Lords of the North 2028

Lords of the North is a competitive strategy board game of influence, expansion, and war, set in a harsh medieval world where every decision can shift the balance of power.

Shape your realm through Religion, Development, and Power. Build cities and temples, expand trade routes, strengthen your authority, and compete for dominance across contested regions. Each turn gives you new opportunities to grow, but also brings the North closer to open conflict.

When tensions erupt into War, armies, morale, authority, resources, and fortifications all matter. Choose where to invest, when to challenge your rivals, and how far you are willing to push your advantage before the balance of power turns against you.

Build your influence. Command your forces. Rule the North.

In Lords of the North, players lead the Teutonic Order, Lithuania, Novgorod or the Balts across a map divided into three Sectors (A, B and C), each made up of several Areas. Players score Victory Points (VP) by holding Dominance in Areas and by taking part in Wars. Each player begins with 3 Action cards, and a random player goes first.

On your turn, you play an Action card to one of the three Sectors and choose a bonus by placing a marker on that Sector’s Solstice card (you may have only one marker in each Sector). You then take the bonus from the whole stack of Action cards in that Sector. You may play an Event, either a general one or one in your faction’s color, by paying a cost equal to the number of cards in the stack. Next, you choose one of three actions (Religion, Development or Power) and perform its middle field, then choose either its left or right side and perform that too. At the end of your turn, you take an Action card from any space, whether revealed or face-down.

Religion lets you take a Morale token, or remove a Village and take a Common Levy unit. Its right side builds an Abbey/Gontyna and replaces another player’s Population with your own. Its left side moves your Authority marker in that Sector and lets you perform an upgrade on your player board.

Development lets you build a Village and take 2 gold. Its right side builds a Trade Route. Its left side gives you gold for each Trade Route connected to your City, Temple or Population, after which you may exchange a Population marker for 2 gold.

Power lets you build a Fortification and gain 2 Recruitment points. Its right side moves the Population of any player and builds a City. Its left side gives you Recruitment points for each of your Cities in the Sector and a Food token for each Village there.

When the 4th Action card (5th in Sector B) is played in a Sector, the stack of played cards is moved to the used pile and that Sector’s Solstice card is resolved. First, players score Dominance in every Area of the Sector. You have Dominance in an Area if you hold the overall majority of Buildings and Population there, and you score 1 VP, plus 1 VP if you have a Trade Route connected to that Area (maximum 1). Ties are broken by the order on the Authority track.

Then a War is fought among the players with markers on the Solstice card (if only one player has markers there, that player wins automatically). Players bid only units from their Standby Army, plus Morale tokens, up to the limit shown on the Authority track, and they can bid only as many units as they can feed with Food. Players who bid at least one unit roll dice: one for each City in the Sector, plus the colored bonus dice determined by their Churches/Gontyny. All swords are counted to set the finishing order, with ties decided by marker position on the Solstice card, and players gain VP according to the card. Players then assign damage to their opponents’ units, and afterwards to Buildings, Population and Villages. Surviving units may return to the Standby Army by paying gold, and Common Levy units never return. If an Area has no City left after a War, it is flipped over and ruined.

The game ends when a player reaches 21 VP, when a player has built all of their Cities and has 17 VP, or when the Solstice cards run out.

-description from publisher