never two tiles of the same color side by side. Each empty space gives a Thing penalty: −3 points at the end.

Beginner pitfalls

Keep food for the feast before upgrading your tiles. Don’t neglect animals, which breed every other round. And try several placements before you place a tile.

How to score A Feast for Odin

Ships

Whaling boat 3 points, knarr 5, longship 8; an emigrated knarr is worth 18, an emigrated longship 21.

Islands and houses

Each exploration board is worth the value in its top left corner; shed 8, stone house 10, long house 17.

Animals

Sheep 2, pregnant sheep 3, cattle 3, pregnant cattle 4.

Occupations, silver and final income

The value of the occupation cards played, the silver in your supply, and your last round’s income scored as points; the English Crown is worth 2.

Negative points

Uncovered negative spaces on your home board, exploration boards and houses, and −3 per Thing penalty.

Ties

Tied players share the victory.

Worked example

Alex has an emigrated knarr (18), a longship (8) and two whaling boats (6): 32 points. The long house is worth 17, 3 sheep and a pregnant sheep 9, occupations 4, silver 7 and final income 6: 32 + 17 + 9 + 4 + 7 + 6 = 75. Alex has 5 negative points left and one Thing penalty: 75 − 5 − 3 = 67.

Common mistakes

• Counting silver placed on your boards: only the silver in your supply counts.
• Collecting the last round’s income instead of scoring it as points.
• Forgetting the negative spaces of houses and exploration boards.

How to set up A Feast for Odin

Setup takes 15 minutes. First choose the long game (7 rounds) or the short game (6).