Designer: Franz Benno-Delonge and Phil Walker-Harding

Artist: Beth Sobel

Publisher: Grail Games

Sometimes, people just have the hankering to play the oldies. Unfortunately, those games have come and gone, many with just a single print run. Finding copies of these classics can be tough. Enter the now defunct Grail Games, a publisher with a complicated track record but yet, has produced many gorgeous games with high production values from classic designers. Controversy aside, I have really admired the games they have published, including the re-imagined Tigris and Euphrates called Yellow & Yangtze. Fjords is one of the simplest tile laying games out there by the late Franz Benno-Delonge who also designed Big City and Container. The new version of the game, with the same title is created with brand new artwork from the celebrated artist, Beth Sobel of Cascadia fame. As you would expect from a crowdfunded game, the remake includes new modules that extend game play. Fortunately, despite all the new additions, the game can also be played in the original format as envisioned by the designer. In any case, Fjords received some hype when it was crowdfunded and had all the ingredients for a successful remake.

Chunky components and updated artwork will thrill most

I’ll talk about game box and components first. In the Kickstarter version, you will see a moderately-sized box with chunky wooden pieces, draw string bags and really thick tiles. The game is pretty impressive and an “upgrade” when compared to the original small box design published by Rio Grande Games. That said, I am a fan of the original artwork from artists of that era and find those illustrations charming in its own way. Yes, I find the artwork in St. Petersburg appealing. Sue me. Yet, there is no doubt most people will embrace the art direction in the new version. The colors are solid, vibrant and more photo realistic. Inside the Kickstarted box, one will also find large acrylic runestones that are honestly, a bit too large for the tiles. Luckily the cardboard runestones are also included in the game. I guess if you prefer the cardboard tiles, they are at least available as substitutes. I often find that KS games include too many upgraded components to attract buyers, some of which hinders game play.

Drafting terrain tiles to build a shared world can be frustrating

The original Fjords is designed for only two players. The remake extends the game to a maximum of four. After our initial plays, I can understand why Benno-Delonge limited the player count because the game is meant to be a very quick, tense, two player tussle for area control. Each turn, players flip a tile and play a tile on the shared game space. You do not get a hand of tiles to choose from. The hexagonal tiles come in three terrain types: oceans, mountains and plains. All terrains must match up and if unable to match, players must discard and draw a new tile. However, in the remake, players have a choice of four tiles from a common pool to select one for placement. In our plays, we observed that tile placements are much harder since all the terrain types must be matched. Frequently, tiles had to be discarded and new ones drawn. These restrictions are more severe than say, Carcassonne and can be a bit tedious. Obviously, the rules in the remake are meant to alleviate this problem, but it comes at a cost of lengthening the placement phase. With four tiles available, players will scrutinized over and over to maximize placement. While players have more choice, this will not improve the pace of the game especially with four players. It can become a drag. With two players this new mode of play is worth trying. In either case, we decided to compromise by choosing a time-tested intermediate option: we each have one tile at hand and draw a new tile for a total of two for placement. This helps with opening up some options without lengthening the tile laying phase significantly.

Expand viking settlements to block opponents and score points

Once the tile placement phase is over, players must now expand their populace starting from the longhouses which were placed during the tile placement phase. There are three longhouses provided at the start of the game and for each tile with plains, players are allowed to place a single longhouse on that tile. Placement of these longhouses must be strategic such that the the vikings are allowed to spread out from these town centers. Ideally, you want to be away from the competition and have access to a stretch of connected plains where the vikings meeples can be placed during the expansion phase. Once all the tiles are placed in the placement phase, the expansion phase beings and players will start placing single viking piece on the board, adjacent from their respective longhouses and spreading out in a connected network. The whole idea is that players will race to put down more vikings than their opponents to win the game. This part of the game can be brutal since you want to cut off your opponent and carve out niche in which only you have access for placement. There is a lot of back and forth during the expansion phase as players will react to each other’s placement by either trying to expand into niches or block off opponent routes. With two players, the duel to expand/limit each others access to placement is intense. You cannot protect all your regions, but you will most likely respond to what your opponent has done. At the end, players will count the leftover vikings that are not on the board (i.e. having the most number of vikings on the board) and the player with the fewest left over vikings in their supply wins the game.

As you can see, the game is simple simple simple. Take a tile, place a tile and then place a viking. Each game of Fjords should really be in the 20 minute if players don’t over think moves. In fact, the rules suggest multiple rounds to tabulate the scores for the winner. Playing one round is perfectly fine and satisfying enough. I think the key to the game boils down to where you position your longhouses and whether or not you are able to carve out niches during the expansion phase. The luck of drawing tiles is going to be mitigated by the new rules, but our intermediate option of having two tiles seems like a reasonable compromise. Still, it is rather an odd feeling that tiles cannot always be placed given that it rarely happens in other games like Carcassonne. This happens frequently enough because of the matching terrain restriction and just feels off-putting at times.

Runestones expand basic game play in a positive way

The modules in Fjord do improve variability between sessions, only if you not overload the board with runestones. The number and type of runestones are determined before each game and they will enter the board when certain terrain tiles are drawn and placed. As you would expect, these add-ons allow players rule-bending powers for placement and scoring. For example, the strength (Thor) runestone enters the game when a specific mountain tile is placed. At the end of the game, every viking meeple that surrounds this site will score a point. Having a runestone will undoubtedly change your priorities for both tile and viking placement. You can have multiple runestones in the game, but the more you have, the further the game departs from the original rules as these stones can also become a focal point of contention. I think overall, the runestones are a welcome addition to the base game if only to give the basic game some added flavor. I appreciate having the runestones which is a rare thing for me since I am not a fan of expansions in general.

In summary

Overall, I think Fjords is a decent game, if not somewhat forgettable. The game entered the market 20 years ago and I think suffers from having other famous tile-laying games to compare against. The game plays fine with two as was originally intended, and I must admit I have yet to play with four, though I am not sure I really want to. The original game was intended as a duel and I think it is still the best player count. The biggest bugbear for me in the game is tile placement. In our plays, we had more than once drew tiles we just could not place and had to recycle them in the draw bag, only to draw them again in subsequent turns, still facing the same issue. It just felt….inelegant, for the lack of a better word. The requirements for tile placement is steeper than usual, with terrains having to match, and the new tile needs to have two adjacent sides touching a previously placed tile. Moreover, tiles can only be added to the preexisting land mass and cannot form a new continent. All told, I often felt “forced” to place a tile in a particular location for the lack of a better choice. Sometimes, it ends up helping your opponent. That was why we ended up with the two tile at hand variant, which helped but did not completely alleviate the issue. At least Fjords does not linger. The expansion phase is usually quite rapid and can be over in 5 minutes. Much of the outcome of a game is pretty clear cut once the board is carved up into the appropriate areas. Fjords is very much like a summer blockbuster movie: I enjoy it when playing it, but when it is over, I do not really think much of it.

Initial impression: Average