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Olsen and his publishing company Tompet Games launched a Kickstarter campaign (KS link) for Halls of Hegra in early August 2022 and sent me a prototype copy so I could check it out. With the timing of receiving the prototype, plus jumping into a new full-time role with BoardGameGeek, along with my crazy travel schedule this month, I did not get to play Halls of Hegra as much as I'd hoped. However, I am digging it a lot so far, so I wanted to share how it works before the end of the Kickstarter campaign.
Halls of Hegra sets you in an abandoned mountain fortress in the Norwegian village Hegra. You are challenged with strategically commanding volunteers and solidiers to defend against a German onslaught while managing several factors such as morale, keeping the locals calm, gaining supplies, and keeping enough of your forces healthy by the end of the game.
I really like the look of the Halls of Hegra game board, but I especially love that it's very functional and serves as a player aid to guide you through your turns. There are different numbered sections where you place defender discs to take actions, as well as different tracks to manage a variety of factors. There's also a section representing the snowy outside of the fortress where you need to sneak around, fight, or avoid German patrols while making supply runs necessary to survive.
You have recruit bag with wooden discs to manage the five different types of defenders (an officer, soldiers, medics, hunters, and volunteers) you command in the game. In the prototype, the different defender discs are represented with different colors, but in the final version, they will also have an icon on them in addition to a distinct color.
Unfortunately, not everything in your recruit bag is helpful. You also have doubt discs representing the confidence (or lack thereof) the locals have in your ability to defend them. The more doubt discs that get added to the recruit bag, the less confident the locals feel and the harder it'll be for you to recruit new volunteers and soldiers. The doubt discs add a push-your-luck element to Halls of Hegra when draw from the bag to recruit new volunteers and soldiers.
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Halls of Hegra is played over three stages which take place over eleven days. During the Mobilization (Day 1-3) stage, you explore the fortress and dig your way through mountains of snow while trying to repair broken equipment. You also gain new recruits for your growing force and plan supply routes. Then in the 1st Attack (Day 4-6) stage, the village below the fortress is attacked. You try to defend it while you make final preparations and secure enough supplies before the siege. Then in the final Siege (Day 7-11) stage, the siege of the fortress kicks off and you have to endure constant bombing and infantry attacks while keeping morale up amongst your forces.
If you have enough healthy defenders after the last stand at the end of the Siege stage, you win. Alternatively, you lose the game immediately if you reach the skull icon on the Surrender track or if you don't have enough healthy defenders left after the last stand. The number of healthy defenders you need is based on where the Surrender marker is on the Surrender track.
Regardless of the stage, each day is divided into three phases: Event, Morning, and Day. Each day during the Event phase, you draw an event card from the current stage's event deck and resolve it, starting with adjusting the weather, and then resolving the event text. Each card also has a blurb of flavor/story text which corresponds to the event card's effects.
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The event cards vary in effects, but generally throw additional challenges your way which will likely impact your strategy for the upcoming day. Your defenders may be injured, you could lose morale or supplies, additional German patrols may spawn, and more. Plus, the weather impacts your movement for supply runs too. If it's sunny you can move up to six spaces, but if it's snowy you can only move up to four spaces, which makes supply runs inefficient in most cases. Thus, you have to be ready to adapt to whatever comes your way.
The event cards add a lot of replay value to Halls of Hegra. You only use a few of them each game and you never know what you're going to get. Since each stage has its own event deck(s), each game can play out very differently depending on the effects of the event cards, which keeps things interesting and challenging. Depending on which stage of the game you're in, you might also recruit some new forces, be attacked by the German forces, or add air tiles the hit bag during the Event phase.
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My defenders are ready, minus the volunteers who opted to sleep in
(prototype components)
(prototype components)
In a multiplayer worker placement game, a lot of tension comes from trying to make sure you get to an action space before an opponent beats you to it and blocks you, in addition to struggling to do all the things you want to with a limited pool of workers. Halls of Hegra really nails it when it comes to making the decision space deep for a solo worker placement game. There are spaces that are more optimal for certain types of defenders, there are spaces that require two defender discs instead of one, and there are spaces that restrict you from placing certain types of defender discs. In any case, I love the options you are presented with and how it makes this part of the game very thinky.
After your defenders are placed on action spaces, the Day phase begins where you resolve all of the action sections in numeric order. Within each action section, you can perform the actions in any order you choose and as many times as you'd like if you place enough defenders. After you perform an action, you move the defender(s) to the Tired area so they can rest up for future turns. Many of the actions have simple text instructions on the board, so once you've played a few rounds or a game, it's easy to remember what each action does at a glance. This keeps your head in the game, instead of in the rulebook.
Most of the actions are available in all stages of the game, but some are only applicable at particular stages. In addition, as you shovel snow, one of the Maintenance action choices, you can unlock special bonuses and open additional action spaces which are powerful. I'll highlight some of the actions below in the order that they are resolved during gameplay.
You can perform Mobilization actions (Mobilization stage only) to open new supply routes and add supplies to one of four supply depot areas on the game board, as well as negotiate to lower fear and doubt levels to improve your ability to recruit and retain your defenders. You can resolve Defend the Walls actions (after the Mobilization stage) to combat the Germans if you have defenders placed in defensive positions. This involves rolling a die (d6) for each defensive unit to either hit or suppress German infantry.
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Next comes the Fire Artillery action, which is unique in that it may only be resolved once each turn. For each artillery gun in play, you can choose to attack the infantry sector, German patrol tokens on the map, or the Værnes Airfield. You start the game with one fully damaged artillery gun that has the ability to fire two shots when it's not damaged. You also run the risk of the gun being jammed after you fire it. As the game progresses, you may gain access to a second artillery gun as well.
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An encounter with a German patrol on a supply run (prototype components)
With Maintenance actions, you can shovel snow to gain special bonuses and open up new action spaces as I mentioned above. You also want to keep the snow track low to avoid having to draw a tile from the Hit bag if it gets too high. You can repair damage to remove a damage tile from an action space. You can bolster to add miss tiles to the Hit bag or increase your defense level. On the promote action, you must place an officer with either a hunter or a volunteer, then you swap the hunter/volunteer with a soldier disc from the reserve. You can inspire to increase morale. If you're able to dig a radio or map room out of the snow, you can perform those special actions. As you can probably tell, these Maintenance actions are critical for your survival.
After Maintenance actions, if you have any injured defenders in the infirmary you can take actions to treat patients and you may even gain access to a medicine cabinet action if you dug it out of the snow. This is further incentive to keep up with your shoveling, but again there are so many things you need to do, and there are never enough defenders to do it all.
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A few injured defenders in the infirmary (prototype components)
The last thing you do at the end of the Day phase is resolve Morale steps. First, you check to see if any morale modifiers apply and if so, increase or decrease morale accordingly. For example, you lose one morale for every defender in the morgue, you lose one morale if you run out of supplies, but you can gain morale if you're able to reduce the doubt of the locals. Then depending on the the morale level, you draw and resolve a number of morale cards, and then the morale marker resets to 0. If your morale was at 0 after the morale modifiers, you don't draw any morale cards.
In Halls of Hegra, there's a deck of low morale cards and a deck of high morale cards. The morale cards are tiered so they each have a different effect depending on what stage of the game you're in. Typically you want to avoid the low morale cards because they have negative effects. Alternatively, the high morale cards are great and have positive effects. However, there are despair cards which might be added to the high morale deck, and likewise, hope cards may be added to the low morale deck. This is a cool concept because as the game progresses, your morale card draws might result in the opposite effect that you expect if you draw a hope or despair card. So while you manage everything else you need to in Halls of Hegra, you also have to do your best to keep your morale in check. It's very beneficial to be able to draw high morale cards, and it can be equally helpful to avoid those nasty low morale cards.
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The final aspect of dealing with morale is to check to see if you need to increase the Surrender marker. The Surrender marker increases if you have three or more defender discs in the morgue, if you have four or more defenders in the waiting area of the infirmary, or if all six German artillery pieces are on the map. The message here is, do your best to not let these things get out of control. If the Surrender marker ever reaches the skull icon, you lose the game immediately. Otherwise, you play through the full eleven days and if you have the minimum amount of healthy defenders according to Surrender track, you win. If you don't have enough healthy defenders at the end of the siege, you lose.
If it's not the end of the game, you check the current space on the turn track to see if you need to add German patrol tokens to the board, and you may need to resolve a coup, retreat, or last stand, which are special phases that occur on particular days. Then you advance the turn track marker to the next day and start a new round.
Halls of Hegra plays in about 70-90 minutes when you have the rules down. While I don't have a ton of experience playing it yet, I really enjoyed the small taste I got so far. Everything in Halls of Hegra feels immersive, challenging, and keeps you engaged turn after turn. While you feel the many struggles the game presents, you also have a lot of agency over what you're doing. There is some randomness with the event cards, dice rolls, and pulling different discs and tokens from bags, but the randomness is almost essential to ensure you have a different experience each game. It also helps to create fresh challenges and narratives from game to game.
Often solo gamers seek out and prefer challenging solitaire games. Halls of Hegra will definitely give you a challenge. I like how the game ramps up as you progress through the various stages, which ties back to the history. The game eases you in with a few German patrol tokens appearing after your first day, then the next thing you know, the map has more and more German patrols and artillery units, in addition to a growing number of infantry ready to charge at you. You are dealing with all of this on top of keeping your team of defenders healthy, dealing with the snow, keeping your morale up, and managing other key factors. It is a true struggle, which makes for an intense, yet fun gaming experience.
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Halls of Hegra's beautiful artwork from Jog Brogzin and Joeri Lefevre has a fitting tone to it which sucks you into the atmosphere of the game. I have to admit, I have a bias towards games with a snowy setting, and in the case of Halls of Hegra, I really dig the way the thematic touches and mechanisms correlate to the snowy setting. Most of the game you're struggling and feeling desperate, so when you're shoveling snow and hit that point where you can draw an awesome snow card, it's exciting and rewarding. Shoveling snow and gaining snow cards totally gave me Arctic Scavengers vibes too.
Halls of Hegra is a game that can appeal to a variety of different types of gamers. If you enjoy survival games like Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island, challenging solo games, wargames, or historical board games, Halls of Hegra might be right up your alley. I would even venture to say this is a great option for folks who have been curious to dip their toes into the solitaire gaming pool since it's accessible and offers players a variety of actions and interesting choices while playing it. I am looking forward to playing more Halls of Hegra, and I can't wait to see the finished version.
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