Watergate

Watergate is a clever two player game that takes only 30-45 minutes. Its theme is the events surrounding the Watergate scandal of the Nixon presidency and the Washington Post journalists that were trying to uncover evidence linking Nixon to the break-in.

In the theme of the subject matter, one player plays the side of Nixon and his circle of influence and the other side is that of the Washington Post and their circle of influence. Each turn, an initiative and momentum marker is placed on the zero space along with three face down tokens of evidence. If the evidence is moved, it is flipped face up making it easier for the Post side to move it on their side of the track. At the end of a round, any tokens or evidence on their side of the track is utilized in order of the player that now has the influence for the next round. Momentum is placed on the player's card of which the Post side activates one time actions. Then evidence is placed on the board on the web, face up for the Post and face down for Nixon. Then the initiative and new momentum token is placed on the zero space with three face down evidence tokens and a new turn begins. 

Nixon wins by either getting five momentum tokens or exhausting the momentum token pool of nine. The Post wins when they connect two revealed informants to Nixon with a trail of evidence tokens. Evidence tokens are either blue (checks for Nixon's re-election campaign), yellow (the ground plans for the Watergate complex), green (transcripts of the Nixon White House tapes), or colour combination tokens.

The game is intense, as the cards often have either/or selections with many of the selections removing the card from the game if that specific action is used. Over time, that means that there will be less and less cards in your deck which limits options in your hand as the game reaches the final turns. 

The board above is the results of one game. The game art is depicted to look like a cork board in the Washington Post. The face down evidence tokens or informants are redacted in black showing options for lining the evidence or knowing what avenues are blocked. Each card comes with flavour text and are each about critical events that shaped this time period and event in American history. The rulebook also has history and details on people and timeline of the Watergate scandal. An excellent game with strong flavour. Highly recommended, especially to switch sides after playing a game, as each have their own strategies.