Looot is a resource management, tile placement game where you will be trying to create the most lucrative personal Fjord to be crowned the next Jarl of the Vikings.
I first got to see this game while I was up at the UK Games Expo earlier this year during the show preview evening when visiting Hachette Boardgames UK to catch up with Flavien. It was here were he guided us to this new release where one of the designers talked us through how it plays.
First Impressions
Upon seeing the game I quite liked the artwork on the cover though my expectations of the gameplay were hesitant due to noticing it was another boardgame that had a Viking theme so was hopeful that this would offer something new in how it plays. I was pleased with the quality of the components with the tiles being made out of good card stock, it has lovely wooden viking themed meeples and the linen bag for the longship tokens is well made.
Game Play Overview
Looot is played over a maximum of 13 rounds with each player taking a single turn each round. In a brief overview, during your turn you must place one of your 13 Viking meeples onto the shared board to collect resources which could trigger other conditional effects like constructing buildings or capturing buildings. You also have three optional actions you can take on your turn.
When placing out your Viking meeples they must be placed so they are adjacent to a longship or another Viking on the shared board and cannot occupy the same resource space as another Viking. Once your Viking has been placed you will then gather a resource tile that matches that space and add it to your personal Fjord. While taking this action one of two conditional actions could have been met if you placed your Viking next to a building or your resource tile completes a construction site.
If your Viking was placed next to a building tile you maybe able to take the Capture a Building action and add it to your Fjord board. Houses are captured if you place a Viking next to them, a Watchtower is captured if you have a chain of vikings in your colour going from one Watchtower to another and a Castle is captured by having chains of a certain number of Vikings in your colour and at least one of your Vikings being adjacent to it. You get you first castle when 4 Vikings are in a chain, you get a second if you get 8 in a chain and a third if you get 12 in a chain.
The other conditional action is 'Complete a Construction' which occurs when you are placing resource and building tiles onto your board. You will start the game with 3 construction sites that can be built over the course of the game. These are completed once you have the relevant resources and buildings around them and they will each score different points based on which ones you complete. Once they are completed they are flipped over to show they are built.
There are three optional actions you can take on your turn. The first is Selecting a Longship, where you can choose a longship tile from the ocean board and add it to your Fjord. Longships offer additional bonus points for buildings and resources at the end of the game though must be assembled during the game otherwise they get you 5 negative points at the end of the game. They are constructed the same way as construction sites by having the relevant resources adjacent to them and once fulfilled they flip over to reveal the points they will be worth at the end.
Another optional action is Using a Shield, where you will use one of your shield actions to gain an extra benefit, these are one time use bonuses that you can utilise only once per game. The abilities they offer are, place a second Viking on your turn, place a Viking where another players Viking is and gain the resource in that space and the final one allows you to get two of a resource instead of one when you place a Viking.
Lastly you can choose to take the optional action, Claim a Trophy, which can only be taken once by each player per game. Each trophy scores a unique number of points and each can only be acquired by one player. To claim them you must have the relevant number of axes on your Fjord board to add the trophy to your board.
The game ends once all the players have placed all of their Vikings out onto the board and then you calculate your total points. You will get points for all the buildings and resources you have acquired as well as any constructions and benefits from the longship tiles. The player with the most points will become the new Jarl of the Vikings.
Pros and Cons
As mentioned previously I really liked the components in this game as they are good quality for the price point of the game the only thing I would say is the Fjord boards are a little thin and I would prefer them to be thicker. I also really liked how the game plays it feels a little different to most Viking games as it has a fun puzzly element to it as you construct your personal Fjord by placing out the tiles and there is no fighting elements in the game which gives it a different feel to other games with this theme. The only con for this game in my opinion is that the 'Using a Shields' action feels a little pointless most of the time as it very rarely gets used during our games as they weren't needed. On a positive note though I did like the tactical depth the buildings offered by having different ways to capture them.
Final Verdict
Overall, I enjoyed playing this game due to the aforementioned components and many of the strategic elements this game offers. The game is very much in that light to medium weight strategy banding of games with some strategic depth but not too much to get lost in. This game is perfect for gamers who like games that offer a puzzle to solve with each game offering variability though isn't too complex to grasp. I can see people who enjoy Carcassonne and DorfRomantik enjoying this game.
In conclusion, we would rate this game a 8.4/10
You can watch a video of how it plays and pick up your own copy at:
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