Stats:
No. of players: 2-4
Amount of time to play: 60-90 min
Age requirements: 12+
Set-up time: 5 min

Shadow Run Sprawl Ops is a worker placement game and dice roller where you must build a team, gear up, and complete missions to win.

Shadowrun Sprawl Ops Rules Description:

In order to win Shadowrun Sprawl Ops, you need to finish the final mission. This requires a team of runners equipped with the right gear and some luck.

You start Shadowrun Sprawl Ops with three runners and 20k Nuyen (monies). On your turn you place one of your runners on a location on the board. Different locations only allow a certain number of runners. Some location actions resolve immediately while others resolve later in the round.

Runners come in five classes; Street Samurai, Decker, Mage, Rigger, and Face. Each class adds different dice to your mission runs and some gear might only be for different classes. You can hire additional runners that tend to be better than the ones you start with. Some runners are even multi-class contributing two types of dice.

There are locations to buy gear, buy tech, hire runners, heal up and run side missions. After everyone has placed all their runners you can try to complete the final mission. If someone is able to do that they win. If not players that put a runner on the “run missions” space may do so.

When you try to complete a mission you look at all your runners and their gear. This will create your dice pool. Missions are divided into phases and you need to roll a specific number and type of successes to move from phase to phase. Complete the final phase and you’ve completed the mission and gain the appropriate monies.

You get three rolls per mission phase and re-roll all your dice keeping track of any successes on a side board. If you have five of the same color/type of dice you may set two aside for one auto-success. The dice have success and injury results. Each injury may be cancelled by a success, but that can hinder finishing the mission. If you roll more injuries than successes you must put an injury token on one of your runners. That runner can no longer contribute to the current mission and you remove their dice from the pool. If a runner gets a second injury token they are dead and discarded. You can keep and redistribute their gear once the mission is over.

Once someone finishes the final mission the game is over and they are the winner.

Quick Review of Shadowrun Sprawl Ops:

Shadow Run Sprawl Ops mixes worker placement with dice rolling. It takes place in the cyber-punk, Shadowrun RPG setting. If you have played the RPG or any games from the setting, this one is true to the theme.

Some of the components for this game are great. The board has a cool sheen to it and it looks really good. Likewise, the art on the cards it well done. But the standees and player boards work but could be better. The rules are not well organized, some need clarification and some are even missing. They fail to mention the starting 20k monies. You should read the FAQ to be sure you have a handle on everything before you play.

The worker placement aspect of the game works very well. Much of it makes logical and thematic sense. If you send your Street Samurai to do a body guard job you’ll earn some quick cash, but he can’t also go on the mission later that turn. Or your Face gets a discount on many of the locations because he can haggle a sweet deal.

I played the Shadowrun RPG in the mid-90s and remember the joy of gathering and chucking a handful of six-sided dice to resolve actions. That same joy is here. As you add gear and loot to your runners, you’ll get more dice for your missions.

The dice can be cruel and all your planning and equipping your runners might be for nothing. It is not horrible but before you play the game realize the end result is pretty random. And though there is competition for locations, you cannot directly interfere with another player’s missions.

Not sure if you’ll enjoy this game or not? That will probably depend on two things. How much you like the Shadowrun setting and how much the randomness of the dice rolling bothers you. If you like Shadowrun or don’t mind the dice determining some things, give this one a try.

Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 4 out of 6
Luck 5 out of 6
Player Interaction 4 out of 6
Replay Value 4 out of 6
Complexity 3 out of 6
Fun 4 out of 6
Overall 4 out of 6