Saboteur Card Game

Saboteur is a semi-cooperative card game, designed by Fréderic Moyersoen. It sees 3-10 players take on the roles of dwarves, tunnelling for gold in a mine. Between you all, you’ll be on two teams, working against each other… but nobody knows who their teammates are! You’ll need to use some smart hand management and some top bluffing skills to earn the most gold in this game!

At the start of each round, players receive a secret role. Either you’ll be an honest gold-digger dwarf, who’s hunting for ingots, or you’ll be a saboteur. The latter of whom are trying their hardest to cripple proceedings.

Two ‘rock’ cards and one ‘gold’ card get placed face-down, in a vertical line. A tunnel ‘entrance’ card sits face-up, the width of seven cards away across the table. The gold-diggers win if they can dig a meandering route linking the entrance to the correct ‘gold’ card. They need to achieve this before the deck runs out. The saboteurs win if they can prevent this from happening. The role cards are always weighted in favour of there being more gold-diggers than saboteurs. But how can you trust everyone?

Players also receive a hand of cards. These could be ‘tunnel’ cards, which further extend the tunnel network, like roads in Carcassonne. Or, they could be ‘attack’ or ‘fix’ cards. Suspect someone’s on the opposite team to you? Smash their lantern! Break their mine cart! Or you could help mend an ally’s tools. But beware – reveal your allegiance too early and you could make yourself an easy target. How long can you pretend to help the dwarves before you start sabotaging? Who should you trust? Who’s bluffing? Who’s double-bluffing?

Saboteur is the kind of game that thrives when players get into character at the table. You won’t play this one in silence – it doesn’t take long for the accusations to start flying!

Player Count: 3-10
Time: 30 minutes
Recommended for Ages: 8+