LogFAQs > #934336755

32. Specter Ops (2015)

Category: One vs Many/Team vs Team
Genres: Hidden movement, player combat
Rules complexity (0 to 7): 4
Game length: 75-105 minutes
Experience: 5-6 plays over 5-6 sessions (2015-2018) with 4, 5 players
Previous ranks: 9/100 (2016), 21/80 (2018)

Summary - One player, the Agent (who has special powers), infiltrates an evil corporation and moves secretly around the map fulfilling objectives (i.e. reaching certain points) and attempts to escape. The rest of the players are Hunters (each with special powers) hired by the corporation, and they move around the map attempting to locate the Agent (who places their mini onto the board if they are seen/caught). Once they locate the Agent, they have to land a certain number of hits to kill the Agent, who also has a few pieces of one-use equipment to get them out of jams. In the five-player variant, one of the four Hunters is secretly on the Agent's side.

Experience - The first time I played Specter Ops was sublime. We had all just learned it, and I was the Agent and got to choose my ally. The tension was incredible. As I tried to parse the state and bluff my opponent, I also tried to psych people out on who my ally was. With so many powers around the table, every move felt do-or-die. Finally, my tricks ran dry, and my enemies tracked me down. My ally came to my rescue, but it was too late. She was defeated and so we lost, though I certainly would have been had soon after. It was one of the most exhilarating games I'd ever played, immersive and tense, and I was super-excited about the prospect about getting it to the table again.

The next year, it did come to the table again with five players, and I was again the Agent. It was a different crew, and the tension started out again... but I felt like I was getting boxed in sooner, and this time, it felt like everyone else was taking a really, really long time when I felt I had already lost. There was a point where I told people rather rudely to hurry the fuck up. Not my proudest moment as a board gamer. I still managed one clever move to fake everyone else out, standing almost entirely still, after I'd been cornered. But I think that not being personal friends with the ally I'd chosen made a big difference that time, as well as the time and sense of losing that only I could experience.

Subsequent plays, with my new gaming group and at four players, went much faster, much smoother, and much less tense. The Agent has yet to win (because with no doubt, it's easier to be certain on where the Agent is), but these games have gone much more snappily. They did not hit the insane highs of the first game or the mind-numbing lows of the second game, but they were good opportunities to have fun and play a large puzzle.

Design - Specter Ops isn't exactly beautiful, but it's wonderfully chrome-y. The Agents and the Hunters all have great variable powers and cool designs and awesome minis. The board has an extremely cyberpunk-y feel, gloomy and ominous and corporate. The tension is naturally high in a hidden-movement game; once you manage to deduce where the Agent is (by moving your Hunters there to spot it), the Agent has to drop their mini on the board, and it is phenomenally satisfying.

The ruleset is pretty slim and is clearly designed to maximize tension on both sides. The Agent is badly outnumbered, but there are lots of corridors that prevent easy line of sight. It's easier to hide in the maze, but getting spotted in the maze also means that your enemies are up close and that you can get whacked more easily. The Agent also gets to make choices - which specific locations they need to reach the objectives; the order in which to tackle them; which exit to go for. The Hunters have three people and infinite health and more "active" abilities.

As a "battle of wits" game, Specter Ops offers tons of opportunity to feel clever and feel dumb and pump your fist. It can be satisfying either doing it alone as the Agent or as a team as the Hunters, and it can be very interesting doing it with the benefit of a hidden traitor.

Future - For a while, Specter Ops kind of made me feel a bit of dread. It still does, but I think the fallow period has expired, and I'd like to get a play of it soon.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness