Saboteur

I've mentioned before that I'm not a big fan of card games. I was pleasantly surprised that Saboteur, a 3+ player card game, is actually a neat little fun game you can play with easily with a group of people who are relatively new to gaming. Saboteur puts each player in a role of a member of a group of gnomes that are trying to dig a tunnel to a gold nugget. The catch is that one player (or with more players even two players) is secretly a saboteur, who is trying to thwart the party's plan and get the nugget only to himself.

At the beginning, each player is dealt a hand of cards (depends on the number of players) and a loyalty card which he secretly checks to see if they are a saboteur or not (like in BSG). Then the basic card are placed on the table. On one side, there is a ladder, which is a starting point for the party, and on the other side there are three cards symbolizing the goal, two of which are worthless coal and one which is gold. These goal cards are shuffled and placed face down so that the gold is always in a random place and no one knows where.

Players take turns, each playing a card from their hand and drawing a new one from a deck. The card from their hand can be either a path card or an action card. Path cards are laid on the table in a way that they must flawlessly connect to already placed cards and eventually they connect the ladder (the starting card) to the gold nugget. The way is often full of bends and crossroads and dead-ends but the gnomes are trying to lay it in a fashion that they eventually get to their goal. Saboteurs, on the other hand, are trying to lay their path cards so that the way to the gold is obstructed or, with a clever use of dead-ends, even impossible.

Here come the action cards. Players may, instead of using a path card, use a card that breaks other player's equipment. There is a mine cart, a lantern and a pickaxe and with any of these broken, a player, be it a normal gnome or a saboteur, cannot dig - lay path cards. However, there are action cards that can fix the equipment. It is possible to use it on self or on others so that if a saboteur prevents someone from digging, other party members can help their friend in need. There are two more action cards - a map which allows a player to look at a goal card and without telling anyone check if the nugget is there, and a cave-in which removes any path card from the game.

a photo from BGG because I've always forgotten to take a pic

Any time an action card is played it goes to the discard pile from where it cannot be returned to the game. So, as the game progresses, the cards from the main deck slowly disappear and once no card can be played AND the gold nugget hasn't been reached, the saboteur wins.

The point of the game is, for the gnomes of course, to reach the gold nugget. Once the nugget is connected to the ladder, points are divided between the gnomes. There is one more deck in the game - the gold deck with cards that have one to three pieces of gold on them. From that deck, the same number of cards as the players is drawn and face down divided between the gnomes starting with the one who laid the last path and continuing clockwise. Depending on the number of saboteurs, the first one to discover the nugget (and sometimes even his neighbour) is dealt two gold cards which gives him a greater chance of scoring more pieces of gold. However, if a gnome had a broken equipment at the time of finding the nugget, they are not given any gold card - they are simply skipped in the dealing. This makes for some fun last second backstabbing from fellow gnomes as the less players are dealt gold cards at the end, the higher chance of having more pieces of gold is. If a saboteur wins the game, he is awarded all the gold cards of the same number as there are players,

Excellent saboteur work. Photo, again, from BGG

Three rounds of the game are played and the player with most pieces of gold in the end is the overall winner.

What came to me as a surprise was that winning as a saboteur was quite possible and not extremely difficult even in a 4 player game. Of course it is a bit tricky to fool everyone by placing bad path cards and avoiding having equipment broken so that one cannot harm, but the reward is much better. Once again, Battlestar Galactica comes to mind. Players want to be a saboteur the same way like they want to be a cylon but I think that while the cylon has a greater choice of harming the humans, saboteur's actions feel much more satisfying and a good saboteur can really wreak havoc between the gnomes and win the game.

Another this that is quite pleasing is that one round takes about 15 minutes. The game doesn't span hours and still delivers quite a lot of fun. The strategy doesn't go too deep, the gameplay is easily accessible and doesn't require heavy focus so it is a good game to have a nice conversation or a drink or two to :) What I would highlight as a weak point, however, is that when a player gets their equipment broken, they can easily spend several turns just discarding and drawing a new card, hoping for a fixing card to come.