Knarr (Digital Eyes)

Vikings were known for plundering, but what many people forget is that they also did a lot of trade. In fact, the Viking Era saw an increase in trade in the English Channel, the North Sea and the Baltic. There was one vessel that was specifically made for the exchange of large quantities of goods. It was a cargo ship with a shorter hull than the commonly known longships, which were mainly warships, and that had only a partial deck or sometimes none at all. It was specially adapted to the high seas to transport goods safely from shore to shore. To the Vikings, it was known as the Knarr by Thomas Dupont from Bombyx.

With that brief history lesson out of the way, let’s focus on what the game is actually about. After all, Knarr is not particularly educational, even though the rulebook starts with a description of the Vikings and has a glossary explaining many Viking words. Saying that, there are a lot of very thematic elements to a game that ultimately could be quite an abstract card drafting, engine-building game. Actually, describing what Knarr is all about is quite hard, but let me give it a go.

The Core of Knarr

At the core of it, you draft cards to try and build up a tableau of cards of the same colour. Every card you add to the stack of matching colours triggers not only the ability of the played card, but of those cards already in your tableau that have the same colour. So, the more cards of one colour you have, the more powerful each turn becomes.

There are five colours in Knarr, each consisting of four types of cards: those that simply give you a single victory point, ones that give you a recruit token, others that give you a bracelet token and the last type that increases your reputation.

The goal is to gain as many victory points as possible, as you would expect, but there are various ways of achieving this.

The simplest is by using the cards that each give you a single victory point. Another way to gain victory points is by increasing your reputation. As your token moves up the reputation track, it passes waypoints that increase how many victory points you get at the beginning of your turn. To start with, you get no victory points at the start of your turn, but the higher you go up the reputation track, you stand to gain a respectable five victory points every time the round comes back to you.

As soon as a player reaches or goes beyond forty victory points, the game end is triggered. You finish playing the round and then whoever has the most points, wins. So it is possible to overtake the player who crossed the forty-point line first and take the win.

Trading and Exploring

That in itself already creates an interesting dynamic, but Knarr adds a couple more elements that create additional dynamics and that allow for multiple routes to victory.

I mentioned bracelets earlier. On your turn, you can trade these for points, more recruits, increasing your reputation and even another card drawn randomly from the deck. What you get, depends on how many other places you have explored in the game.

To start with, your cargo ship only gives you additional recruit tokens. However, instead of playing a card into your tableau, which represents your Viking crew, you can decide to explore. There are another two decks of cards that thematically represent destinations that you can visit. In reality, they are upgrades to your Knarr, which cost a certain combination of cards from your tableau, which you can top up with recruit tokens you have earned.

So you have to work out whether it’s worth culling your tableau to get a ship upgrade or whether it’s better to play another card and increase your reputation and get points. It’s never an easy decision and timing is very important. After all, if you get rid of good cards, the next card you play may suddenly not be as powerful, because it no longer triggers previously played cards.

You also have to keep an eye on your recruit and bracelet tokens. You can never have more than three of each. So sometimes it’s worth exploring and spending your recruit tokens, which are basically wildcards that can stand in for any card that needs to be paid for a destination.

Interesting Timing

As I said, I find it hard to properly describe Knarr. There is a very interesting timing element to it. First, you build up your crew and increase your reputation and recruits. At some point, you explore to upgrade your ship to improve your trade. The problem is, now your crew is smaller and the next card you play isn’t as powerful. Also, after investing in cards that increase your reputation and victory points, you now want bracelets, but don’t have the right cards.

Yet, if you can time it right, you can pull off amazing turns. Also, when the cards don’t quite go your way because someone else started collecting the colour that you planned on using, pivoting to another colour and spending the useless colour on an exploration action can get you out of a tight spot and sometimes even give you a good edge.

I’ve played Knarr many times now and every game has been different. There is no single route to victory. You really have to play the cards that are available, meaning the crew cards and the exploration destinations. You need to keep an eye on what other players are doing as well, to make sure you change direction when necessary.

Knarr is the sort of game that is really easy to explain and doesn’t take long to play. Having two or three games in one evening is easily done. It’s also weirdly addictive and even though it’s all quite abstract, the way the theme is integrated into the gameplay really works. You do feel like you’re getting better as you explore more and increase your bracelet production to allow you to trade for more points, reputation and even cards.

Vikings!

I know there have been quite a few Viking-themed games released recently. Odin and Viking See-Saw come to mind. They are all very different games, but I think Knarr brings the Viking story to life the most. It is probably also the most addictive of the three. I love Odin as a ladder-climbing game and Viking See-Saw is a great dexterity game, but Knarr scratches a much stronger itch.

While it’s partially multiplayer-solitaire, because everyone builds their own tableau, you can’t ignore what others are doing. In fact, sometimes you intentionally take a card that you feel would give another player a benefit or decide to explore a certain destination that would give them the victory. You just can’t take your eyes off what’s going on around the table.

So, yes, I think you can tell how I feel about Knarr. It’s a real gem of a game and I really want to get myself a physical copy to play with the family. After all, it’s pretty easy to teach and other than your hand of cards, everything is open information. So it’s easy to help players until they fully understand what’s going on, which really won’t take long.

Useful Links

• Knarr: https://studiobombyx.com/en/jeu/knarr/
• Rulebook: https://studiobombyx.com/assets/KNARR_rulebook_EN-1.pdf
• Bombyx: https://studiobombyx.com/en/
• BGG listing: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/379629/knarr
• Odin review: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2024/03/30/odin-saturday-review/
• Viking See-Saw review: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2023/09/16/viking-see-saw-saturday-review/

Videos

Transparency Facts

I feel that this review reflects my own, independent and honest opinion, but the facts below allow you to decide whether you think that I was influenced in any way.

• I played a freely available online copy of the game.
• At the time of writing, neither the designers, nor the publisher, nor anyone linked to the game supported me financially or by payment in kind.

Audio Version

Intro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot (https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/)

Sound Effects: bbc.co.uk – © copyright 2024 BBC

I Walk With Ghosts by Scott Buckley | https://soundcloud.com/scottbuckley
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Creative Commons / Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Playlist

These are the songs I listened to while I was writing this review: