In this offering from the Kosmos series, both players take on the role of Odin's beloved Ravens. Your brief is to watch over the land for Odin but that doesn't mean a bit of fun can't be had along the way. So the ravens engage in a series of races to determine who is the fastest. Each player has their own deck of cards, which they will use during the course of the game. In addition there is a set of terrain cards and these are used to create the land, which the ravens must fly over. The game is set-up by shuffling the terrain deck and placing 9 terrain cards down in a straight line. Each terrain card features 2 sides, which create the two flight paths for each player. Some of the terrain cards offer the same terrain on both sides but most offer 2 different terrains. In this way both ravens will have a flight path made up of different terrain. Each payer takes 5 cards from their own draw deck and play begins. To move a raven forward the players must play a card from their hand that matches the next terrain. A total of 3 cards can be played from a player's hand per turn but there are other options. The players can play 1 of these cards face-up onto the table. This is called their auxiliary stack. In future turns the player can play up to 3 cards from their hand and up to 3 cards from their auxiliary stack. Therefore it is possible to play cards to the auxiliary stack, allowing the player's raven to make long flights in future turns. The trick however is that only the top card on the auxiliary stack can be accessed. So if multiple cards are down there, the player must carefully place them to ensure they can be played in the correct order. At the end of a player's turn they can draw cards to return their hand to 5. The race is won when 1 raven reaches the final terrain. They score a number of points equal to the distance between them and their opponent. The first to reach 12 points (this means multiple races) will win. Of course there is far more to the game than this. If there are 2 or more like terrains adjacent to each other then the playing of 1 card matching that terrain will allow the raven to move across all spaces. Each players deck also contains a number of Odin cards that have special abilities. These can be used to alter the terrains of both players' flight paths. All of these allow the players to create more advantageous paths or hamper their opponent. There is also a separate deck called Odins Way. One of these cards is randomly drawn at the beginning of a race and features 2 terrain types or an Odin symbol. During the race the players can play matching cards onto their side of the Odins Way card. When the race is won, the player with the most cards played here will earn 3 points automatically. Therefore it is possible to lose a close race and actually score more points than your opponent by controlling Odins Way.

Odin's Ravens is in short an excellent 2-player game. To win a player must focus on their own progress as well as their opponents and the multiple ways to earn points also adds a nice twist. Multiple races means that the game can be lost but small victories can be had along the way, making the game enjoyable for all. Bravo!