Narcos: The Board Game - Experience The Thrilling World of Drug Trade, Action-Packed Game Based on The Hit Netflix TV Series, Ages 18+, 2-5 Players, 75 Minute Playtime, Made by CMON

This is a great, and underrated, new hidden movement game from CMON. The basic idea here is that one player plays the drug lord Pablo Escobar/Patron, while between 1-4 players play each of the Hunter factions trying to find him (DEA, Cartel, etc) before he establishes political dominance or completes two public objectives. It's great fun, as you race to traffic cocaine through airports while the DEA and cartels try to navigate through your controlled towns, set up blockades, and maybe even capture you.Pretty much every Patron action gives the Hunters a clue as to where he is, and the value of the clue is proportional to the benefit Patron is seeking, creating a great tension. Should Patron deploy a high-level Sicario, even though that gives a huge clue about his hideout? Or should he deploy a weaker one, to better hide his movements?COMPARISONS TO OTHER GAMES:--------------Some of my favorite hidden movement games add something besides the chase for both the hunters and the target player to do -- but also integrate that activity so that both players need to balance the side activity. In Narcos, it's possible that you can get lucky and guess where Patron is. But Patron doesn't lose automatically because of that! He gets one get out of jail free card.BUT -- and this is huge --, Patron's options for escape depend a lot on how he's played up to that point in the strategic side of the game.If you just want a lean, purer chase game, check out Lord of the Ring: The Confrontation and Letters from Whitechapel/Whitehall Mystery, which I think perfected that concept (first sort of introduced decades ago by Scotland Yard.)Probably my all-time favorite 'hidden movement' game for 2 players is Star Wars: Rebellion because both the Empire and Rebellion must balance the search for the rebel base with completing or blocking objectives. Narcos takes only about an hour and a half to play, compared to four-six hours for Rebellion, and feels like a streamlined take on that concept.It is also somewhat similar to Fury of Dracula -- except in Narcos, Pablo only rarely gets to secretly move on the game board. Pablo basically only gets to move ONE TIME for free to anywhere on the board, when he is caught the first time -- and he also gets to move at the end of each season, although when he moves at the end of the season HE MUST OBEY MOVEMENT RESTRICTIONS (he also needs to do this when he's caught the first time and relocates, but he doesn't have to pay money). That means clever hunter placement and blockade placement can cut him off. (However, Pablo can move through spaces held by his own sicarios, so Sicarios may want to clear a path for Patron -- and Hunters have incentive to attack the Sicarios to prevent this). Also, Pablo must pay for his end of season movements -- he can only move a number of spaces equal to the amount he pays! So his economy is important.Narcos is however significantly less rules-heavy/complex than Fury of Dracula or Rebellion, plays great with 2-3 players, and finishes faster. This game is a good intro to hidden movement games, as its cardplay /interactions are far more streamlined than Rebellion and Fury to Dracula -- and the decision space is a bit more restricted. My Narcos games have usually come down to the wire, but they haven't been very brainburny -- usually the Hunters figure Patron is in 2-3 possible spots at the end of the season, and make a tense guess based on their available info, and patron's possible escape routes.IDEAL PLAYER COUNT--------------Narcos really plays from 2-5 players, but it becomes a cooperative game for the DEA/cartel/policia factions as they work against Patron and his henchman Sicarios, and all the complaints I have about cooperative games come into play there. There's high potential for quarterbacking and I just think 2-3 players is really ideal for this game. When you have 2+ players as Hunters, just be sure you are OK with one Hunter telling the other what the ideal play seems to be.The other problem with playing with more players is downtime. There's simply not enough for each Hunter player to do, and there's tons of time between turns.The turn order for each season is Patron Player--Then 1 Hunter Faction--Then Patron player again--Then The Next Hunter faction. So it works especially great with 2 players, as there is not a lengthy period of time where the Hunter factions all move one after the other, as in some other hidden movement games, like Treasure Island or Letters from Whitechapel (both fantastic games).Note--there are potentially an unlimited number of 'seasons' in the game. The designers previously had it capped at 3 seasons, but this encouraged the Patron player to simply hide, rather than complete objectives. So now, the game only ends if the Hunters catch Patron twice, OR Patron completes 2 objectives OR gets his popularity rating to 20. Patron stops uncovering new possible objectives to complete after season 3, however.IMPORTANT HOUSE RULE -->> There can potentially be a problem in the base game, if the Patron player simply acts very conservatively and hides, maxing out his income. This can sometimes lead to duller games, because by default, Narcos has no 'timer' like Letters from Whitechapel -- the game can go on for infinite rounds until one side fulfills a win condition.So, I like to implement the following two rules, which I first heard about on BGG. First: If Hunters cannot find Patron even one time by the end of Season 3, Patron wins. Second: If Patron cannot fulfill one of their victory conditions and win the game by the end of the 4th season, Patron loses.This is thematic, keeps tension up, and avoids potentially slow and dull games where Patron just hides to max out his lab money. The designers had playtested a similar variant (in which the Hunters simply win if Patron has not won the game by the end of season 3) and rejected it as unthematic, but the real problem is that that makes things a touch too hard on Patron. This new House rule is best, I think, but it is by no means required.UNIQUE MECHANICS, HOW TO WIN, ETC.--------------The real hook here are the 'investigations' actions that the factions allied against Patron can pursue. They can spend valuable action points on various activities, including attacks against Patron agents, destroying his coke labs, etc., but the most interesting are investigative techniques that help narrow down where Patron is hiding. The most pricey investigation will force Patron to tell you 2 numbers -- one truthfully indicating the shortest distance from your active hunter/DEA agent to Patron, and the other a decoy number he just makes up. Other actions force Patron to tell you if he's on a city or forest, or whether he's in the same region as you -- again, these have analogues in Rebellion, too.There are several innovations. First, you can't win simply by "Stumbling" on Patron on the way to doing something else. Here, Patron can be hiding on a spot with a DEA agent or Hunter. Unless they use an action point(s) specifically to search for Patron there, he remains undetected. This is a distinction in some ways from Rebellion.Second, once you 'catch' Patron once -- say, with a lucky guess - -you don't automatically win! Patron gets one free relocation. This helps a LOT. It's kind of annoying to have a game of Whitechapel or Treasure Island end just because someone makes one lucky guess. Rebellion reduces this risk with base relocation, and so does Narcos -- I love it. Luck is mitigated.And third, you aren't just trying to find Patron. You also have to keep check on his drug empire or he'll be able to complete objectives and win the game by finishing them. For instance, one objective is called Miami and involves shipping out a certain amt of cocaine before the game round (cutely called a "season") ends. These objectives are public knowledge at the beginning of each season, so the hunters are aware of what patron can go for. If Patron completes enough objectives, he wins the game. [Patron also has a small number of cards to play or discard, as well as special sicarios to use -- which is good and bad. Bad because it can repeat over multiple playthorughs, but good because it's more predictable and strategic for both players.]OR, Patron could win the game by taking over Columbia politically and gaining 20 prestige points, which he accrues each season generally for keeping influential Sicarios alive at the end of each season. I found this to be pretty tricky. You basically need to deploy your high-value sicarios -- who are also the ones who are most likely to give away Patron's location -- at the end of the season, after having built up enough roadblocks to prevent the hunters from running in and making a game-ending guess at where the hideout is.The big tension for Patron is that when he deploys the Sicarios who give the most prestige points at the end of the season, he MUST place them a certain number of spaces from pablo's secret hideout! (The distance scales with the importance of the Sicaro -- so for instance, a high-value sicario who would add 5 prestige points, must be placed within 2 spaces of the hideout, while a sicario who might only add 2 prestige points can be placed farther away.) This is a wonderful risk-reward mechanic!Patron cannot simply win by running out the clock, since there's an unlimited number of possible seasons. That adds a bit more drama than rebellion. In rebellion, the rebel player can really only win by running out the clock. Where here, you can win by racing some cocaine to the airport tile and evading a DEA blockade at the last minute. Here, the DEA/allied factions want to nab Patron twice, and the Patron player has some cool options.Thankfully, there's no dice combat here. Combat is resolved by the police factions spending a known number of action points (which could be spent doing other things, like destroying coke labs or running investigations!) and then the Patron player reveals the defense value he secretly assigned that Sicario at the beginning of the season. There are some techniques the police factions can use to know this value in advance for several Sicarios, depending on how often the Patron player has used special Secario actions. This is neat and adds a certain bluffing tension to the combat -- not unlike Rising Sun or Lord of the Rings: Confrontation. (It's more similar to Rising Sun, because the action points you are spending to fight the Sicarios comes out of a resource pool that could have other uses.)One other neat innovation I should mention is that a big part of the strategy for the police factions is to set up roadblocks (and similarly, Patron will want to set up his own cut-off points.) Patron can only move at the end of each season, and he needs to respect normal movement rules. So it's a very good idea for the police factions to set up blockades to hem Patron in, even if they aren't aware of his exact location. Patron can only move at the end of the season X number of spaces, where X is a dollar, and he has to reveal his old location at the end of each season. Will you spend 5 dollars to move 5 spaces? What about 6 dollars to just move 1 space and throw the DEA off the scent? Or will you have no money because the DEA dismantled your economic infrastructure?MISCELLANEOUS RULES/ERRATAThere is a very helpful pad that indicates all the hiding spots, so both players can track their knowledge of where patron is and what the other side knows about his location -- this is something Rebellion should have had. The game does slow a bit as the Hunters pause to rule out certain locations for patron's hideout based on new information, and the patron player may also need to take some time to avoid revealing too much info about the hideout with a Sicario placement.The minis are good quality, the rulebook has some minor ambiguities, but over all it's just a great game. Some rule clarifications:(1) Blockades/controlled city tokens can ONLY GO ON CITIES;(2) Remember to recall Sicarios at the end of each season;(3) Patron's lab marker at the bottom of the board goes up at the end of each season by the number of labs on the board at the end of the season. It is NOT a marker to indicate the total number of labs on the board at the end of the season? EXAMPLE: If at the end of Season 1, Patron has 2 labs on the board, set the lab economy marker to 2. If at the end of Season 2, Patron only has 1 lab on the board, set the lab economy marker to 3 -- NOT TO 1!(4) The Sureshot card that forces a Hunter who is adjacent to Sureshot to attack him , takes effect on the Hunter's turn and effectively wastes one of his actions.(5) Consider the house rule mentioned above!(6) The designer has said you can randomly assign sicarios to slots (Recommended for beginners) or choose which sicarios go on which slots on Patron's player board, after drawing them.(7) A hunter faction can allow any other hunter faction to use his special ability on their turn. So the DEA player can lend his one-per-game-use +2 movement buff to any other hunter, on that hunter's turn.(8) Note the Cali cartel player can also lend his special action bonus to another hunter, but only after that hunter (which can include the Cali player) commits to using an action card. This is significant because the Cali player lets you see 2 Patron defense values for 2 sicarios. You need to have a hunter use an action card --and thus commit to its value -- prior to seeing those two values.(9) Unless it's a special sicario, YOU CANNOT MOVE A SICARIO AS SOON AS YOU PLACE HIM. Patron can pay to move a sicario if he wants, then he must play one. But he cannot then immediately move that Sicario. Instead, that sicario gets actions -- placing control tokens, labs, etc.(10) WHEN PABLO IS CAPTURED, HE GETS TO RELOCATE FOR FREE -- BUT HE HAS TO FOLLOW BASIC MOVEMENT RULES. He can't just pick anywhere on the map. He can't go through Hunter players or blockades, for example, or use airports(11) For the Drug Party objective, Pablo can't place the tokens on airports.

My board game collection is still in its infancy stage but quickly growing with each new paycheck and Narcos is our newest addition. Narcos is the only hidden movement game I’ve played, so unfortunately I can’t compare it to any other popular ones (Star Wars: Rebellion, Fury of Dracula, etc.), but what I can say is it’s a whole lot of fun for my wife and I, and plays great with only 2 players. As noted in the description the game can accommodate larger player counts but I feel we will still primarily play this with only 2 with maybe 3rd player occasionally. Smaller player counts should keep the game going at a good pace, and help to cut down on someone having nothing to do/waiting a long time for their next turn to come around. What we really enjoy about it so far is the maintained level of tension, especially for the player controlling Patron, but also for the Hunters when your low on choices and trying to make every action count.Only negative we’ve had is that some of the rules seem a little vague in the rule book , but after a couple of play throughs and consulting BGG Forums and Reddit, we feel like we are in a good place now. For anyone unsure if this might be their jam or not, I’d recommend watching a few overview/review videos on YouTube.Game is really fun and hope more people give it a shot.

If you like hide and seek games using deduction and creativity, you will like Narcos. If you are a fan of the show and don't mind learning the rules for a medium rated difficulty board game of tracking down a drug lord, you will like it. One play plays El Patron the drug lord who is trying to set up his empire and stay hidden. The other players are separate law enforcement agencies trying to track down and find the secret hiding place of El Patron. It is a fun cat and mouse game and fairly well balanced. The $20 Amazon price is a steal. I would probably pay $30 max for the game. Cool miniatures that can be painted. Large board that covers the table.

I'm a big fan of Cmon board games.

I really enjoy this game. For a Cat n Mouse style game this is a good game.I gave it a 4 star as the rules are a bit confusing at points, but once you figure out how to play, this is a great game.