Feast for Odin: The Harvest Mini-Expansion (A Review)

Currently only available for 5 Euros overseas, in German online and brick and mortar stores, I can’t think of another tabletop expansion that, euro for euro or dollar for dollar, brought as much innovation to a game as Gernot Köpke’s Feast for Odin expansion, Harvest, has.

Deceptively minimal and light, players will initially see Harvest as a kind of icing or accent on the game that they already love and have mastered, and will come to be surprised at the renewed sense of urgency that it brings to the long game, and the vitality that it brings to the short game, of Uwe Rosenberg’s Feast for Odin.

Feast for Odin: the Prelude

Inevitably, Harvest will be compared to the Terraforming Mars: Prelude expansion, another potent but small package, in that the Harvest resource tokens, and especially the revised short game rules, give players a ton of extra options in the first round, really opening up a host of different start-up strategies. While in the long game, each player picks one resource token, providing each player with one of two different resources depending on whether it is a harvest or non-harvest round, in the short game, each player starts with two of these, and also gets either immediately to put in play one of two dark brown (non-starting) occupation cards when playing with only the base game and Harvest, or, to choose an artisan shed when playing also with the Norwegians expansion, which starts pre-built, so that you have only to shove some food tiles into it to get its engines started.

Moreover, the revised short game starts each player with 3 hacksilver and an extra weapon card, so that, to sum, each player of the Feast for Odin: Harvest short game starts with 5 weapon cards, 3 hacksilver, two resource tokens, and one pre-built artisan shed. If this sounds exciting to you, you are right, and you will no doubt want to try this, “Prelude”-inspired, short game. In previous incarnations of Feast for Odin, the short game was unpopular due to feeling shafted out of a bonus round and a harvest, having six bonus rounds and four harvests in the long game, and 5 bonus rounds and three harvests in the short game. Moreover, pillaging-heavy strategies really need those back to back harvests in round one and two of the long game to get their engines going. And, worst of all–and this part is still unmodified in the short game–the cheap one viking islands flip much faster, making heavy exploration strategies more difficult and more of an investment in Vikings, when you are already missing 6 Vikings when comparing the long game (63 Vikings) to the short game (57 Vikings).

Feast for Odin: Harvest, the Overture

Cue up some pastoral music, whether Beethoven’s Pastoral, or your Aaron Copland of choice, if you will. It may help you with the crunchier and mathier aspect of this segment of the review.

Harvest is played exactly like Feast for Odin, aside from harvest randomization and set-up enhancements. Interestingly, Harvest takes the current status quo of plentiful harvests in the long game, and sparse harvests in the short game, and flips them, making it somewhat more likely that you are walking into a “dearth scenario” in the long game, and abundance in the short game. That Harvest accomplishes this through applying an identical randomization mechanic to both the long game and short game is highly interesting.

There are eight harvest tokens: four brown ones with a dash, signifying no harvest, and four orange ones, each of which indicates a different harvest. In round one, instead of getting the 1-1 Harvest (beans, flax, peas), you shuffle the four harvest tokens and pick one, which means you have a 25% percent chance of getting the basic 1-1 harvest you’re used to getting, but you also have a 25% chance of starting with the 1-4 harvest (fruit basket, cabbage, grain, beans, flax, peas), which usually don’t come out until round six. Whichever harvest you get in round one is removed from the tabletop, and the three remaining harvests are shuffled with the four no-harvest tiles, which means that in round two, you might be lucky to get another harvest, but most likely you won’t; the odds, actually are 4/7 that you will draw one of the dashes, or a 57% chance of no harvest in round two.

What does the randomization rule mean for the long and short games of Feast for Odin?

By the end of the seven round long game, there will be one unused harvest tile, making it roughly 50% likely that a long game will three harvests, and 50% likely that it will have the regular four harvests. As you’re also not guaranteed to get the 1-4 harvest, this means that, if you calculate all the odds, the Harvest long game actually feeds its Vikings slightly less, on average, than the base game. That is, instead of four guaranteed harvests, and a guaranteed round six windfall of the 1-4 harvest, you’re 50% likely to have three harvests, in which case, you’re 25% likely not to get the big one (with a combined likelihood of 1/8 or 12.5% of Harvest long games having three harvests and no fruit baskets). Food engines are much more important in the Harvest long game, giving the revised long game a more Uwe-ish feel.

By comparison with the long game’s tendency towards dearth, the short game tends to fructify more often, as you’re exchanging three guaranteed harvests, and no chance at all of the 1-4, for two to four harvests, with an equal chance for each harvest appearing in a particular harvest year. This means that you’re 2/3 likely to have either the same or more food than the base short game, and a 25% chance each harvest of one of those being the 1-4, which never appeared in the base short game.Additionally, the revised short game’s sense of plenty is accented by additional resource tokens, which often have food on their fronts or backs, the pre-built artisan sheds, and the additional food engines you may or may not have by the end of round one, depending on how you invest your starting Vikings. As you have enough money for animals in round one of the short game, some players may-wisely-choose to invest these in animals, resulting in even more food for some players.

In general, it is much easier to unlock some decent engines with 7 vikings and 3 hacksilver than it is with 6 Vikings and no hacksilver at all.

As to the set-up enhancements, the long game allows each player, in reverse player order (which wonderfully changes the first round choice of strategies), to choose one resource token, each of which yields the resource depicted on its orange front in a harvest round, and the consolation resource on its brown back in a non-harvest round. In the short game, you get to pick two of these, with the second token also being selected in reverse player order, and, on top of this, you either get to play one of two dark brown occupation cards before round one in the base game, or you get to choose an artisan shed, again in reverse player order, and start with it pre-built.

Along with the rules modifications, Harvest also brings additional content, not only an additional exploration board (1V Isle of Mull/ 3V Caithness), but a bunch of new 1×1 tiles, one of each color, which I’ll cover in the next section.

The Resource Tokens

There are ten resource tokens, which means that with with up to four being selected in each long game, and up to eight being selected in each short game, there are opportunities to try different paths in each game. When selecting your resource token(s), it is very important to check the back, as there is a very good chance you might be getting that bonus more than the front side, due to the randomization of harvests in Harvest. (More on that later.)

The resource tokens are super-asymmetrical, to the point that you can predict which ones will be selected most often; in a four player long game, the resource tokens that will be selected will probably be lumber, ore, stone, and either the hacksilver or the mead horn/beans token. Here I’ve listed the ten resource tokens in the order of what I predict will be their popularity with veteran Feast for Odin players:

Lumber / spear card.

Ore/peas.

Stone/sword card.

Hacksilver/berries

Mead horn / Beans.

Peas/oil barrel.

Shell/Mead horn.

Goldgubber/egg.

Bow/peas.

The goldgubber is a 1×1 blue tile; the shell is a 1×1 green; the egg 1×1 red; and the berries are 1×1 orange. The goldgubber is a neat inclusion, and there will no doubt be some players whose eyes light up at the thought of a free blue tile, no matter how small; I would urge them to reconsider their choice, as a hacksilver is also a 1×1 tile, and a spendable one, making it much more versatile. By comparison, think of a guldgubber as hacksilver that doesn’t spend. After a few plays, the only person who might be taking the goldgubber/egg resource token is player one in the short game, although the shell/mead horn resource token is a bit stronger.

While I think the starting Hacksilver is stronger than starting with a stone, particularly in the long game, where you could often use an extra hacksilver in round one, I’ve listed them in the above order due to my prediction that most players will favor starting with a stone over a hacksilver, due to feeling that three or four stone in a game is better than three or four hacksilver. And they would no doubt be right if things had the same value every round. But an extra hacksilver is just so useful in round one, as it helps you jump start animals or puzzle out extra income or a bonus square, or even hit the knarr market for one of the 1 hacksilver items plus the skates or the beads. In the short game, having 4 hacksilver is just so, so, so much better at the Knarr market than having only 3 hacksilver, letting you walk away with the hammer and the skates for a great start on Iceland, just naming one possibility.

I also think that while many players will love ore crafting in round one, the lumber resource token will end up being the choice token among experienced players, especially in the short game. The ore token may be 50/50 with the lumber token in the long game, but in the short game, when you start with all that extra stuff, plus an additional viking, there are amazing exploration paths you can take with the lumber resource token. (See my analysis of the Harvest short game below.)

There are two great things about the resource tokens, really: 1) they are indispensable action savers, which keep you from stopping at the mountain strips or the 1V and 2V weekly market in the first round; 2) they are exciting jump-starters, which allow you to get your favorite strategies and engines started even earlier. While in the long game to date, it has been tough to do any ore crafting in round one, unless it is pretty much all you do–spending 5 of your 6 starting vikings between the mountain strips and ore crafting–if you take the ore resource token, you still have half of your vikings left after doing ore crafting, which allows such wonderful combinations as 1V Flax to Linen; 3 V Ore Crafting (large armor suit), and topping it with a hacksilver in the short game, or a hacksilver or ore grabbed with your remaining vikings, so as to unlock three income and the mead horn bonus on your home board.

The choice of resource tokens is equally strategic in the long game and the short game. While in the long game, you want to consider the strength of the back side along with the advantage provided by the front side–especially any food they might provide–in the short game, you have to remember that whatever you pass on when it’s your turn to select a resource token will likely be selected by the next player in the second round of resource token selection. So, in the hypothetical scenario where player four chooses the lumber token, player 3 chooses ore, and player 2 chooses stone, player 1 must decide not only whether to take the hacksilver or the mead horn/beans, but resign himself to which one he wants player 4 to have. Because while taking the horn/beans token will extend your food a great deal, letting player 4 have the lumber and the hacksilver is much too strong (see below).

The usefulness of the available resource tokens diminish quickly, so that in a 4 player Harvest short game, player 1’s second choice is likely to be a pretty disappointing one, being either the shell, the bow, or the goldgubber. With last choice of artisan shed, and 5th and 8th choices of the ten resource tokens, player one is likely feeling that the strength of his starting position is not as strong in Harvest as it was in the base game or Norwegians. Anything he might do, short of being the first to build a longship, might be pre-empted by a player later in the rotation. Player four may actually be overcompensated in the revised short game of Feast for Odin. While the long game is more balanced with the reverse turn order selection of a single resource token, the last player in turn order has multiple advantages in the Feast for Odin: Harvest short game. Player one may actually feel like he or she’s starting in the hole in the revised short game, not unlike player four in the base game.

Let’s discuss some of the other strategic consequences of our dearth-ridden Harvest long game and our comparatively bountiful Harvest short game.

Feast for Odin: Harvest: The Long Game

Unlike the long game in the base game or Norwegians alone, the Harvest long game is marked by preparing for lack, so that there is a new emphasis on food engines. With less food likely to come in, and, in fact, a four round dearth of no-harvest rounds being a real possibility (there are three possible scenarios: H(arvest)/-/-/-/-/H/H, H/H/-/-/-/-/H, and H/H/H/-/-/-/-), one new goal for round one is trying to get a food engine going along with your prior expectations of having 2 or 3 income. And having a red food engine, such as the mead horn on your homeboard, Beekeeper, or Isle of Man, or the fish on Isle of Skye, is much preferable to an orange food engine, given that one red food will stretch your harvests by quite a bit. If you decide to play as if you have the round 2 harvest definitely coming in, and just focus on starting your blue/green/special tile production, you will be 57% likely to be caught flatfooted in round 2.

Due to this emphasis on food engines, one popular start for the last player will be: ore resource marker selected; 1V Flax to Linen; 3V ore crafting (large armor); and, 1-2V to grab the hacksilver or ore that will let you complete the 3 income / mead horn quadrant on your home board.

With randomization of artisan sheds in effect in the long game, you can’t guarantee nabbing the Beekeeper, but if you’re lucky enough to start with it, definitely play that side in the long game of Harvest. Even if you’re heading into a four harvest long game, the extra mead will be helpful in filling your houses. And if you’re heading into a dearth scenario, the mead production will be invaluable.

In the long game of Harvest, Isle of Man is the new Isle of Skye, due to having fast income, tons of food, and stone production to fuel making houses. Bonuses, in general, are even more useful in Harvest than they were in the base game and Norwegians alone, with players now giving serious consideration to whether they ought to unlock bonus squares or income first. Especially at higher player counts, in which action spaces are quickly exhausted, leaving each player highly dependent on their ability to produce bonuses on their exploration boards. Isle of Man is a great compromise here, as to unlock the pig bonus, which will eventually net you two pigs a round (one from the bonus, and the other from eventual breeding), you must unlock the income. Which isn’t to say that Isle of Skye isn’t strong in Harvest, just that if you plow straight ahead for the income, the wool, and the runestone, you might be caught flatfooted not just in one harvest, but in multiple harvests.

Feast for Odin: Harvest: The Short Game

I should say first that, until Harvest, I have never been a fan of the short game in Feast for Odin. It isn’t really much shorter–57 Vikings played instead of 63–and for that 10% reduction in game time, you’re losing an entire late game bonus phase, which might be worth thirty or forty points if you’ve been doing lots of exploration or building. Moreover, you lost the fourth harvest, and didn’t have two back to back harvests as you did in the long game, the better to focus on your engine building in the early game. When you’re speaking of the base game or Norwegians alone, Feast for Odin is so much better with the long game.

By contrast, I rather like the short game of Harvest. While it’s extremely asymmetrical and highly unbalanced–hints of which I’ve dropped in the preceding paragraphs–especially at higher player counts, in which the value of the resource tokens drop considerably with each selection, it’s very rewarding for experienced players to have, literally, everything that they’ve ever wanted to have in the first round, to fund impressive round one engine building or early point grabs. You’ll see players grabbing not only sheep, but cows or horses, or making remarkable progress on an exploration board in only one round. It’s even possible to hit the 4V Build Ship + House action in round one if you have the right resource tokens and another player sets up a mountain strip for you. I should say that this isn’t always very likely, though, as experienced players may never have to hit the mountain strips in the short game, though, given the right starting resource tokens, and being able to roll them into lots of lumber, stone, and ore bonuses through careful investment in sheds, houses, and islands.

While I’m a fan of asymmetry and imbalance in games, if it has led to one drawback in the Feast for Odin: Harvest short game, it’s the remarkable strength of the lumber resource token path, which results in Knarr actions being buffed considerably in opening rounds, and especially the first round. That is, whichever player choose the lumber resource token has some great options, and if you let a player have both the lumber and hacksilver resource tokens, they have outstanding round one engine building. Consider the following: 2V (Build Knarr), 1V Explore (Isle of Man), 3V Knarr Market (both 1 hacksilver pieces, the helmet and wand), 1V Theft (which will be pretty strong, given that you will have from two to four applicable weapon cards for this space in the short game). If the other players let you hit the 1V Explore, there is no competition for your next two actions, as no one else has a Knarr. You can easily unlock 4 income, the mead horn, and the stone bonus on Isle of Man in the first round, and be set for a round 2 fill. If another player realizes what you’re about to do, and pays 3 hacksilver for a whaling ship to take Isle of Man before you, you can take Iceland instead, which with 4 hacksilver at the Knarr Market follow-up action (3 starting plus one on the token) has a great start with the skates and the hammer, unlocking three income, and giving you the option of grabbing the fish or the oil barrel bonus. In a recent solo, I had the helmet and the wand from the knarr market, and the chalice from theft, having rolled an eight plus 4 of my 5 starting weapon cards applicable to that action space. I started with 4 income from Isle of Man, the stone bonus, and the mead horn, and my build on the island was pushing well towards the grain and the pig. While this is a lucky start, and you’re unlikely to be so lucky in every game, I would have been happy with receiving any of the size 9 pieces or better from the Theft action space. Moreover, there are no doubt other quick fills possible with the Knarr+1V Explore+Market+Theft combo, but Isle of Man is the one that I have latched onto, due to what I perceive as the island’s strength in this expansion.

Conclusion

Whether you’re playing solo or multiplayer, my experience is that each game of Harvest has been even crunchier and even more strategic to boot, due to Feast for Odin‘s puzzle shifting from the visual field of the tabletop to the mental field of planning. In the long game, concerns for food may change your investment strategies, and in the short game, starting the game with abundant cash and resources leads to surprisingly strong openings.

Moving from the abstract to specifics, in both of our multiplayer sessions of the Harvest long game, there was a four round dearth, which drastically impacted our engine building, and made those games as much about the cunning of our sacrifices as about the puzzle solutions we brought to the boards in front of us; these games were as much about what we lacked as about what we were producing. It’s a startling and creative evolution of Feast for Odin, in that now we must either plug these future holes in our resources with strong planning at the start, or otherwise puzzle how we are to make do without these tiles. Puzzling with tiles in front of us is one thing; puzzling with missing pieces is quite another.

Consquently, I predict many will choose to mod Harvest toward predictability. Some on the BoardGameGeek forums are already discussing such mods. I believe this is a mistake, as this expansion hits as high a standard as previous Feast for Odin expansions.

A Feast For Odin

Z-Man Games A Feast for Odin: The Norwegians Expansion

A Feast For Odin: Mini Expansion 1

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Feast for Odin: Which Artisan Shed?

The Prologue: Which Side Do I Pick?

I’ve wanted to do an analysis of the Artisan Sheds for some time, but with one already on Board Game Geek, I was waiting until I could contribute something not only useful but original.

What’s interesting to me is that often the sides you think are good aren’t as good as their flip sides. For instance, while most glom on the Hermit’s Hut, thinking they can upgrade the herbs to pigs, for a whaling strategy, the Icehouse can be better. The Icehouse is a wonderful artisan shed, even though you have to give up a whale meat to activate it, rather than upgrade it to a nine-green, because the Icehouse is the only artisan shed to produce a green tile you can lay directly on your exploration boards and homeboards, so that together with the income, it produces a potential three points a round.

Which isn’t to say that the favorite sheds–the Armory, the Mason’s Shed, and the Lumberjack’s Hut–aren’t wonderful sheds to have. The Armory is the best one, no doubt, not for the sword, but because it lets you get started ore crafting before other players. Any free resources early on gives you a wonderful advantage in saved actions, so the Mason and the Lumberjack are also nice to have.

However, many of the other favorites aren’t quite as good in play as we envision. So many times I’ve activated the Hunter’s Lodge, thinking I will use the extra bows on theft and the extra nets on laying a snare, but my actions get tied up in other active engines, and I end with a slew of weapon cards. So the Hunter’s Lodge is perhaps not as good as you think.

Often passed over, the Beekeeper’s Hut is actually pretty awesome, in that it’s very small, easy to fill, and makes a red food every round. The Pig Sty is even better, although slightly harder to fill, in that it makes a LONG red food every round.

Because one indissoluble facet of strategizing with the artisan sheds is your choice of which of the two flip sides to play, my mode of presenting the Artisan Sheds will be a mirror of the choice offered to players: that is, I’ll cover not each Shed individually, but each two-sided board, touching on both sides grouped together, which side is generally better than the other, and, sometimes, when the reverse might be true.

Armory / Cowshed

The Armory is the best Artisan Shed, not for the sword, but because short of a successful Elk Hunt unlocking the ore bonus on your home board, it is the easiest way to get an ore bonus going early, to fuel lots of ore crafting. (Otherwise, you have to snipe ore from Mountain Strips, which costs actions, and can result in you getting blocked from something else you wanted to do that round.)

The Armory is a little troublesome to fill in round one, but doable, through hitting the Weekly Market fifth column space, and laying down your starting bean, mead horn, and pea, as well as the mead horn and the hacksilver you just got. This means your round one feast will require the income that you just started making in the Armory, but that’s ok–you just unlocked an ore a round, or six ore for the long game.

The Cowshed is one you’d usually fill in the mid-game, as you’re generally unable to make cows in round one, and unwilling to part with one until you have breeding going. If you get Orkney in round 3, you could activate the Cowshed easily in round 4 if you don’t plan on breeding your bonus cows. One Cow plus one grain and the Cowshed is done.

As the Cowshed will generally only make two or three milks in a game, compared to six ore from the Armory, the Armory is the better deal. Moreover, the Armory’s swords will pile up until you build or buy a longship, giving you some great mid to late game pillaging actions. All this said, I could see someone ignoring this shed until they explore Orkney and Cork, unlock the cow and shed bonuses, and use the first shed bonus to activate the Cowshed, then fill it with the bonus cow, and a grain or a pea and a mead horn. It’s an easy eight points compared to the basic sheds, for which you have to stockpile all that useful lumber and stone in order to score the full eight points. However, why would someone wait until the mid game to activate their shed if they were lucky enough to start with the Armory? The Armory is such a useful shed–producing six ore, whether for ore crafting, chest crafting, pillaging, whaling, or simply filling those tiny spots in exploration board or your home board–that this would probably never happen, assuming a skilled player.

Mason’s Shed / Beekeper

This one isn’t so cut and dry as the previous choice. Both options here are pretty solid strategic choices. Either you unlock free red food, saving you actions during the game, or you unlock a less useful orange food and a stone, which fuels building houses, pillaging and crafting.

As there have been many games where I have never touched the 1V Craft Stone square, and many more in which I don’t build a house until round six or seven, by which point I have the stone unlocked on an exploration board and/or my home board, the Mason’s Shed isn’t the clear choice here for me.

Having red food bonuses is such an outstanding action saver in Feast for Odin that nine times out of ten I would choose Beekeeper. Moreover, Beekeeper is eight points instead of seven, only eight squares to fill instead of ten, and you only have to use one of the mead horns it makes to avoid the -2, compared to two of the six stone bonuses for the flip side. To top it all off, I have ended a half-dozen games with a half-dozen leftover bean tiles, so the Mason Shed’s bean bonus simply isn’t attractive to me at all.

There are a few starting occupation cards that would make me play Mason’s Shed, however, such as the one giving you a one stone discount on houses, so that with every stone it makes you could build a long house. That would be a sweet game of Feast for Odin.

Pig Sty / Hunting Lodge

At first glance, the Hunting Lodge looks like the clear choice. Players like to hit the risk actions, and the Hunting Lodge will let you succeed more often on those action spaces. Moreover, the Elk Hunt action space lets you grab big green tiles for your board, and the Hunting Lodge will impact that action space as well. Plus, the bow-a-round it gives you could make a difference on the Theft action space.

But look at the flip side. If you’ve read my other Feast for Odin posts, you know how easy it is to make pigs in Feast for Odin. You can make two by round two or three without going to the Buy Animal action spaces, simply by upgrading herbs you’ve acquired on weekly market action spaces. If other players let you do this (because in multiplayer, not everyone will be able to do this in the early rounds), you could get the pig sty going in round two, if you don’t care about starting pig breeding, or in round three, if you want to breed your first two pigs. If you don’t care about breeding pigs, you could grab an herb on the fifth column action space round one, upgrade it to a pig in round two while grabbing a lumber in the 1st column Mountain Strip action space, then build your shed, toss your grain in, and voila, one four-red tile every round. While you sacrificed breeding pigs, you’re breeding pure pork at the rate of one a round! Plus the income.

So the Pig Sty is a great action saver. It will make your harvests last a long time, and make it easier to fill houses. In most cases, the Pig Sty is the better of the two choices. If your play style is going to lots of hunting action spaces, you might fight me on this, but you should try playing a game with the Pig Sty and see how you feel about it then.

Lumberjack’s Hut / Barn

In this case, the obvious choice is the good one. If you’ve played even one of Uwe’s sandbox games, you know how important lumber is. If there’s one rule of thumb for playing most Uwe games, it’s “when in doubt, grab lumber.” Lumber is incredibly useful in Agricola, Caverna, and Fields of Arle, and it’s no surprise that it’s useful in Feast for Odin. In Feast for Odin, lumber fuels build ship and shed actions, hunting action spaces, and the 2V craft chest action.

As experience at Feast for Odin will teach you that most of this lumber should be obtained from action-free bonus spaces, the Lumberjack’s Hut is an awesome way of making sure you will rarely have to hit Mountain Strips for lumber after you build this shed.

On top of the lumber a round you get from the Lumberjack’s hut, you get an extra weapon card.

Compared to the Barn, it’s just no contest–so if I activate the Barn, I get 6 points, but I have to give up a six point horse I just got on a 2V/4V Buy Animal action space? And my bonus is ORANGE food? And unlike flax, it’s an orange food without any kind of quirky usefulness, as grain doesn’t really pop up in the occupation card anytime actions like flax does. Even though the Barn is the only shed to have more than one income, the two income is not a sufficient enticement to giving up a horse to get it going.

I will no doubt never build the Barn in Feast for Odin. Even if I luck into getting Wexford (which has never happened in multiplayer, due to the usefulness of Isle of Skye).

Hermit’s Hut / Icehouse

This is a tougher choice than any so far. Not that either of these sides are as good as the Armory or the Pig Sty, but they’re pretty decent options.

Actually, both of these sheds are pretty exciting on first glance, and they would be a lot better if they weren’t so expensive to fill.

The Hermit’s Hut, for instance, gives you a bonus herb a round, which can be upgraded to pigs, and get pig breeding going in round 3 without every buying pigs. After that, it’s a free herb and pig a round, and this combo is outstanding for filling long houses. You should never have to use Vikings to get food with this artisan shed in play.

However, no doubt because Gernot Kopke saw how useful the Hermit’s Shed would be to a skilled player, eventually producing much, much more than any of the other sheds once the pig breeding was underway, the Hermit’s shed has a larger area than any of the other sheds, including the Armory. The Armory only has eleven squares to fill, while the Hermit’s Hut has thirteen squares to fill. The top two on the left don’t have to be filled to unlock the bonus and the income, though. You could unlock the Hermit’s hut income and herb bonus in round one by hitting the 5th column weekly market, and placing one herb, one mead horn, one hacksilver, and one pea or flax, left to right.

On the other hand, the Icehouse is super easy to fill, given that you produce just one whaling meat tile and a peas tile. A lucky player might be able to activate this one in round one (1V Mountain Strip, getting two lumber, 1V Buy Whaling Ship. 3V Whaling, 1V Activate Shed on 1st or fifth column), producing one oil barrel a round. This would be quite a start, by the way, in that you would have the six-green bones tile to start 2 income on your home board, giving you a total three income going into round 2. Plus you’d have an extra oil barrel for starting off whichever exploration board you’re able to get in round two.

Oil barrels are great for helping to unlock bonuses on your exploration boards, as you can slip them in anywhere. I don’t like whaling in Feast for Odin anymore, but I might consider it, given this artisan shed at the start of the game.

Most times I get dealt this artisan shed board I choose the third alternative–play Feast for Odin without an artisan shed. They’re often prohibitively expensive alternatives. If I get Cork later, I might activate one of these sheds with the shed bonus on Cork, assuming I have good food bonuses coming in.

Whaling Hut / Spinnery

This is another one I often elect not to play, unless I get dealt some good early occupation cards that consume flax, in which case I play Spinnery. I also do hit the 1V Flax to Linen spot at least once per game, sometimes twice.

To my mind, Whaling Hut is simply too expensive, considering how useful a Whaling Ship is for Exploration in the early to mid-game (Orkney and Limerick are 1V islands, remember), and also considering that I’m giving up 3 victory points (a whaling ship) to unlock 7 on my shed.

The Spinnery can also sting you, as you will always want to use the linen you make from your flax to slip in on narrow spots on your home board grid or your exploration boards. I have ended more than one game with the -4 spot still open on the Spinnery. If that doesn’t get filled, the Spinnery is only worth 4 points, and not 8, although it has saved you lots of actions with the food, perhaps fueled some crafting or filled some houses, and given you a trickle of income.

While a red food bonus early in the game is nice, because the Whaling Hut is prohibitively expensive in the early game, I rate the Spinnery higher than the Whaling Hut.

If your income is coming in strong, you can buy a spare whaling ship for only three hacksilver to finish off your Whaling Hut. I am guessing you will need those three hacksilver for something else, though, such as going toward the cost of a knarr or longship so that you can explore the better islands ready to flip in the mid to late game. Usually by the time you can fund the completed Whaling Hut, you have a fish bonus from some other occupation board, as the fish bonuses are more common on exploration boards than most bonuses.

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