Mass Effect: The Board Game - Priority Hagalaz Review

Designed by Eric Lang and Calvin Wong Tze Loon (both of whom we interviewed in our preview) with art by David Benzal, Priority: Hagalaz, in Mass Effect style, is a campaign game with branching quests and alternate endings. More than 10 unique missions are neatly bound together in a campaign book containing each missions' map, along with the various objectives (each mission has neutral, paragon, and renegade objectives) and the list of the enemies you'll be facing. This campaign book, paired with a narrative book, handles the story and what the results of your actions turn out to be. Like I said in my review of the Divinity: Original Sin board game, I love that more campaign games are opting to use books for their maps and are shifting away from the cardboard titles to construct the maps yourself. It makes it so much quicker to set up, and that makes this game all that more enticing to play.

Except for the player characters’ miniatures, the game’s components are full of cardboard tokens. From the enemies and elites to the treasure boxes and objectives, you can expect maps full of little markers. Thankfully, the cardboard is sturdy and punches easily with no tearing or pulling happening with my copy. Still, if you prefer to cram your board with plastic minis, then you can opt to purchase them separately from Modiphius’ store, but expect to pay a hefty price, ranging from about $38 US for a single squad up to $325 US for 48 models (some assembly required and unpainted).

The player boards, one for each available character, is made of a sturdy laminated paper that allows it to be marked up with the included dry-erase marker. Each time a character levels up by gaining enough experience, you mark on the board to keep track of that character’s experience or skills they've unlocked, with one new skill unlockable per mission. It works fine, and so far I haven’t seen much in the way of staining due to the marker, but that being said, I wish that the game had gone with a duel-layered playboard instead with little areas that you would just slot in cubes or cards or something instead of the marker approach.

Taking on these dangerous missions will of course require a hardened group of soldiers, and Priority: Hagalaz features a great selection of fan favorite Mass Effect squadmates. Both male and fem Sheps are available to choose from, with identical skills and stats, while Garrus, Liara, Wrex, and Tali each come with a unique set of skills that work best in different situations. Garrus, for instance, can take aim and dish out a bunch of damage all at once; Tali can send out her drone; Liara can use her biotics to freeze enemies in place with Statis; Wrex gets mad and takes it out on any unfortunate Cerberus soldier or Reaper near him; and Shepard can inspire and command the troops, letting them perform better.

Missions require you to take four party members, one of whom must be Shepard (and loyalty missions require said character as well), which means you will always have to leave one of your alien friends behind on the Normandy. Every character has their own unlockable skill tree, including special abilities that can be learned by taking on their loyalty missions between main mission scenarios. Wrex has by far the best-named skills out of everyone, with attacks like “Wrex not happy” and “Shoot it 46 more times” that are just peak Krogan goodness. There will be missions where Character A will be better suited to handle the objectives than Character B, but Mass Effect is balanced in a way that you are never screwing yourself over if you don’t take that one crew member with you. Strategy and not spreading your team too thin is far more important than its composition, which I find to be faithful to the series.

One thing that I really appreciate about Priority: Hagalaz is that it doesn't require players to meet up for a ton of games in order to see the story through to completion. In fact, with each scenario taking maybe 40 - 90 minutes, and each “run” of the story consisting of about five scenarios, you could comfortably make it through a playthrough in a day or weekend. No yearlong-plus commitments here! Now, if you want to see every outcome, then that will require a bigger time commitment and multiple playthroughs, but I wouldn't say that's necessary.

The designers should be commended for putting together a solid and rewarding campaign experience that supports multiple replays but is also welcoming to new players of the genre without much sacrifice.

Getting into a game is pretty painless. All you have to do is flip to the correct page in the campaign book, pull that level’s enemy tokens from the included cloth bag and place them on the marked spots, grab either the Cerberus or Reaper hazard deck, and finally place your character minis at the starting location and you’re ready to go. The whole process maybe takes five minutes. Learning to play is also a straightforward affair with everyone I taught usually picking it up after a full round around the table.

Turns start with the active player rolling a set of dice, picking three dice and using the face’s displayed actions by placing it on their boards. Then you draw a hazard card to see what enemies spawn or take an action, and then the turn passes to the next player who repeats the same steps. Each subsequent player rolls three less dice for their actions, meaning the last player is forced into whatever they roll – however, everyone but the first player can “lock” one of the dice that the previous player rolled and didn’t use. If you opt to complete the Paragon objectives in stages, you can earn yourself additional dice. Choose Renegade, and you earn special tokens you can use to change the face of a dice you roll.

The reduction in dice is an interesting mechanic, but I would have rather have a smaller pool of dice, perhaps five, that everyone rolled as opposed to a shrinking pool of dice. It feels good to roll a lot of dice, giving you a lot of choice, but if you’re stuck at the end, only getting a few dice to roll – or less if you opt to lock in one the previous dice to play it safe – it’s not so much fun. You feel penalized, at no fault of your own, that you are last in the turn order, and I would much prefer giving up my ability to roll 12 dice as first player, if it means someone doesn’t get stuck with only three.

Perhaps my biggest issue with this game is the character Shepard and the mechanic that if they get taken out, the whole mission fails immediately. While this may be loyal with how it’s handled in the video games, in those, you never lose control over Shepard and can always move him out of harm's way – something that you can’t do here in the board game. Here, you have four randomly drawn enemy turns standing between you and when you can act next, with no real way to defend yourself if the cards aren’t in your favor. Instead of being the hero of humanity, who would run into any fight alongside their crew, this makes Shepard feel more like a liability or third wheel that should stay at home where it’s safe. I have had more than one mission fail simply because I died, and in one of them I was even at full health at the end of my turn, and everything went downhill before I could take any action. Had the game added a round timer or something that gave the rest of the party a chance to revive him, it may alleviate my issue with this decision, but as written, I quickly stopped wanting to be the person stuck playing as the Commander.

This issue also touches on another aspect of Priority: Hagalaz, which prospective players should know. If you aren’t a fan of uncontrollable randomness in your games, this game may not be for you. From the actions you can take via the roll of the dice, to what enemies may or may not take action (and what character may be attacked), even to what enemies you may spawn by drawing them from the bag, is all left up to chance – chance that you and the other players have no way of mitigating.

Where to Buy

Mass Effect: The Board Game - Priority: Hagalaz releases this October just in time for N7 day (November 7), with pre-orders available now on Amazon, Asmodee, and Modiphius’ website.