Raiders of the North Sea

To set up, place the game board in the center of the playing area. Place black workers on the Gate House, Town Hall, and Treasury spaces. For each raiding space, place either a gray or white worker as indicated in the upper right corner of the board. Mix all Valkyrie, gold, iron, and livestock tokens into the provided bag. Randomly draw a number of these tokens from the bag, based on the value shown in the upper left corner of each raiding space, and place them into these spaces. Empty the remaining tokens from the bag into a supply near the board, along with the two red dice, silver coins, and provision tokens. Shuffle the offering tiles into a face-down pile, then draw three face-up into their designated spaces. Shuffle the townfolk cards into a face-down pile. Deal each player a ship card (face-down on the 50-point side), matching colored score markers, two silver coins, and one black worker. All players place one of their markers on each of the zero spaces of the three tracks lining the outside of the board. Deal five townfolk cards to each player, who privately chooses three to keep and returns two to the bottom of the draw pile. Each player rolls the two dice, and the one with the highest total value takes the first turn.

In Raiders of the North Sea, players aim to become the most renowned Viking by accumulating the most victory points. This is achieved primarily by undertaking raids on settlements to collect plunder, which can then be offered to the Chieftain for points. Players also gain points by hiring a strong crew, improving their armour, and advancing on the Valkyrie track. The game involves strategic worker placement and resource management to prepare for and execute successful raids.

On your turn, you will perform either a Work action or a Raid action. For a Work action, you place one of your workers (which might be black, gray, or white) onto an empty space in the bottom portion of the board (locations with workers already present are blocked). Some locations require a specific worker color. After placing, you resolve the location's effect. Then, you reclaim a different worker from any space on the board and resolve the effect of the building from which you reclaimed it. You cannot reclaim the worker you just placed. For a Raid action, you must have a crew size at least as large as the number of cards shown for the raiding location and be able to discard the required number of provisions and/or gold. You then place a worker of the required color onto an empty space at the raiding location. You roll the number of dice indicated for the location and add their value to the strength of your hired crew members and your armour level. If your total strength is at least as high as the red value on the location, you gain the yellow victory points. You then collect the worker from the raided settlement and all plunder located there. For each Valkyrie token removed during a plunder, you must discard one hired crew member of your choice, moving your marker up the Valkyrie track by one.

Victory points are accumulated throughout the game and at the end. During raids, players gain victory points based on their strength compared to the settlement's defense. At the end of the game, players score additional points. These include points based on their position on the Valkyrie track (yellow banner value), their position on the Armour track (yellow banner value), one point for every gold and iron token they possess, and one point for every two livestock tokens. Leftover silver does not provide extra points. Players are reminded of these scoring values on their player card.

The game ends immediately when one of three conditions is met: all Valkyrie tokens have been collected from the board, the offering draw pile is depleted (even if there are still offering tiles face-up on the board), or only one of the six fortresses at the top of the board remains unplundered. When any of these conditions are met, the current player finishes their turn, and then all other players, including the current one, complete one more turn. After this final round, all points are tallied. The player with the most victory points wins. In case of a tie, the tied player with the highest marker on the Valkyrie track wins. If there's still a tie, the tied player with the highest marker on the Armour track wins. If a tie persists, the tied players share the victory.