Stats:
No. of players: 2-5
Amount of time to play: 30-45 min
Age requirements: 8+
Set-up time: minimal

The Agents is a unique double-edged card game. When you play a card you must decide which side of the card will benefit you and thus which side will benefit your opponent.

The Agents Rules Description:

You start the Agents with three agents cards and one mission card. Each turn you score Intel Points (IPs) for any missions you have accomplished and completed data tokens pointing at you. Once a player scores 40 IPs the round finishes and then the player with the most IPs wins.

You have a faction row between each neighboring player. In a two-player game you simply have two faction rows between you and your opponent. These rows are where you play your agents cards in order to score IPs. Each faction you have starts with a safe house in it. Safe houses help you start gaining data tokens and IPs early.

Agent cards can be bought with two IPs and have a command on the bottom edge. This command makes you or an opponent take different actions like extracting agents back to your hand, turning them 180 degrees or outright killing them. The top edge has half a data token in either black or white. When you place an agent into a faction the player that can read the action must take it.

There are also free agents they do not have data tokens or stay on the table. They give one player IPs and the other a special action and then they are discarded (retired).

Mission cards cost three IPs and are played to one of your faction rows at the end of your turn. They can be swapped or moved too and they will keep generating IPs until they are no longer being fulfilled.

On your turn you get two actions playing an agent or free agent card, reactivating any command you can read, buying an agent or mission or trading in missions on a one-for-one basis.

After you take your two actions you can move or swap mission cards between your factions. Then you score IPs based on completed missions and completed data tokens. For each complete black or white data token pointing toward you, you score two IPs and for each complete one pointing at you that is black and white, you score one IP.

Once a player gets to 40 IPs the round finishes and the player with the most IPs wins.

Quick Review of The Agents Card Game:

The Agents is a fun and unique strategy card game. It forces you to make tough decisions each turn and they matter. The game play is pretty simple to pickup and there are some nice variants on the website.

The components for this game are up and down. The artwork is fantastic. It really helps portray the theme of the game. The cards are made of a plastic material. I liked them, but others in my group did not. I did not like the spelling errors on them though. The rules are not well organized and you will probably need to go to the website for some clarifications. There also seemed to be some rules missing regarding commandos. If you got expansions you need to go to the website to get the rules for them which I found annoying.

There were definitely some things I liked about the game. The way the cards work is interesting. Do you get points and let your opponent have a command or vice versa. Like I said before there are some tough decisions and most all of them really matter.

Spending IPs to gain agents or missions is a nice twist too. You need to manage what you spend IPs on while trying to gain IPs from data tokens and missions.

The game plays well with two but I enjoyed it even more with three. Any more players can be a bit too slow but not unmanageable.

The Agents is a fun game that scales well and has more depth than you initially think. There are some cool combos and interactions. The game scales well and plays fast. The components are a bit problematic but they do not impede playing or enjoying the game. If you are looking for a fun card game that plays two to five players you should try this one out.

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