Fast and interesting tile-laying game for two players. The nice idea about Fjords is that each game is divided into two distinct phases: settling and farming.

Settling (and creating the board...)
In the first phase players alternate to draw a tile and attach it to a common landmass, according to the building rules. Tiles are composed by sea, green and montains and have to be combined accordingly (i.e., sea cannot be put attached to mountain...).

When a player may not place his tile, he can declare it is not possible, place it apart (it will be possible to pick it later again...) and draw another one. But first, the other player may check the landmass, looking if there is an available space: in that case, the other player is forced to place the tile and pass the turn.

This adds a little bluffing to the game itself.

After a land tile is placed, a player may decide to put on it one of his four farms. Once farms are placed, they cannot be moved for the rest of the game, so their placement is a very important move.

Farming (and scoring!)
When the last land tile is placed the secondo half of the game starts: players put their fields (small tokens) on the available green land, starting from the places near their farms and continuing with adiacent spaces. If a space is already occupied by a farm or a field of the other player it is not possible to place one of our own fields.

Of course, the possibilities of expansion in this phase are entirely based on:
- How the players built the landmass in the Settling phase
- Where players put their farms

So, the two phases are deeply interlaced.

At the end of the game the player who placed the most fields wins.

Simple rules and simple gameplay for a game that usually plays under 30 minutes. Artwork on the tiles is good and the wooden bits are nice, although very simple.

A downside of Fjords resides in the tile drawing mechanism: with few lucky draws a player is able to isolate a farm placed by the other player.

Also, the gameplay is not that varied and the game could become boring after a pair of matches... it is highly recommended to consider Fjords as a quick filler, instead of as the main course of a massive two-player night (no pun intended...).

The question is: do you "need" Fjords if you already own other tile-laying games which works good for two players, such as Carcassonne or Wooly Bully? It depends on how much you enjoy the tipical gameplay of those games. Fjords is enough different from the other ones to gain its own attention.

Score-wise, i'd give it seven ninjas out of ten. It would rather be six and a half, but all of you know how difficult is to cut a ninja in two halves...



The Bottom Line: Considering the low price of the game and its good gameplay it is easy to recommend Fjords to two-players games lovers. Just, do not exaggerate with the doses...