Description
Operation Barclay is a low-to-medium complexity two-player game about the intelligence war between the Allies and their Abwehr counterparts in the Mediterranean theatre in 1942–1943.Operation Barclay puts players in the shoes of rival military intelligence directors trying to conceal or uncover the truth about the Allies' plans for the 1943 invasion. The Abwehr must try to find out where the Allies intend to land next. The London Controlling Section (LCS), the central intelligence agency responsible for Allied intelligence activities, must stop the Abwehr from discovering the truth.The LCS player uses a variable setup, placing tiles face down to determine where in the Mediterranean the primary and secondary offensives will take place. Over six months of play, the Abwehr player tries to win enough tokens to flip enough tiles face up and reveal where the Allied forces will land.To win tokens, players build five-card hands, similar to poker. The best hand earns two tokens. You can also win an extra 3 tokens by betting on who will have the best hand.In addition, players have ways to manipulate the decks they draw from. They can create a double-cross deck, which lets them leave cards useful to them face down in the deck to draw later when they choose – unless the other player takes those cards instead ... but perhaps the player who placed those cards was bluffing, hoping the other player would waste their draw on a useless card. Players can also draw from their dedicated deck to enrich their hands with unique abilities inspired by historical figures, events and capabilities.
