Paragon or Renegade? Either Way, The ‘Mass Effect’ Board Game Keeps The Action Moving
The Mass Effect board game is currently up for pre-order! We’re taking a quick look at what the game has to offer.
Mass Effect took the video gaming world by storm when it was first released back in 2007. But rather than dwell on the fact that that’s over 15 years ago, let’s discuss the latest installment to the franchise, Mass Effect: The Board Game – Priority: Hagalaz from Modiphius!
The game is currently available to pre-order direct from Modiphius, but they were kind enough to send us over a copy to check out for ourselves! So, let’s hop on board and check out the Mass Effect board game.
The year is 2186. On the remote world Hagalaz, a research cruiser from the terrorist organisation Cerberus has crashed directly in the path of a deadly storm. With little time before the storm hits, Shepard must lead their squad through the cruiser to uncover its sinister secrets and keep them out of the hands of the enemy. However, the ship holds more dangers than just its former crew…
Mass Effect Board Game Overview
The Mass Effect board game is a cooperative, campaign driven, tactical combat game. No matter the player count, each game will have four characters: Commander Shepard plus three additional squad mates. As you might expect, the available squadmate options are from Garrus, Liara, Tali, and Wrex.
Each character has their own strengths and weaknesses and unique abilities. All the information about each character is laid out on their character board.
As a campaign based game, each session of the Mass Effect board game will be a single mission from the overall campaign. The campaign is tracked on the campaign map. The campaign map will also list the Loyalty Missions available for each character. Completing a loyalty mission grants new character options for that character. However, there isn’t enough time to complete every loyalty mission, so choose carefully!
But How Does It Play?
Each game will begin with choosing the mission, likely from the campaign map. The mission will dictate the the victory conditions, what baddies you’ll be fighting, any special rules, and the map for the game as well.
The overall gameplay loop of Mass Effect is players taking actions with the strategy pool of dice. Each player shares the same pool of 12 dice. Each player rolls the pool before their turn, but can lock any dice rolled by the previous player. They will use these dice to move and take actions, up to 3 dice on their turn.
Different icons allow for different things, such as taking a move, making actions, or using special abilities. However, anytime a player rolls a Star before their turn, they activate their Core Ability and roll the die again.
At the beginning of the campaign, each character will only have very basic abilities. However, anytime a character knocks out an enemy, they gain XP. As the campaign progresses, they will have the option to spend this XP to unlock the new abilities with the black background on their character board.
At the end of each player’s turn, they will flip over a Hazard card they drew at the beginning of their turn. The hazard cards will often activate enemy units to move or shoot, or spawn new enemies entirely!
Play How You Want
It’s a Mass Effect game! Of course there’s a Paragon and Renegade system! Each mission will lay out rules for achieving a Paragon Victory or a Renegade Victory. Depending on the type of victory, the players will gain different benefits in the following mission.
For a paragon victory, the players will add an additional Paragon Die to their strategy pool. The paragon dice are solid blue and offer better results. But, more importantly, the paragon dice do not count against your 3 dice per turn limit, meaning a character could take 4 or 5 actions on their turn!
After a renegade victory, each character gains a Renegade Token. This allows the character to turn the token in in order to swap any die to a face of their choosing. Very powerful way to get that clutch attack in right when you need it most.
Final Thoughts
Overall, Mass Effect: The Board Game – Priority: Hagalaz keeps the gameplay quick and straightforward. There’s very little downtime and the shared dice pool means you’re always trying to consider your team mates’ turns as well.
The campaign map, paragon and renegade, and loyalty mission are pulled straight from the video game. If you’re a fan of the Mass Effect series, I think you’ll be very pleased to give this game a go.
