Thorgal: The Board Game Review

8/10

Thorgal: The Board Game is a cooperative campaign game for 1-4 players, built from 10 linked scenarios of 60-90 minutes each — roughly 15-20 hours if you play it through. Buy it if you want a campaign whose decisions actually carry forward and you have a group that will commit to a run. Skip it if your table plays a different game every week; this box wants continuity.

What makes it worth the commitment is that the branches are real.

The campaign is the product

Most cooperative box games sell you a set of missions that happen to share components. Thorgal sells you a story with forks in it: choices made in one scenario change what later ones look like.

That has a practical consequence people underestimate. It means a campaign belongs to the group that played it — you cannot drop a new player into scenario seven and expect the state to make sense, and you cannot easily replay a branch without unwinding what led there. The 15-20 hours are best treated as a commitment made once, with the same people, rather than a library you dip into.

It also means the replay value is not what a scenario count suggests. Playing again means taking the other branches, which is genuinely different content — but it is a second run, not a fresh game.

Source material, and whether you need it

The game adapts arcs from the Thorgal comics by Jean Van Hamme and Grzegorz Rosinski, a Belgian series with decades of material behind it. You do not need to have read any of it. The scenarios carry their own setup, and the campaign booklet supplies the context as you go.

What reading it adds is recognition rather than comprehension: Kriss of Valnor lands differently if you know who she is, and the foes — Nidhogg, the Jomsvikings — are drawn from the same well. Newcomers get a competent Norse adventure; readers get to see arcs they know play out with their decisions attached.

Components and characters

The core box holds 12 miniatures at 32mm scale, character decks, a board covering locations from the Thorgal universe, and the usual tokens for health and progress. 32mm is the common tabletop scale, so the figures sit alongside miniatures from other games without looking out of place if you paint them.

Each character has their own ability deck, so the group’s capability comes from combining characters rather than from any one player’s turn being optimal. That is standard for the genre and executed properly here.

How a session runs

Setup means laying out the board, dealing character cards and miniatures, and preparing the scenario — not fast, and the most common complaint about the game.

Turns are draw-then-act within your character’s abilities: move, attack, gather resources. Combat mixes card play with luck, and each enemy has its own mechanics, so a plan that beat one encounter will not transfer to the next. Expect a well-built turn to occasionally fall apart on a draw.

Playing it solo

Solo sits inside the supported 1-4 range, and the campaign structure suits it better than most co-ops manage. A branching story played alone is closer to a choose-your-own-adventure with tactical combat attached: every decision is yours, and the consequences arrive several scenarios later without anyone to share the blame.

The practical advantage is scheduling. The thing that breaks campaign games is a group that cannot meet consistently — a month between scenarios and nobody remembers which branch they took or why. Alone, the campaign progresses whenever you have ninety minutes, which is the difference between finishing a 15-20 hour box and abandoning it at scenario four.

What you lose is the argument. Cooperative games are at their best when a table disagrees about the right call and has to resolve it, and a branching campaign is built to provoke exactly that. Solo, those forks become preferences rather than negotiations.

What works and what does not

Works well:

• Branching scenarios make decisions matter across the campaign rather than within a single session.
• 15-20 hours of linked content in the core box, without expansions.
• 32mm miniatures compatible in scale with other tabletop lines.
• Solo play is inside the supported range, not an afterthought.

Does not:

• Setup is slow enough to discourage a spontaneous session.
• Luck in combat can undo good planning.
• The campaign structure punishes an inconsistent group — missed players and long gaps both hurt.

Verdict

8/10. The branching campaign is the reason to own this rather than a generic co-op, and 15-20 hours in the base box is honest value. Setup time and combat variance are what hold it back.

Buy it for a group that will see a campaign through. If your board game nights are opportunistic, the thing that makes Thorgal good is exactly what will make it frustrating.

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Other Epic Board Games to Check Out

If you love cooperative adventure board games like Thorgal, be sure to check out our reviews of Gloomhaven or 7 Wonders.