If you’ve ever wanted to raid a monastery, build a longship, and rise to power as a Viking chieftain, this guide is for you. Learning how to play In the Name of Odin is easier than the box art suggests, and once you understand the loop, the game becomes one of the tightest hand-management euros on your shelf.
Our team has put dozens of hours into this NSKN Games title across the last few years, and we wrote this tutorial to get you from “I just opened the box” to “I just won as the new Jarl” in a single read. We’ll walk through the components, the action cards, recruiting Vikings, building your village, running raids, and the small handful of strategy tips that separate a casual player from a contender.
Table of Contents
What Is In the Name of Odin?
In the Name of Odin is a Viking-themed strategy board game for 2 to 5 players, designed by Adam Kwapiński and published by NSKN Games. The typical game lasts under 90 minutes, and the box recommends ages 14 and up. Each player takes the role of an ambitious Viking leader hoping to replace the aging Jarl by proving themselves through raids, trade, and clever village building.
The core engine is hand management: you play cards from your hand to take actions, then redraw back up to six. Each action either recruits a Viking, constructs a building, builds a longship, sends out a raid, or activates a hero. The game ends when a set of end-game conditions is met, and whoever has the most victory points wins the title of Jarl.
Despite the chunky miniatures and Norse theme, the rules sit firmly in the mid-weight euro category. Most new players finish their first game in around 75 minutes once they grasp the symbol system. That quick learning curve, combined with high replayability from varied card draws, is exactly why the game has stayed in our regular rotation for years.
Game Setup and Components
Before we walk through how to play In the Name of Odin step by step, let’s cover what’s in the box and how to set it up. The game ships with a player board for each faction, a stack of action cards, raid cards, hero cards, building tiles, Viking meeples, construction tokens, damage tokens, and a small mountain of wooden resource cubes.
Step-by-Step Setup
Give each player a player board, the matching faction miniatures, and starting cubes for each resource type.
Place the action card deck in the center of the table and shuffle raid cards and hero cards into their own decks.
Reveal the top card of each raid deck and place it as a face-up available raid target next to its deck.
Place the building tiles in a face-up display sorted by type so everyone can see what’s available.
Deal six action cards to each player as their starting hand.
The player who most recently traveled by water goes first; play proceeds clockwise.
Total setup takes about 5 minutes once you’ve done it twice. The first setup usually runs 10 to 12 minutes simply because the rulebook has you sorting a lot of small pieces. Plan a snack break for the very first game.
Understanding Action Cards (The Core Mechanic)
Every action you take in In the Name of Odin comes from playing action cards from your hand. Each card shows two symbols. Most cards show one action symbol (like a warrior, trader, or sailor) paired with one resource symbol (commerce, ship, or hero).
You have a choice on every turn: play the card as the action, or discard it from your hand to gain the resource symbols printed on it. This dual-use design is what makes the game sing. A card with a warrior and a commerce symbol lets you either fight or earn silver, depending on what your village needs more.
The Three Action Symbols
Warrior: Recruits a warrior Viking into your village. Warriors contribute strength to raids.
Trader: Recruits a trader Viking. Traders activate commerce buildings and unlock silver income.
Sailor: Recruits a sailor Viking. Sailors are required to crew longships and launch raids.
The Three Resource Symbols
Commerce: Generates silver when spent on commerce buildings.
Ship: Builds or upgrades longships when collected.
Hero: Either hires a hero card or activates an existing hero ability.
Your hand starts and ends each turn at six cards, and you only refill at the end of your own turn. This is the hand-management pressure that defines the entire game. Burning cards for resources now might leave you unable to act later, so every play is a small puzzle.
How to Recruit Vikings for Your Village?
Your village is the heart of your strategy, and Vikings are the population you need to staff it. There are three types of Vikings in In the Name of Odin, and each unlocks a different part of the game.
Warriors are your muscle. They don’t generate anything on their own, but they’re required as raid crew if you want points. Most players aim to recruit two to four warriors across the game.
Traders are your economy. Assign at least one trader to a commerce building and that building starts producing silver every turn. The more commerce buildings you have, the more traders you need.
Sailors are your fleet. Each longship needs sailors to launch, and longships are how you go on raids. Plan your sailor pool before you start building ships.
A practical rule of thumb from our group: aim for a balanced ratio of about 40 percent traders, 30 percent warriors, and 30 percent sailors by the mid-game. Specializing too hard in one Viking type leaves the others understaffed.
Building Your Village
Buildings are where Vikings become useful. There are several building types in In the Name of Odin, and each has a fixed cost in construction tokens. The cost scales up as the game progresses, so the first building you build is cheap and the last one is expensive.
Commerce buildings are the bread-and-butter source of silver. Once you assign a trader to a commerce building, it pays you at the start of every subsequent turn. Silver funds building construction, hero hiring, and a few special actions, so a steady income matters more than a flashy raid.
Specialty buildings give one-time benefits and big point swings. Some unlock new actions, some reward you for collecting sets of Vikings, and some produce points directly. We treat these as the late-game win conditions, since their costs run high.
The standard tip in every tutorial on In the Name of Odin is to grab the cheapest commerce building you can afford early. Even one silver per turn compounds across the game and gives you the cushion you need to chase a specialty building later.
Longships and Raids (The Main Gameplay Loop)
Longships are how you turn warriors and sailors into victory points. Each longship you build needs a fixed number of sailors assigned to it, and you then send it out on an available raid card to collect points.
How Raids Work
Choose an available raid card from the display.
Assign crew to the longship: you need both sailors (to crew the ship) and warriors (to provide attack strength).
Compare your attack strength to the raid’s difficulty number.
If you meet or exceed the difficulty, take the raid card’s points and discard the crew you used.
If you fall short, place damage tokens on your longship and the raid card stays in play for another attempt later.
Damage tokens gradually reduce your longship’s capacity, so failed raids aren’t free. They cost you the next time you try to send that ship out. Plan your attack strength carefully so you don’t chip away at your own fleet.
Raids are also the main source of player interaction in the game. Other players can challenge your raid by matching or exceeding your strength with their own card play, splitting the reward. This is where timing and bluff matter, and it’s the one part of the game where opponents directly affect each other.
Heroes and Their Special Abilities
Heroes are powerful one-use (or recurring) cards that you can hire during the game. Each hero card lists a hiring cost in resources and a special ability that triggers under specific conditions.
Some heroes give you bonus points for meeting a condition, like owning three warriors or completing two raids. Others unlock a new action, like refilling your hand or converting one Viking type into another. A few heroes are simply worth big chunks of points at game end.
The trick with heroes is that they’re expensive and you won’t be able to hire everyone. Pick two or three heroes whose abilities align with your planned strategy and aim to hire them at the moment when their condition is easiest to meet. Saving a hero for one turn too long can mean someone else triggers the condition first and your hero becomes a wasted hire.
End Game Scoring and How to Win
The game ends when the action card deck runs out, when all raid cards are claimed, or when the active player can’t refill their hand to six cards. Whichever end condition triggers first stops the game.
Players then add up victory points from completed raid cards, owned buildings, hired heroes, and any endgame bonuses on the back of hero cards or player boards. The player with the highest total wins and is crowned the new Jarl.
If two or more players tie, the tiebreaker is leftover silver. This makes carrying a small silver reserve across the final turn a smart defensive play, especially when you know you’re close to a score race.
Strategy Tips for Beginners
Once you’ve run through the basics of how to play In the Name of Odin, these tips will sharpen your early games.
Build a balanced village first. Don’t dump all your Vikings into one type. You need at least one of each to make the game’s three pillars (raids, commerce, and ship construction) work together.
Hire heroes early, not late. Most heroes get harder to trigger as the game progresses because other players scoop up the cards and Vikings you want. Snagging your two best hero targets in rounds three through five usually works well.
Save one sailor for the late game. You don’t need to crew every longship on the turn you build it. Holding a sailor in reserve lets you respond to a juicy raid card that the other players left on the table.
Don’t ignore commerce. A single commerce building with one trader pays for itself in a few turns and then keeps paying. Players who skip commerce often run out of silver mid-game and stall.
Watch the raid display. If a high-difficulty raid card has been sitting untouched for two turns, it’s going to be worth a lot of points to whoever finally clears it. Plan your crew around that card before anyone else takes it.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
We’ve watched new players fall into the same handful of traps over many games. Avoid these and you’ll already beat half the first-timers at the table.
Mistake 1: Building too many longships. Each longship without sailors is dead weight. Build ships only when you can staff them within two turns.
Mistake 2: Burning all your cards for resources. Discarding every hand for silver feels safe but leaves you with no actions on the next turn. Always keep at least one card that lets you recruit or build.
Mistake 3: Ignoring other players. Raids are interactive. Watching the table and timing your raid to avoid an opponent’s challenge is a free win.
Mistake 4: Saving heroes forever. A hero card you’re not going to trigger is points you’re leaving on the table. Hire on schedule, not on hope.
Mistake 5: Treating miniatures as the game. The miniatures are gorgeous, but the game is about cards and timing. Don’t plan around them; plan around your hand and the action economy.
How to Play In the Name of Odin with 2 Players
The two-player game is tighter than you might think, and it’s the version our group defaults to on weeknights. Setup is identical, but you’ll find raids resolve faster because there’s only one opponent who can challenge your play. Pacing becomes the dominant factor.
Speed up your tableau planning since each player’s turn takes longer relative to total game length. A good benchmark is to lock in your commerce and trader count by the end of the third round so you can race into specialty buildings before round six.
Raids become contests of pure efficiency. Two players tend to focus on the same high-value raid cards, so picking up a mid-difficulty raid while your opponent chases the top raid often nets more points over the whole game.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does In the Name of Odin take to play?
A typical game runs 60 to 90 minutes once everyone knows the rules. Your first game may stretch to two hours, but most groups finish in roughly 75 minutes after that.
How many players can play In the Name of Odin?
The game supports 2 to 5 players. It works well at every count, with 3 and 4 being the sweet spot for most groups.
Is In the Name of Odin easy to learn?
Yes. The card symbol system is intuitive, and most new players understand the core loop after one round. The trickier part is planning around the building cost curve and raid challenges, which comes with a game or two of practice.
What’s the difference between In the Name of Odin and A Feast for Odin?
In the Name of Odin is a smaller, faster card-only game published by NSKN Games, while A Feast for Odin is the larger, more complex game from Uwe Rosenberg featuring a central puzzle board. In the Name of Odin plays in under 90 minutes and focuses on hand management. A Feast for Odin takes 90 to 120 minutes and adds polyomino tile placement and a deep conversion economy.
How do you win at In the Name of Odin?
Win by accumulating the most victory points across raid cards, buildings, hired heroes, and end-of-game bonuses. Plan for balance rather than specialization, and time your raids to avoid opponent challenges.
Conclusion
Learning how to play In the Name of Odin rewards you with one of the tightest Viking strategy games on the market. You build a hand, you place Vikings in your village, you crew longships, you raid for points, and you race the rest of the table to a tight finish.
Start with balanced recruiting, grab a commerce building early, hire two heroes on schedule, and time your raids against the opponent’s hand. Run those four rules together and you’ll be competing for the Jarl title by your third game.