Mass Effect The Board Game - Priority Hagalaz | First Look Unboxing & Detailed Review | Sponsored

[@HivisoftheScale]

"I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite KZbinr on the citadel." 😅

[@fortysixand2]

$321.78 plus $18.60 for shipping for 24 miniatures is hilarious.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

The 24-miniature set is £136 in the UK (it's £240 for the 48-miniature set). At most I might consider upgrading the six plastic heroes to the resin ones, but I don't see the need to splurge on the enemies.

[@tommloye4626]

I’m lucky enough to have tons of minis for agnostic games. I’ll just proxy all of them. Stinks for people that don’t, though.

[@joanmoriarity8738]

Tokens for baddies is fine. Not everything in every game needs a plastic figure.

[@genghisgahan9623]

£136?!? It's not crack cocaine I'm trying to buy!! Edit- I misunderstood - it seems it's only £40 for the base game- that's a lot more reasonable. I really thought that modiphious had gone mad or something.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

As far as I'm concerned, the game works better with tokens for the enemies anyway. And yes, if you just want to upgrade the six plastic heroes to resin heroes, it's £40. But again - the plastic heroes in the box are absolutely fine, and the resin replacements are more for painters and collectors who want something with better detail. The way they have released the game, it's a fairly inexpensive dungeon plunge, which is great.

[@dhaines9793]

The Mass Effect series has always emphasized player choices and the resulting consequences, so it is wonderful that the board game version contains that essential play element. The Mass Effect video series story arc is truly memorable and worth playing through over and over.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

For the scope of the board game, which is pretty compact, I think they have done a decent job of making decisions an important part of the gameplay and how the campaign unfolds.

[@Ithayla]

Oh wow this was an incredibly holistic and well considered review! Many times when you were talking you said the exact things we were thinking when designing the game. Thank you so much for this excellent video and your insights. Also I laughed out loud at that intro. Subscribed!

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Hi Calvin, thanks so much for taking the time to watch, and for subscribing too! We've been having a lot of fun with the game, and there has been some really tense moments. Sometimes Shepard gets a bit too keen!

[@Ithayla]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring I'm glad you finally got to try the game after spying it at ukge. is it alright if I share this video with others on Twitter

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

We were pretty excited about it at the game expo, so it was amazing to have the chance to try it. Feel fee to share the video wherever you would like. That's all fine by me.

[@AdrianGell]

Thank you. This is the review I was waiting for before placing my order. Looks like it'd be fun for my group.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

It's a really fun game. Compact and easy to get into, and you can do a campaign in a very reasonable timeframe. Thanks for watching!

[@PincheHugo_130]

I've been a fan of MassEffect since day one....this is a dungeon crawler I can play SOLO!! SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MUNNY!!! :D

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Yeah. There is quite a lot to juggle playing solo, but because the game is very much about working as a team it does work well as a solo experience as you use the squad to support Shepard. You don't have to worry about hands of cards, and each character is relatively straightforward to operate. It's a fun, tactical puzzle.

[@Jonno92100]

I appreciate how concise the game is and how they've tried to make aspects of gameplay feel like an actual Mass Effect mission. I'm quite torn on the whole Resin miniature bundles though, while I do enjoy collecting and painting minis, getting them is quite a costly investment and it doesn't seem to actually completely replace the tokens in gameplay. I do hope they add more characters and enemies. There's 15 unused squadmates which has so much extra potential, although it's unlikely they'll do them all. I hope they at the very least add Kaiden/Ashley, James Vega and EDI.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

It's a very compact and well-executed game. At the moment, the resin options don't completely replace the tokens. Even the £240 bundle leaves you short as the game includes 60 regular units and 26 unique elite units. Also, for me personally, I think the game will just run better with the tokens as you draw the tokens from the bag, and all of the stats and abilities are printed directly on them.

[@Jonno92100]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring It's such an odd decision to offer extra mini bundles but not actually include enough to play the game with?

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

In fairness, I can understand not including 60 of the minion units. The minions are divided into six groups of 10, and you would never need all of them. You could potentially need all 10 from a specific group at once, but it's highly unlikely when you are randomly drawing them. I am sure they will eventually make all the elites, but they are an odd thing anyway, because many of them will only turn up once, and in any given playthrough you will probably only see no more than 10 of them, which means upgrading them all to resin is a lot of cost for little in-game use. Maybe I should run the numbers and do a quick video to let people know exactly what they get, what they would use, and what they might need to add later.

[@Jonno92100]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Makes sense, and I'd guess someone during testing found the ideal minion piece count to be 6. Could be cool to run the numbers for avid collectors.

[@carpesoliscosplay]

I may just make little standees for the enemies, tbh. A little too broke for the full mini set. Aside from that, though, I'll be checking this out.

[@EriktheRed2023]

I never played the video game, but maybe I should see if the local board game café want to pick this one up. Seems worth checking out for a start.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

I really enjoyed it, despite knowing nothing about the video games. It's also a nice, compact game that doesn't require a lot of time or table space. Perfect for a board game cafe.

[@Jonno92100]

I just received my copy and had a quick flick through. Believe I have noticed an error and was wondering if it's a common misprint? Mission 2A in the Mission Book, the Paragon and Renegade victories tell you to turn to story paragraph 95. I don't think this is right, anyone know what the correct paragraph for the Renegade ending is?

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

@Jonno92100 I don’t have my book to hand to check. I recommend posting questions on boardgamegeek. The designer is active there. EDIT: Checking my books, it appears to be a mistake, and the Renegade success is paragraph 33.

[@davidjacovelli5986]

This looks pretty good overall, and I'm a fan of the videogames (bought the original CE editions on first release back in the day), but I'm not sure I'm seeing a compelling game play reason to drop £240 on the figures as yet, but I'm pleased that I'm not obliged to buy all the figures first. Thanks for the review.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

The miniatures are really nice, and if you play something like Five Parsecs from Home I can see them being really useful for that (you could even retheme Five Parsecs for Mass Effect), but they are expensive, and I don't see how you could easily use them in the board game. You would still have to use the tokens for drawing enemies from the bag and for keeping track of which miniatures have which abilities. That £240 bundle also doesn't cover all of the enemies from the game, so you would still end up using some tokens on the board. I will just be sticking with the tokens, and for people who do that Mass Effect seems a very reasonably priced board game at £40 RRP.

[@tylus126]

Thanks for your good reviews Will this or do past modiphius products get distributed to other sellers?

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Thanks for watching. Mass Effect will be going to retail. You can already preorder from places like Zatu in the UK. It may take a few more weeks to get stock than ordering direct, but you can sometimes get better prices.

[@donshep2305]

Okay... How we will romance teammates?

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

This game covers a single mission against the clock. Your team arrives, and they only have a few hours to get the job done. You can assume the whole campaign would only take a few hours in the game universe, so there isn't any time to romance anyone.

[@donshep2305]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring For those sweet girls there are always a time

[@craigbrown04]

Why did they name it after an ice cream??

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Because ice cream is always the priority.

[@Rodrigo-pf6jr]

Esse jogo virá pro Brasil?.

[@Merlynn132]

I dunno. I don't care about Mass Effect enough to care about the minis. And I have a lot of games I'm getting around to playing. Recently picked up the original Doom board game,the one based on Doom 3,and I'm trying to get it cleaned up so I can play it. Still,I might look into the rules and such a little closer to see what all good ideas might be there.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

I don't think the miniatures are worth it unless you are a massive fan or you have lots of other uses for them. The game is good though. I covered pretty much every rule in the review (except for minor stuff like elevation), and I will be taking a closer look at rules for player characters in another video.

[@Merlynn132]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Sweet. Looking forward to it.

[@TheActivetrin]

Looks like gloom haven jaws of the lion except with dice

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

I can see where that comparison comes from as they are both puzzles on hex maps in books, but they don't really feel the same in play. Mass Effect is much more streamlined, the actions are more straightforward, it plays much faster, and there are less moving parts. Also, the action resolution is more deterministic in Mass Effect, as you don't have to randomise the damage with cards. I would say its more accessible, and less demanding - it's not as taxing on the grey matter - but overall I found it more engaging.

[@TheActivetrin]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring I think I might like it more because of the streamlined enemy AI system

[@eldritchmorgasm4018]

🤔 As someone who played the whole trilogy on XBOX 360, and is doing this right now on PS4, this boardgame looks fine, but realy nothing special. I think this as a bigger game, including RPG elements, because it is a roleplaying game, but keeping the skirmish-action & team-functions, it would be better. Now I haven't played it, but now that I'm thinking about this, something like "5 Parsecs frome Home" sounds more like that.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

There is a good amount of story packed into the game because of the campaign system and the narrative book, and while it's definitely not a roleplaying game, I think they have very cleverly introduced elements of roleplaying while keeping everything streamlined. You get to choose the loyalty missions and the main missions you go on, and how you approach those missions, and those choices all have little story-based effects and trigger events. But, it's all housed in this compact system that isn't going to take over your gaming schedule, and could appeal to more casual board gamers who like the video games. In that regard, I think they have done a really good job. But yes, if you want something more open-ended, and you have a lot of miniatures and terrain, something like Five Parsecs is worth checking out. You could even get the Mass Effect miniatures to play it!

[@eldritchmorgasm4018]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Let's hope there's more coming. The miniatures is a good start. And I hope players who never played the original videogames might take a look at them, it helps to know those characters. Besides of that, awesome games in general.

[@johncorrigan268]

If you are looking for a more epic si fi game with an involved branching storyline and relationships between characters which change based on your decisions , check out Rogue Angels.

[@SuburbanFox]

No Ash? What kind of Mass Effect game is this?? :O

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

I wouldn't be surprised to see expansions down the line with new characters. I don't really know the Mass Effect characters, but I assume the ones they picked probably represented the best variety of abilities.

[@SuburbanFox]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring good point, maybe they will add expansions... those characters are all from the first game, but there are two more humans (Ashley and Kaiden) that aren't in this set, maybe they wanted a mix of each species instead of a whole bunch of humans. But I hope they do make expansions that, between them, include all of the characters.

[@HivisoftheScale]

Trust me, when Wrex fires a shot gun, it's a guarantee someone's gonna get hit 😅 Garrus is so cool. Ex-cop turned grim vigilante, he's always been a favorite in the game. Thankfully Tali and Garrus are playable allies in each of the three games. Sadly Liara and Wrex took the 2nd game off (so to speak). From what I can tell, this is very accurate to the game. The figures look really cool. The only problem I can see. Everyone will want to play Shepard! 😂

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

I was actually quite happy to pass on controlling Shepard. He has amazing abilities (once you unlock them) but the weight of the whole mission is on your shoulders and if you do one stupid thing it's all your fault. The other characters still feel useful and powerful, so you don't feel like you are missing out, you are just getting a slightly different experience. Garrus was my main pick. It was great being able to control the flow of enemies by picking them off at long range, and if you fully charge the aim track you can take out the strongest shields in the game with a single attack, which is awesome.

[@HivisoftheScale]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring And Garrus is a great buddy! 😅 If I had to pick anyone as Shepards best friend, it would be Garrus. They really have that buddy-cop vibe in the game.

[@JohnDiGrizUkraine]

Wrex took the third game off too actually, he's not a playable squadmate there, except for Citadel DLC

[@HivisoftheScale]

@@JohnDiGrizUkraine well, he does help you out a lot in the Surkesh level. And I'd like to to think, him being on the Normandy makes him more involved in ME3 than he was in ME2

[@JohnDiGrizUkraine]

@@HivisoftheScale you have Liara as a proper squadmate in ME2 DLC for a bit too, tho ig she isn't shown on the Normandy

[@richardcahill1234]

"Liara T'Soni She/They" Sale lost.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Is that not correct? I would assume Bioware would have had to sign off on everything.

[@richardcahill1234]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring lol, no. Asari are an explicitly monogendered species.

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

I just looked it up on a Wiki and it said they usually use female pronouns but some use male and some use gender-neutral, so maybe these are the ones she uses now? Honestly, I haven't got a clue. It all sounds a bit confusing, and it's not something that bothers me as someone who is just seeing a cool character in a board game; but if it's not correct to the lore I can understand that bothering fans and it's surprising if it's not right.

[@joanmoriarity8738]

It depends how you translate it from the original Asari. They are indeed monogender and their language seems a bit odd to other species with gendered pronouns. If you translate literally, Liara's pronouns are they/them. Twenty first- century humans can get a little weird and uncomfortable about it sometimes though because Asari look similar to women in our culture, and we haven't really matured yet as a culture when it comes to gender. We'll get there.

[@genghisgahan9623]

​@@joanmoriarity873821st century humans- as opposed to 20th or 19th etc century humans? I'm not sure I understand - what century are you from? Have I just exposed you as some time travelling space alien?

[@dav1dgear]

One thing that I will change regarding the dice battle is, the next player does not get to roll the dice again, you used what your team mate left you. This encourages teamwork and talks, which player get which dice. The last player will get to reroll some or all available dice. To make it easier for them

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

@@dav1dgear You need to reroll the dice to generate stars. It’s a big part of your turn. You can lock one dice from the previous player’s roll though.

[@dav1dgear]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring yeah I know what you mean, but this system makes your turn affect only you. If you remove the dice rolling it makes your turn affect your team mate turn, which emphasize team work and it's more cool. The star can be modified to either only the first and last player that may get it (think of it as cool down time for other team member. Or any star rolled by the first player may be used by any team member and that's it. The system as it is now just lack interaction between player when selecting dice. Other player are not involved and not a factor in your decision making. If you don't roll the dice it will be. A much better co op game

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Removing the dice rolling for each player really impacts a lot on the gameplay. Every player needs their stars. They are essential (and denying Shepard stars takes away a massive element of the teamplay, which would go against what you want anyway). Stars aren't rolled once and kept. You roll them, record them, then roll those dice again. So you will always end up with a pool that has no stars in it. And that system is essential to keep your core abilities active at all times. You need them. There is a huge amount of team interaction on the board, but also within the dice pool anyway as it currently operates. Once you add paragon dice, you have 14 dice in the pool, but once the paragon dice are used they won't go back into the pool into the following turn. So, when do you use them? Use them early in the round, and players later in the turn will have less dice to roll, which means less stars, and less actions. Keep them to use later in the round, and you give later heroes in the sequence more options, but you may miss out on being able to do exactly what you want due to the limits of the small dice pool. Also, remember you can lock one dice, so whenever a player is acting, the next player in line is always going to be saying "please don't use that movement, I really need it" or whatever. And locking a dice has its own drawbacks - I have lost count of the team conversations we have had over whether to lock a dice to perform a "safe" turn, or whether to reroll a small pool of dice in the hopes of doing something epic. And after a player rolls, they may be have renegade tokens to spend, or Shepard may be able to convert some dice for them. Don't forget as well, a hazard card is played after each hero finishes their turn, which will completely change the board layout with enemies moving and new enemies arriving. That makes it very difficult to predict what dice you will need on your turn. Honestly, it works really well, and there is a very strong element of teamwork laced throughout all the gameplay.

[@dav1dgear]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring yes I understand what you mean but why can't there be a system where you could still roll the star dice and yet have the dice rolling only be once? The whole reason why there's a paragon dice is to exactly have the kind of conversation I want in a coop campaign. You need to talk and decide who will use the paragon dice whether it should be used for only one character or to make massive play or spread the two to 2 different player. If all other players have to lock at least one dice it might be slightly better in my opinion than having the options to lock dice or not

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Because the star system is baked into the dice system as it is. You can't have everybody getting the same amount of stars, or having them applied all at the same time, because your core ability levels don't reset each turn, so everyone's skills will be at different levels and you don't want everyone to power all their abilities at the same time as that would be overpowered. It's also worked into the turn system. If you are first to activate you roll all 12 dice, and that means you are likely to generate a lot of stars, but next round you will be second in turn order so will only roll 9 dice. Gradually your ability to recharge wanes. When you are last in turn order, you roll just 3 dice, but on the following turn you will be back to first place and will roll 12, so it all ebbs and flows and you have to work around that. Furthermore, it's factored into the locking and paragon system. If someone else has use all the paragon dice early, and then you lock a dice from the previous roll, you aren't going to generate as many stars, and that's bad for the team, so you have to have that discussion about when to use those dice, and when to use that locking system. Also, when there is a random element in what you will get on your turn you still have team discussions, but they are in the form of "Do you want me to kill that enemy now just in case you don't roll any action symbols on your turn?" or "Can you use your ability to reduce this attack damage against me by one, even though you may not be able to generate enough stars in your roll to repower that ability for someone else who needs it more?" The game is very fast-paced and the board layout changes frequently with threat cards, so it really does work better not having to try to plan out too far in advance because you really won't know what you are going to need by the end of the current round. I think your concern is that there won't be enough teamwork in the game, but the game really is all about teamwork. We are in constant discussion in our games, and no player makes their turns in isolation of the overall team objective. It's a neat little game. Regardless, if you do get the game, I hope you enjoy it whether or not you make changes to the dice system.

[@os7272]

I was excited until I noticed the pronouns in the top right corner of the character sheet.

[@MahkyVmedia1]

God damn I was under the impression the economy was shit right now, how can people afford this?

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

@@MahkyVmedia1 The game is £40. You don’t need the miniature upgrades (and I personally don’t think they benefit the game).

[@MahkyVmedia1]

​@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoringokay, but who wants to do just the basics? These companies need to start making it worth the purchase for the actual thing and stop offering a cheaper option because they know they're charging too much

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

@@MahkyVmedia1 I think the boxed game is well worth the price, and once it hits retail I am sure there will be discounts available. The game has miniatures for the heroes and good quality tokens for the enemies, and the game was designed to work with tokens rather than miniatures. I feel the upgrade miniatures are more for collectors and painters. I think Modiphius have done this the right way as you can play the game without having to spend a fortune on the minis.

[@TimothyScamp]

I looked at this game then took a hard pass as their character cards had pronouns.

[@hind6799]

For what are these pronouns good?

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

The pronouns aren't used for any gameplay purpose. They confirm the gender of some of the alien characters that might not be immediately apparent, which may be useful for those players who don't know those characters from the video games, but otherwise they can just be ignored. Similarly, choosing the male or female version of Shepard doesn't have an impact on gameplay.

[@hind6799]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Why can´t I use my own pronouns when playing some of these alien characters? Sounds like exclusion rather than inclusion

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

@@hind6799 They are based on the characters from the video game so they are existing named protagonists.

[@elijahherstal776]

I just wanna be the first one to say it: Do you just pick one of three colors at the end, no matter what else you do up until that point?

[@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring]

Ha. Your decisions and performance throughout the campaign do impact on the final mission, and the ultimate ending you get.

[@elijahherstal776]

@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring whoah, so it's actually an improvement over the source material. My mind is blown. And my face is tired.