Episode 36 - Mass Effect: The Board Game - Priority: Hagalaz - We're Board With Each Other, and This is Our Favourite Game on the Citadel

Welcome back for another episode!

In this month's deep-dive review, we return to IP land to look at the board game adaptation of a video game very close to our hearts, Mass Effect. Is this skirmish mini campaign experience any good, or does it require more calibration? Listen to find out!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of Board With Each Other, the board gaming podcast that reviews board games and looks at them and asks the question: how well does this play at two players? Whether that be with your significant other, your BFF, or your crewmate that you're trying to entertain in between calibrations. I'm joined as ever by my player too, my lovely wife, and my co-host, Hannah Kelly.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Hi guys.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

And today we are looking at Mass Effect the Board Game, Project Hagalaz, to give it its full title. Mass Effect the Board Game is a skirmish game played on a map book. If anybody's played Jaws the Lion, zoom over Jaws the Lion, they'd be familiar with the concept. Very similar. And in the game, you go through a series of missions for um which basically form a short campaign. There are three missions in a campaign, but you have optional loyalty missions that you can do for your squad mates in between.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Why would you leave them as optional?

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Well, yeah, I mean you don't you don't have to do them, maybe you just want to mainline the campaign, but you'd be silly to. So essentially five missions. Uh they are played on quite small maps. Uh you have obviously shepherd, but you also can choose from Rex, Liara, Tarley, Garus, and Lady Shepherd. Yes, both both male shepherd and lady shepherd. Um who are represented by miniatures. And you fight basically either the Reapers or Cerberus. Cerberus. The Cerberus and Reapers enemies are represented by little cardboard tokens, so no miniatures there, the only miniatures you get are for the main squad. And on your turn, you roll a number of dice depending on what order in the turn you you are going. Um the game has to be played in four characters, so if you're playing with two players, you play two each. And the starting player rolls, I think it's 12 dice. Uh it's 10 or 12. From those, you select three of them to uh put on your sheet as your actions, so things like moving and attacking, uh, but also using abilities. When you kill an enemy, you gain an experience point, provided you use an ability to do so. If you gain three experience points in a mission, you level up.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Ging a ling!

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Yeah, and you unlock new skills. The objective of the missions obviously change depending on the mission, but it's often sort of go to the space, do something, and then perhaps fight an elite enemy, which is like a boss, um, and they all have their own rules. Uh, combat doesn't feature any dice rolls or card flipping. Basically, you do damage depending on your the ability that you used. The different uh enemies have different shield values, and if you do enough damage to wipe their shields during a full round, so all four players going, the enemy gets removed from the map. At the end of every character's uh three actions, you flip over a card, which will basically tell you what the enemies do, bad things happen. The classic carp, a bad things happen card. So maybe that certain enemies activate and attack you, it may cause more enemies to spawn. Turrets. Or yeah, turrets fire. There are three cards in each deck, so whether you're playing Cerberus or the Reapers, um, that are called escalation cards. Once you draw the three escalation cards from the deck, you shuffle it back together and you tick a box. If that happens three times during your playthrough, game over. Um so there's sort of a timed element to it all. If your squad mates are downed, so their shields and their health are wiped out, they can be revived, except for Shepherd. If Shepherd is downed, you you lose the mission altogether. Yeah. All missions have a paragon and a renegade uh objective, aside from the Lords of missions, they're slightly different. But if you do the paragon objective, which is usually a little bit harder, you unlock additional dice to add to your pool as the campaign goes on. If you complete the renegade one, you get renegade tokens, which allow you to be the sort of one use that allows you to change a dice to any dice side that you want.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Loyalty missions, then.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Yeah, so loyalty missions, you basically pick a squad mate and do one of their missions, and if you complete the mission, you unlock a special ability for them at the end.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Yeah, it's the only way that you can unlock that special ability to do that.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Yeah, you can't go through them all levels.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Character thematic.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Yeah, and also usually quite powerful.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Um, but because you only have two loyalty missions, you can only do two out of your three squad mates in any one campaign playthrough. Um, one of the fundamental mechanisms of the game, because of the dice pooling aspect, is once characters you've used dice, they're removed from the pool for that round. So the character going last usually ends up starting going through four dice. Um, so your your options start to get more limited as time goes on. To help combat that a little bit, so each character before they roll the dice can lock in one of the dice rolled by a previous player. So if you know you really want to move next turn and you've only got a small pool, you can lock one of those movement dice in. Um but yeah, that's about it, I think. I don't know if there's any other rules.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

You can um fail the first two missions that carry on, but I think if you fail any other ones, no, if you fail, you carry on regardless, but you'll get the bad ending as such. Oh, yeah, okay, that's it.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Um, yeah, I should have mentioned that win or lose, you carry on to the next mission. Um in each mission, but the but depending on what you do, you'll earn a number of war readiness points, which is essentially your score for the campaign.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

And how much war readiness you end up with at the end will change the flavor text of the narrative book that you get to read because of an accompanying narrative book. So when you complete scenarios, you complete certain things, you get to read the flavour text. You have a cutscene, basically.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

You do. So for those familiar with the Mass Effect series, the game basically takes place during the course of Mass Effect 3. So that's where it is in sort of the the lore. But yeah, anything else you want to add on sort of the rules front? In terms of playtime variable, but I would say 30 to 45 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Yeah, it's not a massively long game.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

It's not a long game, no.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

No. And sometimes if you know you leave Shepard. If you decide to go go running off with Shepherd in an odd direction and he gets splatted.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Leroy Jenkins, showing my age there if anybody gets that ancient name. So Leroy Jenkins was Shepard and run in, as I did, very helpfully on our final game of a campaign once, and then he immediately just gets killed. That's it, game over. That was a fun three minutes where I was the only one that got to play. That's cool. So both Hannah and I are massive fans of the Mass Effect series video games. So this was a no-brainer when this came about. It was one of those classic, like, oh, this this looks interesting. Is it supposed to be terrible? No, okay, it's the pie. Um, so yeah, that's what that's why we came to this basically. We are big Mass Effect nerds.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Uh anything else you want to add before we go into scoring?

SPEAKER_01 7:01

No, I think let's crack on into scoring. So, first up, under our general scoring criteria, we have components. So, what's in the box and setup.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

So I will say that I think the the fact that we've got a MacBook, I think it's absolutely brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

I'm a big fan of MacBooks.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

I am a really big fan of MacBooks.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Just because you don't have to fiddle around with modular map tiles.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

God, Gloomhaven and the hours and descent trawling through the individual maps. I love the MacBook. I think it's really fantastic, and it's a great way to be able to play on the table and make it both quite accessible.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

I will say there are an awful lot of cardboard components and ships and turrets and doors. And I I don't know how they could improve it. I don't know how they can make it better, but I will just say it's a bit of a pain in the arse.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

Yeah, it's a bit nature of the beast, really, unfortunately. I think um it's one thing if the the elements that they're representing are not interactable, but basically everything, every a lot of stuff on the map is interactable with during the course of a game, and you need to be able to either remove them or flip them or do something with them, which means you are in cardboard token.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Yeah, and quite often you have to stand on top of things as well, so it can get a little bit much, but I d I don't really know there's much they could have done about that.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

No, I mean, considering we're gloomhaven veterans, this is this is baby baby stuff.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Um we also talk about theme under components, I have to say 10 out of 10 for theme. Oh yeah, I think is they've done an absolutely fantastic job. All the characters and all their abilities have heartbacks to their to the video games.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

It's been made by somebody who loves the series. The designers of us obviously have a huge amount of knowledge and affection for the series because they really nail that aspect of it.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

So all the extra stuff, the narrative writing, the the you know, the the You even have Joker come through and you see his sense of humour, you see the uh characters talking to each other, and that's that's it's all really cool.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

It's it's definitely nailed that theme very, very well. The miniatures are good, very excited to have miniatures of uh some of my favourite video game characters, which I'm looking forward to painting at some point when I don't know the next 10 years when I get round to it. Um but the miniatures are nice, they they they're well designed.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

It comes with a nice little baggie for keeping all your uh enemy tokens in, which I quite like.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Uh yes, we didn't mention that during Wars that you draw enemies randomly from a bag and they increase in intensity over three levels depending on where you are in the campaign.

SPEAKER_02 9:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

So all of the player boards uh and the campaign sort of map are all quite large, um basically wipe clean user marker on them. So it's quite akin to um Twilight Inscription that we the similar-sized sort of boards as such that we reviewed a while back. Um comes with one solitary marker that I have noticed.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

It isn't very robust.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

It's not very robust. We have played this 11 or 12 times and it's already starting to give up the ghost.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

Um, so you know, the just to beware there, a couple of spare markers would have been would have been appreciated in the box, I think. Um, but yeah, no, everything else, it's it's a really, really good package. Like I've got very little issue with it.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

The setup can be a little bit fiddly, as you say, because it's always down all take a while because you have to separate out all your enemy tokens, etc., and put everything back in baggies.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

But you compare the stuff to other dungeon games and skirmish games, it's it, I mean, it's not much, it's not bad.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Okay. So what did you score it then?

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Um, so I scored it a seven, but I could be tempted to go up to an eight mainly because of the theme, but I settled on a seven.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Yeah, I went for an eight because I think it's but everything in it is perfectly fine. I think the the single marker that's dying already kind of knocked a little bit off for me. Um, and that little bit of onerousness of setup. But yeah, I think an eight, it's a really, really solid, solid purchase that.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Okay. So then talking about complexity. So as always, it's not about how complex a game is or isn't, but it's how well the complexity serves the gameplay. Hugo.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

So I think this sets out quite clearly what it wants to be and achieves that. What it wants to be is a very approachable, quite light, easy to get your head round skirmish battler. That's that's what it wants to do. And I think it nails it for the most part. I think it really does nail it. I think I have a few quibbles with the rule book, the way it's set out, because we've missed a couple of rules along the way, because they're present in sort of sidebars. And I'm just I'm not a huge fan of rule with rule books that do that because it's you know, you're reading through the rule book, and then you've got this weird sidebar off to the side that's got a really major rule in it, but it's easy to miss. And also when you're referring back, having to hunt through all these sidebars to find the rule you want is not it. Um, so not a huge fan of that. But I think in terms of being approachable for people to just get people to jump in and play, I think it it does a really good job of that.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Yeah. I would also say that because combat is not again dice-based, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

There's no luck.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

There's no luck element to it, which I think can make it more accessible for people.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

You know what you're going to be able to do on your turn with the dice that you have, so you can set out what it is that you want to achieve.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

Yeah, you know exactly what you're going to be able to do. The only sort of luck factor comes in with the enemy cards of who's going to activate and I mean you can obviously roll a deaf hand and get nothing full of movement, but I mean it happens very quite rarely. There's quite a lot of mitigation things in it to sort of stop doing that.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

I do think we have missed rules. Um, and I do think we have to refer to the rule book quite a bit.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

I think it's just sort of elements on different maps and you kind of forget what you they do. You've got inferno spaces and coolant leak spaces and things like that. Sometimes line of sight when there are trenches and things can be a bit some things a little bit fiddly, but no more fiddly than other skirmish games of its type.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

No, and I think if you want to introduce it to somebody who who's quite new to board games, this would be a really good sort of entry, not entry level, but yeah, I think it's not quite entry level, but it's it's definitely up there.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

I think I like the simplification of their line of sight rules.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Because line of sight is enough. Line of sight can be very complicated in some games. And um this is really clear. There's no hex limit to the number of spaces, you just draw basically four diagonal lines out, sort of ten and two on a clock face and the reverse from your character. Straight line from your character. Yeah, straight lines from your character. Um, and if something is in the way there, you can shoot them. That's also interesting that enemies don't block line of sight, so you can basically shoot enemies that are behind other enemies, which is something quite unusual.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Yes, and also much liked. I like that. Yeah, they're just it's a big group behind you rather than that spawny husk in front.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

It just makes things simple. Um, where it gets a little bit fiddly, I find, is enemy activation. Not who to activate, but what to who exactly they go after.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

Yeah, that is quite complicated. So I think they're technically I can't quite remember.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

But it's supposed to be either the player that just went.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Yeah, or the person with the least hit points.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Which can sometimes mean that enemies move in odd fashions.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

And it's not clear, it's not been fully clear to me whether you count shields in that or not. We don't, and I think that's the way you meant to play it, but it's not it's not overtly obvious.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Yeah, I'm sure someone will pipe up the colours that it's very clearly explained in the rulework. Section C paragraph.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Which I accept, I own my thickness. So yeah. So I think for what it sets out to do, it does a really good job of it. Does it leave me, as in me the player, wanting something a little bit more?

SPEAKER_01 14:56

It yes, it does, but I've put this under other categories.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

Okay, that's fine. I'm gonna I I'm gonna plot it in complexity for me. I feel like one more rink, one more notch to its bow would would really send this into the stratosphere for me, but I I like heavy games. I'm not averse to an incredibly well-designed light game. This one just perhaps is because I've played so much more complex dungeon crawlers and complex uh skirmish games. There's just something there where I was just like, I wish there was, I don't know what it is. Maybe it would be some sort of combo system, something like that. Because you know, if you play the massive end games, you can hit them with different effects. I mean, you combo them up, they do loads of damage. It's just something, I just feel like it could have been something there which would have really ratcheted it up for me. But again, would that be alienating to perhaps the target audience they're going for? Perhaps. So this is a this is a me issue, and I haven't really marked it down for it. I just wanted to raise it.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Yeah, but I also think again, if we go back to again the theme, which I think is exceptionally strong, it does feel like I'm playing Mass Effect.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Yeah, it does.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

It has that quality of it has that quality, and Mass Effect isn't a very particularly complicated game, it's very narrative, story-driven, and it's quite accessible, I think. So, again, for me, I'm kind of I'm I agree, but also I'm kind of happy.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

Yeah, fine.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

However, because I do think that there are little things that are missing, I have only given it a seven, uh-huh, which I do think might be a bit harsh.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

No, I've given it a seven as well, the match on that one. It's not the most well-oiled machine I've ever seen. So uh yeah, I think I think there are a few rules wrinkles, and for that reason I'm going to give it a seven.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Okay. Next up we have value for money and shelf life. So, how replayable it is. So, as always, what's the price point?

SPEAKER_00 16:43

This retails for 30 quid.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Oh my god, that's exceptional value for money. Go out and buy it now.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Yes, it is. I remember when it came out, I was like, this is a game that has miniatures and it's 30 pounds. What? Um, I was very surprised. I was really surprised.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

That is absolutely cracking gardeners.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

No, it is. It's incredible value for money. And if we were just talking about value for money, this would be a 10 for me.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Well, I'm gonna have to revise my score based on that. Um, okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

However, comma butt.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

Oh, oh right, okay, go on, go on.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Shelf life.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Right, okay. So I just want to say that we've not played like a campaign game for quite some time. Yes. It was an itch that I had that desperately needed to be scratched. And when we started playing it, talk talk to the internet more about your itches. You you just edited out the last bit of it.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Yeah, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

That's why I made up my itch. So when we got this, I think I went in quite hard and we played it every night consistently for a really long time. So I do think we went in quite hot and heavy with this.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

Yeah, that's fine. But we also play Gloomhaven every gaming night for like a year.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Yeah, that's John Covid and what else did we do at once?

SPEAKER_00 17:54

It was a weird time.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Tiger King, you know. Um I do think we may have overplayed it a little bit, and that might be souring or fills.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

I don't I don't think I I don't think so. I think it's just there's only so much content for me. Um, I think essentially I you play the three at the max four times through the campaign, you would have seen absolutely everything with quite a lot of repetition in those later plays.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

But it's worth mentioning that your campaigns are linear, so if you're going for the left hand campaign route, you will only really fight Cerberus, and if you go for the right hand, you'll only really fight um Reapers.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Yeah, you've got a choice of three missions that branch into a choice of four, but you only have a choice of two depending on where you start at.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

You know that gift for the woman with the symbols?

SPEAKER_00 18:46

The maths. It's not that complicated. Um basically you you you pick a starting mission out of three, and then you will have two options at the next stage between the the two you do. But it it it is three, then four, then three in terms of the sort of pathway tree, you I guess you like call it. And I just think that we've played the campaign through twice. I feel like I've seen I've I've seen everything.

SPEAKER_02 19:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

I haven't seen everything, but I feel like I have. And I don't think the missions are expansive enough to provide much in the way of playing them over again. Uh I I'm I'm trying to articulate this there's some games where you can play the same mission over and over again, and this the the roots to victory will be different. Roots to victory will be different. There's enough variety of different things going on that it keeps you interested, and it's more about the game and less about the mission. But this is these missions are very tightly constructed and they play very, very similarly each time you play them.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

Which for me personally, that hurts shelf life.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Am I complaining? No, because for 30 quid we've had hours and hours of entertainment out of this, but I think I'm done.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

What I would also say as well is that in addition to your um cannon fodder enemies, so your basic engineers, husks, etc., you do have mini-bosses, if you like. Yeah. Um, interestingly, I don't think we've seen all of them.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

No, we've seen most. We've seen most. Have we? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

But what I would say is that invariably, whilst they all do have different abilities in the same way that your characters have different abilities, they don't have, as you say, that huge amount of impact on gameplay to make you feel different. They're just tough. And then they might push you in one direction, or they might phantoms, I think, were particularly different. Yeah, I mean basically phantoms are awful in the game as well.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

Yeah, in general, they do something nasty to you when they attack you. That's that's that's kind of it's beyond just doing damage.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

I mean, that's beyond how all enemies work.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Yeah, but beyond doing damage, they do like extra bad things. Yeah, it I just I am not complaining, and this is not me marking it down. I just I'm just being sort of trying to be objective about shelf life here. Interestingly enough, they have announced an expansion coming to this with more characters, and what I found quite interesting is different ways to play the original mission. So I'm interested to see where they go with it. Because if they create a bit of a living system with this where they are adding enough in the the the shelf life could go up quite quite a lot by expansions. Um, unfortunately, I don't think it's got the machine behind it to be able to pump out expansions in a timely fashion because I think the expansion is only coming in like 2027, so you've got these huge big gaps in between. So I don't think it will ever be.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

You want that several years between playing.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

I think I'll be ready to return to it when it comes out. I'll go, oh, okay, let's let's have a go. So I'm gonna hang on to it for that reason. Um, but yeah, I think in the the core box that you you won't get as much mileage as you normally get from like a campaign game with us, I don't think. You're you're looking at sort of ten to eleven hours, not your sort of twenties, thirties or upwards.

SPEAKER_01 21:59

But for the price. point I still absolutely exceptional.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

Which is why I've scored it a seven.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Um so I'm gonna pump my score up to an eight. Okay. Because I just think that price point is sweet.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

Yeah I think it's it's a mix between a 10 for value for money price point for me mixed with perhaps a four for shelf life.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

So really a four for shelf life I'd still give it a six.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

Yeah I'd probably give a four or five so it kind of balances out to a seven for me. Okay, right, fine.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Alright and then last up under our general rating scale we have fun. Do you have fun when you play it?

SPEAKER_00 22:32

I do indeed oh yeah yeah no it's it's it's really it is a really fun experience. It's a I'm gonna get my negative out of the way first before I wax lyrical it can get a little bit repetitive. I think that there's not a huge amount of option in terms of actions that you're taking and once you know what you're doing with your character you tend to sort of repeat the same things each turn. That is pretty much the only black mark I've got against it it can it can get a bit samey. That aside particularly later on in the campaign when you've unlocked a load of abilities like I can't remember the last time I had so much fun playing a character in a skirmish game as I do with Rex because Rex just turns into an absolute brute killing machine and that is just so much fun to play. You just go charging into the enemies and you just you just stop shotgunning them all. And that just I mean it's me that just fits my playstyle to see so when it takes a little while to get there and you have to unlock some abilities but when you do those characters start to become really really good fun to play. I do think there's two characters that are a little bit weaker not so much weaker in the game but just a little bit less fun to play for me and those would be Garus and um Tali. Well you didn't play Tali I didn't play but I saw it.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

I quite liked Tali. Fair enough I don't think I would if I had that to play it yeah I quite liked and I do think that's one of the so whereas I've said all your enemies even your mini bosses kind of feel the same actually playing each of your characters can feel quite different about what their abilities are. It does so you do have options in terms of if you like to be more crowd control you can do that and play Liara by putting people stunning people or giving them biotic effects you can be Rex who's your big DPS guy but will say quite tanky. Yep or Garus who sits at the back and pots shots off and then Shepard who you just try and hide from things because you don't like or her to die.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

But Shepard's an interesting one with Shepard you can actually sort of spec into into something like I'm being no no no you'd be you're being right because tactically you kind of want to hide shepherd away because shepherd dies mission's over uh we fell off that a couple of times now but you can spec Shepherd into a sort of either like a biotic or a soldier or you there's not enough experience to go around to unlock everything on Shepherd's sheet so you do have to kind of think about where you want to go with it.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

And what I'd also again go back to the theme. So Mass Effect itself the game you know it does have elements of humour to it and actually I see the elements of humour carrying through into this. So for example Garris's loyalty mission when it's calibrate you know so if he sat there doing his calibrations you know and I just think that's again a really lovely little nod and acknowledgement that you know makes me inhabit the game and makes me have more fun playing yeah and I just I think when you're dealing with an IP if you manage to nail the theme like this has then you're away to the right provided you're interested in it.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

I'd be interested how somebody who's never played Mass Effect before felt about this because our fun is undeniably biased. Yes. We are big Mass Effect fans would you pick up Mass Effect the board game if you never played Mass Effect? I don't know maybe well I mean my dad once bought an Assassin's Creed book having Assassin's Creed didn't know what Assassin's Creed was yeah and what an Xbox was I think he quite just reading Assassin's Creed an Assassin's Creed novel one day you're right so many some people do do it yeah some people do do it so yeah I I this is going to be biased and I I think we need to own that bias like are we approaching this objectively purely from a board game design standpoint absolutely no we're not we love Mass Effect this nails the theme this will appeal to Mass Effect fans for that reason.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

Okay so how did you score on that basis?

SPEAKER_00 26:31

I scored it a seven I scored it in eight okay all right so we add those scores up we do so as always we add those up we average them out and that gives us a general rating of 7.3 rounded down seven which I think that's fair I I think that's I think that's fair.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

I think I mean this is not going to change the world in the ball gaming space but it's it's it's a really good it's a really good change the world for somebody yeah absolutely in terms of like an entry level accessible board game I absolutely think this could be the game that turns somebody from as a bridging point between the hobbies yeah it's a it's a good one.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Yeah it's a really good one and so if you've got that video gamer uh in your life that likes Mass Effect and perhaps you know not too keen on board games would never be interested in board games this would be a really good bet because it's it's accessible and it nails it. Yeah and it is good fun.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

So yeah I'm happy with the seven okay so up next are our two player rating categories and first up we have Table Talk slash getting to know you slash interactivity. We do indeed um there's never a quiet moment.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

No there never is um it is in a classic co-op sense very good for you know having a chat about what you're gonna do but also if you're into the world there's a little bit of banter and role play.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Yeah. What I say is because the map space is quite compact and quite condensed and because you do the bad thing at the end of every player turn so the enemies move the enemies are all up in your grill so no matter how much you plan you have to react and you have to talk about how you're gonna react um you also have abilities that will interact with other people so for example Shepherd can make one of their normal dice a special dice for example um so there's a lot of options to be able to discuss what it is that you're gonna do without necessarily quarterbacking which is a different category we'll come to that yeah we'll come to quarterbacking a bit but yeah that this is this is great for table banter yeah it's it's really good and you are constantly interacting with each other.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

So I've written here Rex gonna Rex Rex Shepherd um but yeah there's an awful lot of that so if it you want something that's gonna get you talking and constantly you know talking through your plans interacting with each other joining gameplay then this is great for that.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Yeah really really good um so I gave it an eight yeah I also gave it an eight yeah really no notes very very good excellent um so then on to uh cooperability indeed um so I just mentioned quarterbacking um and I think I'm gonna give that some pause for thought because actually I do think there is potential for quarterbacking in this there is yes the reason being is your dice rolls are obviously on the table so the pool of dice that you can pick from and therefore what actions you have are very face up everyone can see and if you've got a character or if you if you are somebody who's either new to board games or perhaps you've not played that character before there is that element of the other person can tell you how to play your character.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

I've done it with you and we're like yeah but you can use that yeah we've done it with each other we quarterback each other all the time yeah um I think it's one of those instances with a co-op and this is often the case with co-ops are quite light and quite simple is the rules overhead is not there to force people to stay in their lane. Everybody's a little bit like everything you can see very clearly everything that's going on. So if there's a propensity for quarterbacking it does happen here. I think it's okay with us because we quarterback each other at times I think that's fine.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

And we have a similar skill level and we've been playing things equally but if you've got an EB around the table then you probably need to be mindful of that and range.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

And let them sort of explore a little bit because yeah it it could very well be right for that. You get in each other's way quite a lot. Yes the maps are very very compact and it can you can end up in sort of these funnels choke points.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

There are modifications that allow that not to become such an issue. So for example you can move through other players I'm I'm almost adamant there's a rule about you can swap so if you're blocking a door you can do that. You keep saying no to me.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

No I think it's specifically to do with doors if I remember correctly and I think you kept wanting to do in other instances it's like no we can't just swap characters. Oh okay fine.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

I think it's something to do with doorway so you only have two characters that can open lock doors one of which being Shepard the other being Tarley so you can end up with just Shepard being able to Yeah because we didn't take Tary in our last playthrough and there was one person who can open doors basically yeah so if you've got someone who then gets stuck inside of or in front of a door that becomes really problematic and can hold up game for you. Yes it can it doesn't because there's a modification to allow that to happen.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

Yeah but that's quite interesting in its own right as a cooperative puzzle you've got to be quite careful about positioning in this and there's a lot of position based powers that you have to be so far away or so or close enough to enemies for them to have their full impact like Garrison needs to be far away basically and whilst we talked about line of sight being easier simplified in terms of how you uh evaluate whether you've got line of sight or not it's still quite restrictive.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

Yeah um so it's not like you can just shoot anything from anywhere you are you still have to be in the right place. It's just it's much easier to understand.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

Yeah it is yeah but as we sort sort of alluded to in table talk this works really well as a co-op it's it's nice and simple and breezy enough that you you really can concentrate on the actual tactics as opposed to trying to get your head around a thousand of one rules on your character sheet. I mean don't get me wrong I like that but it's nice and refreshing to play a car that's quite simple in that sense.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

One of the things that you often say and actually I've I've kind of come to see your way of thinking over the years of doing this is Stockholm syndrome. Yeah we just um is this idea that you know you kind of improve I think once we've got our head around the rules I mean occasionally we did stupid things Leroy Jenkins Shepherd um but actually the scenarios themselves weren't that challenging no as far as co-ops go it is definitely on the easy side but is that a problem given what it is no I don't think it is I haven't really mentioned it because I don't think it's an issue yeah um but I think it is worth mentioning that it's not nor it's not your normal co-op have to play scenarios three or four times to be able to win.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

And maybe that's something I didn't allude to and should have alluded to that sort of knock my score down for uh shelf life for me because the thing with the cop is once you solve it it starts to get a bit dog.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

And it's not about solving it's not about solving it but it's just it particularly the later scenarios. The first ironically the first scenario always the way with RPGs the the earlier stuff is actually harder when you start getting skilled up things get a lot easier the last scenarios are quite easy because you you're you're quite if you play properly you're quite well powered by start blasting yes you go in start blasting just just for reference on you know we never stream this Black Hunter's just been making finger guns just thought I'd mention that um so yeah how did you how did you score I gave it a seven saying yeah not a bit a bit more challenging in the world but decent good very good all right finally then um scalability or FUMO would it be more fun with more players and this gave me pause for thought because it is you have to play with four characters.

SPEAKER_01 34:07

You do so you have to play two double head double headed double handed double handed double thisted double handed X radio podcasting um so you you can only play with four players so the question then for me is would it be better if we had someone other than you round the table?

SPEAKER_00 34:25

Oh it usually is right usually it is I don't know how to score this do I want more people in my life than my husband okay so I haven't approached this in a passive aggressive wayfulness. For me this doesn't need more people at all would it be more fun to play with more but yeah it always isn't it's it's always more fun to play the board games with with several people around the table but doesn't need it no yeah and I think there's an extra complication here I wouldn't play this with three because then you've got this weird scenario where one person has to have two characters and the other two get one.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

Yeah which just feels a bit odd two four or one yeah two four solo yeah I wouldn't play it with three is there any mechanical difference no at all and it wouldn't take any longer because you're still having the same number of turns and dice rolls because the game is still and it is simple enough that playing with two characters is not is not intimidating at all or onerous it's very very simple very very easy to do so I don't think this needs more people at all and for that reason I think it's a fantastic two play experience.

SPEAKER_00 35:34

Yeah like it's a proper campaign skirmish game that you could happily play with two people and for that reason I've given it a mine.

SPEAKER_01 35:41

Yeah I think that's a reasonable score I gave it a seven because like I say I didn't really know how to rate it so I gave it a seven okay kind of random scoring comes off again. I was like but would it be more fun with more people well yeah probably just miss just missing your friends.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

I don't think it's got anything to do with the game it'd be better if there was more people I mean that's a general rule of thumb but for this game specifically you're gonna have to justify knocking some points off for a seven. If you can fine but I just get a nine now because I feel like I'm just copying you how about we settle on an eight okay fine negotiator all right so as a two player experience that comes out at a 7.8 which we round up to an eight so an eight for two pla or two player rating which I'm really happy with. This is a great two player game I mean you can summarize by saying we're bored with each other and this is our favourite board game on the sitel references. Yeah that's it that's what the people love um I hope you've enjoyed the episode but yeah a hearty recommendation from from us and I look forward to the new content coming in two years two years I'm gonna have to wait. But I will definitely be picking that up when it comes out and that's testament to we've had a a generally really good time with this. So until next time be good to each other have fun play a lot of support games