Board Game Review: Wilderness and Warchiefs Expansions to Northgard: Uncharted Lands by Studio H!

We’ve previously reviewed Northgard: Uncharted Lands by Studio H, a board game of strategic area control and dice-based combat that takes place over 7 in-game years. It’s a 4X-style deckbuilding game that also happens to feature some excellent miniatures that accompany the much speedier playtime than other typical 4X games.

If you’re already a fan of Northgard: Uncharted Lands, then you should be aware of the expansions for the game! Currently there are two expansions available for Northgard: Uncharted Lands – Wilderness and Warchiefs. Both offer additional miniatures while expanding the gameplay in different ways.

What are we waiting for? Let’s play some expansions to Northgard: Uncharted Lands!

Northgard: Uncharted Lands: Wilderness Expansion

Expansion Overview

Of the two expansions, the Northgard Wilderness expansion is definitely my preferred way to play. The purpose of this expansion is to add an extra dimension of challenge when playing with the Creatures from the base game. The creatures are an optional module to Northgard, but I’ve always found that I preferred the game a bit better with the threat of neutral monsters baked into it. This isn’t something that I had necessarily determined when I wrote the initial review, but it’s a sentiment that I’ve garnered over time.

All of the Creatures in the Wilderness expansion are of a higher level than any of the creatures in the base game, meaning you’re in for something of a challenge. Some get mixed in with the deck of Creature cards, while three of them are tied specifically to their Environment tiles. There are 11 new Environment tiles in all, offering new benefits or detriments to the territories around them. If you aren’t playing with Creatures, then the Ancestral Graveyard and Wyvern’s Den would need to be removed before starting the game.

And what are Creatures without accompanying miniatures? Five unique sculpts await you, including a Wyvern that I can’t wait to put my paintbrush to. Seeing these Creatures imposing their presence on the board instills a bit more fear than the Creatures in the base game.

What’s in the Box?

• 8 Creature Miniatures (5 unique sculpts)
• 11 Environment Tiles
• 8 Creature Cards to accompany their miniatures

Northgard: Uncharted Lands: Wilderness Expansion Thoughts

Northgard plays best with the Creatures, since they always force you to think two before expanding your borders too hastily. An ill-timed Creature on a player stretched thin can be devastating. The Wilderness expansion amps up that challenge factor in a really fun and interesting way, because all of the Creature abilities on display here demand some kind of answer thanks to their abilities.

Whenever I’m looking at an expansion, I really want it to give me something that enhances the base game completely. Some games suffer from expansion bloat – as much as I love you, you’re a culprit Terraforming Mars – and so I’m more selective now than when I first got into the hobby.

Wilderness offers “more of the same” through additional variety on the Creature front, but because of the tiles and abilities it feels like it expands the game in just the right way. It’s basically an increased difficulty slider that you can seamlessly integrate into Northgard without any trouble at all because the mechanics already exist. That makes it a quality expansion that doesn’t leave my head reeling with more rules and intricacies.

Northgard: Uncharted Lands: Warchiefs Expansion

Expansion Overview

The Warchiefs expansion is primarily used to help enhance the user experience when playing Northgard. It comes with Player boards and associated Clan boards that lock nicely together, searching as a combination player aid for the general game as well as the clan-specific powers. Hurray for streamlining!

You’ll get miniatures for each of the warchiefs, including an extra miniature of Kaija, the Armored Bear for the Bear clan. Slap on some of the provided colored plastic rings onto the miniature base to keep them distinctly yours, and suddenly you have a very nice visual upgrade to your miniature game.

On top of that, you’ll also find an additional Clan upgrade card for each Clan, offering just a little bit of extra oomph. I should also mention that the Warchief powers affect only combats that they’re specifically involved in, as opposed to being global effects of some kind.

What’s in the Box?

• 8 Warchief Miniatures
• 8 Clan Upgrade Cards
• 10 Colored Plastic Rings for the Miniature Bases
• 5 Player Boards
• 7 Clan Boards

Northgard: Uncharted Lands: Warchiefs Expansion Thoughts

Whereas the Wilderness expansion expands the game by giving more gravitas to the Creature element, the Warchiefs expansion for Northgard feels a little bit lack-luster in terms of mechanical benefit. It is really more geared towards a visual and organizational upgrade that definitely improves those aspects of the game. I would often reference the rules for the Clan powers or need to remember how the Turn phases worked out so having everything right there is very helpful. Additionally, the reminders for the Draw Pile and Discard Pile were also surprisingly useful to include as well.

None of the Clan Upgrades seemed to be terribly groundbreaking, gamebreaking, or overtly jaw-dropping to the point that I would be really impressed by them. I was also kind of hoping that this would include more than one upgrade for each clan; in that sense the expansion feels a bit lackluster.

All that being said, I really do like the Warchief miniatures and I feel like increased organization is never a bad thing. It’s a decent expansion, but nothing that I would rush out to get right away if you are already playing Northgard.

Northgard: Uncharted Lands Board Game Expansions: Closing Thoughts

So now we’ve covered both expansions to Northgard: Uncharted Lands available in the US market through Hachette Boardgames. If we hear word of more expansions coming out, we will certainly let you know!

My recommendation is to get Wilderness if you are like me and enjoy the Creatures module of Northgard. Otherwise, if you aren’t playing with Creatures then Warchiefs might be the better of the two for you.

You can pick up a copy of Northgard: Uncharted Lands or the expansions through Hachette Boardgames directly, or look for it on the shelves of your Friendly Local Game Store (FLGS)!

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Disclaimer: Nerds on Earth was provided a copy of these Northgard: Uncharted Lands expansions from Hachette Boardgames in exchange for an honest review: Wilderness and Warchiefs.