Haithabu – card game about Vikings

Founding a game publisher 19 years ago is probably one of a kind. What’s interesting, of course, is how that happened. Those familiar with the scene probably already know who the publisher is, namely H2.O, Herold, and Herold. Wieland Herold, the father of the publishing house’s founders, was a member of the Spiel des Jahres jury for many years. In this job, of course, a lot had to be played. Fortunately, the father was able to pass on his enthusiasm for games to his four children. Therefore, it is not surprising that the children did not just play, but soon invented the games themselves.

Soon, two of the sons came up with the idea to found their own publishing house. Not to get their father into trouble, they vow to wait until the father resigns from the jury before releasing the games and starting a publishing company. This point in time did not come until 19 years later, namely in 2019. Now nothing stands in the way of the establishment of the publishing house and the release of the first game.

Haithabo – with historical knowledge

The young publisher’s heart project is the current card game Heathabo – Tribes of the North. In this game, Weyland Herold brought another side of his personality that was perhaps lesser known to the gaming scene, namely his vast historical knowledge. Contribute to the historical background of the game at hand. Unfortunately, he was not able to accompany the publication of the game to the end, as it was on April 21st. 2022 He left the game of life after a long illness.

What are you talking about Haithabo – tribes of the north?

As a reviewer, I feel like I’m in a tough spot with this game. I’d really like to like the game, but what if I can’t?

Well, let’s look at the game first. It is located at about a card game With four different sets of cards, one set for each clan. Each race contains 20 Tribal Cards and 1 Champion Card. There are also 23 score cards and three city cards. Except for the graphics, the groups are no different from each other. These are number cards, three each for ‘1’, ‘2’ and ‘3’, two each for ‘4’, ‘5’ and ‘6’ and one each for ‘7’, ‘8’ and ‘9’. In addition, there are two cards without a number.

At the start, each player shuffles their 20 tribe cards and places their people’s hero card face up next to their deck face down. Then each player draws five tribal cards from his deck face down. The scorecards are shuffled and, depending on the number of players, up to four scorecards are placed face up. The three city cards are also placed openly (in a two-player game, one city card is removed from the game).

The role consists of four phases:

• First, a player can score if the scoring conditions for the displayed score card are met. The player must have at least one of his cards in the row scored.
• In the second action, the player can choose between playing a card, drawing a card, or exchanging cards.
• If there are nine cards in a row, the third action is to score the town.
• As a fourth measure, scorecards may need to be added.

See the details

Then it’s the next player’s turn. Although the recording comes at the beginning of the turn, let’s put it aside for a moment and take a closer look at the second stage. If a player decides to play, they can play any number of cards from their hand on one row or a different row. If the row is still empty, it can be opened with any card. If the cards are already in a row, the player must stick to the order. The row always goes from one to nine, but it doesn’t have to start with one. For example, the following rows are possible: 3,2,1,9.8 or 8,9,1,2.

With two and three players up to three rows can be placed, with four players up to four. Instead of playing, the player can also draw and expand his hand to five. As long as a player’s draw pile still contains cards, he also has the option to exchange cards. Up to five hand cards can be placed back under the stack and then up to five hand cards can be re-drawn. If there is a row of nine cards in length, the city points are scored in the third phase (if capital cards are used, any score card can be scored instead). In the fourth stage, if necessary, registration cards are filled in and one of the end conditions is checked.

Once per game, each player can use their hero card, which is always worth 10 points in the event of a tie. However, only one hero card can be placed per row and player’s turn. The game ends when one of the three conditions is met. Either the second player can no longer perform any of the three card actions, all the capital cards have been taken, or the last scoring card is drawn from the deck. Then the final evaluation is done. Each player adds their score sheets and points. As expected, the player with the most points wins. Because Haithabu is fast-paced, three rounds are recommended in the instructions. In this case, the winner is determined after three rounds.

Is Haithambo fun?

I find Haithabu’s background story very engaging. Unfortunately, it has a purely decorative feel to the game itself. The game is an abstract card game that needs no background and can therefore be equipped with almost any story. At first glance, this is a fairly simple game that brings back memories of various games by Reiner Knizia.

What sets the game apart is that each turn begins with a potential scoring phase. I do not know that. But this was with new items. In our experience, the best tactic is to play as many cards as possible. Cards were exchanged only if there was no other choice. The third end condition is not triggered with us, as there were always enough scorecards in play. In our experience, opening a third row on the second move in a two-player game provides an advantage for the starting player.

Haithabu is easily accessible and quickly explained, but unfortunately it won’t end up on the gaming table very often. The current revision copy is a preliminary version in which the cardstock does not print cleanly, hopefully this will not be the case in the final version.