Operation Barclay

What is Operation Barclay

Operation Barclay is a two-player game of low/medium complexity about the intelligence war between the Allies and their Abwehr counterparts in the Mediterranean theater in 1942-1943.

Operation Barclay puts players in the shoes of competing military intelligence directors who are attempting to mask or learn the truth about the Allied invasion plans for 1943. The Abwehr must attempt to learn where the Allies intend to land next. The London Controlling Section (LCS), the core intelligence agency responsible for Allied intelligence, must prevent the Abwehr from discovering the truth.

The LCS player uses a variable set-up, placing tiles face down to establish where in the Mediterranean a primary and a secondary offensive will occur. Over the course of the six game months, the Abwehr player attempts to win sufficient evidence tokens to be able to turn enough of these tiles face-up to reveal where the Allied offensives will come.

To win evidence tokens, players build hands of five cards to take tricks, similar to poker. While having the best hand will secure two evidence tokens, correctly betting after each player reveals the first three cards of each hand on who will have the best five-card hand is worth three evidence tokens.

Game details

Players

2

Age

+14

Duration

40 min

Difficulty

Medium

Type

Board game

Year

2024

Mechanics

Betting and Bluffing · Hand Management · Secret Unit Deployment

Categories

Bluffing · Card Game · Spies / Secret Agents

Designer

Maurice Suckling

Publisher

Salt & Pepper Games · 25th Century Games · HIT Games · Fox in the Box