Specter Ops Board Game First Impressions

Posted on June 21, 2015 by Jesta ThaRogue

Specter Ops is a hidden movement game in a sci-fi world.

It’s like finding a Spider in a Haystack.

A secret agent of A.R.K. has infiltrated a top secret Raxxon facility, attempting to complete three mission objectives before they escape — but they are hunted by genetically modified Raxxon Hunters.

One player is an Agent… They have 4 to pick from and the Hunters won’t know which one they have picked until they find them. They also pick 3 cards with special abilities and again, the Hunters won’t know which cards are picked.

The Agent needs to complete 3 objectives of 4 that are randomly placed on the board, and escape.

The Hunters need to kill them before they do this.

I was a Hunter, I picked The Prophet…

I liked the idea of knowing where the Agent was two turns ago…

Game Board

The game is played on a board that looks really nice. The lighting in the ‘Raxxon Facility’ glows softly and conveniently in different sections of the board. Each square has a code that the Agent will use to track their movement. The numbers are both clearly visible and invisible at the same time… It’s hard to explain.

So the Hunters move on the board, up to 4 spaces at a time and can use abilities to try and work out where the Agent is. The Agents also have access to a car which moves 10 spaces on roads and can scan to see which direction the Agent is in.

The Agent is tracking their movement on an A4 sheet of paper and will drop a token if they pass a Hunter’s line of sight.

That’s it… Combat is done via a D6 where you’re trying to get equal to or over the number of spaces between Agent and Hunter.

We won on turn 36 but on turn 12 we dealt 3 of the 4 damage required. The other Agent needed 1 on 2D6-2 and rolled snake eyes… What are the odds? Oh yeah, 1/36.

24 turns later we got her, she was the Spider…

Specter Ops Summary

It seems that taking a good/popular style of game, boiling it down to its base mechanisms then theme-ing it up a little is in fashion. That’s what this is really.

I’ve played games like Letters from Whitechapel but this is so much better. I remember that game being slow and overly complicated for some reason.

This is very smooth and straightforward but it still has a lot there.

It’s very tense… As the Hunter, you KNOW roughly where the Agent is but there are so many corners and posts to hide behind moving 4 spaces always feels 1-2 spaces too short. I would hate to feel what the Agent must be feeling!

I’m looking forward to the chance to play Specter Ops with different Hunters, or even as the Agent. Argh!