Sær
Designed by: James Dickinson
Sær is a card game of rival vikings fighting for Outposts – which score points. After three rounds (Spring, Summer, and Ragnarok!) the player with the most points wins.
Each player begins with a hand of six cards, three of which they will play face-down in front of them as their array. Your array represents your strength on four fronts: the four different outposts, there to be claimed by the boldest viking. The card suits each match one of the outposts, and basically the player with the most strength in that suit at the end of the season will claim it. The only non-suit cards in Spring are the Jarls, which don’t contest any outposts but make the cards either side of it in the array stronger.
Initially you have three actions on your turn: you can Withdraw a face-down card from your array back into your hand. You can Reinforce by revealing one of your array cards and playing an extra card from your hand into your array (at either end, but not between other cards). Or you can Inspire by adding a Glory cube to a card, making it stronger. You start the game with a single glory, but there are ways to get more, as we’ll see.
If you no longer want to (or cannot) take actions, you Pass and wait for the other players to finish their actions. Passing sooner is better in one sense: you get first choice of the available cards for next season, which are laid out face-up on the table for all to see. In summer there will be powerful Heroes available in each one, in Ragnarok, you also get God card with a special one-off power.
When everyone has finished taking actions, any hidden cards in the arrays are flipped face-up and strengths in the suits are compared. The winning player in each suit claims the outpost, and scores points: 1 point per outpost in spring, 2 in summer, and 3 in Ragnarok. Having claimed an outpost in spring, it helps you defend itself in summer, with each Outpost having a defence value. One breaks ties, one gives you more glory, one boosts the power of your Jarls and one has no special power but a higher defence value.
Once Ragnarok is concluded, the player with the most points wins.
Sam says
The catch of course is that in order to win an outpost, you’re no doubt spending the cards you would subsequently need to defend it. So the Outposts have a habit of changing hands, and the challenge is to steer this seesawing motion into your favour by manipulating both the economy of cards and the special powers of Outposts and Gods. Sær is not the most immersive game in terms of theme – it feels quite procedural in some senses – so lovers of Netflix-inspired Vikinginess may feel it lacks grit and gristle. But it’s a highly interactive, clever little thing, and you can certainly feel the sting when things go against you.
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Take That!
High
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Fidget Factor!
Perhaps best with 2 or 3 rather than the full complement of 4, the game gives everyone just enough to think about without feeling like the pace is adversely affected.
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Brain Burn!
The rules, whilst not exactly the most intuitive of the world of games, are pretty straightforward. Manipulating events in your favour can be rather more opaque, as you balance your card possibilities with the limited information from the other players.
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Again Again!
Publisher La Mame’s motto is making games that are interactive, strategic, and short. Those qualities are tangible here, and if you like the game’s combative vibe, it’s the kind of thing you can get into and play over and over.
