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Sniper Elite: Escalation Expansion Board Game Review
WBG Score: 8
Player Count: 1-4
You’ll like this if you like: Sniper Elite, Good dogs
Published by: Rebellion Unplugged
Designed by: Roger Tankersley, David Thompson (I)
This is the reviewer’s copy. See our review policy here
Escalation adds a few different modules, or as they refer to them, ‘edges’, to your games of Sniper Elite. They come in different flavours, which I’ll talk about in a bit. At the start of the game, you need to decide how many of these you’ll each be playing with, up to a maximum of three. Who chooses first will be determined by the map you're playing. Speaking of maps, all of these will work on any of the maps aside from one module, which is map-specific. Since this is an expansion for the base game, I won’t be talking about how to play Sniper Elite, just what it adds to an already great game.
The Snipers Edge (How they didn’t name the expansion this baffles me. Rebellion, call me for future game titles)
Upgraded Loadout Cards
When you choose one, you replace the base version in the deck with the upgraded one. These may give extra movement, let you injure defenders in multiple spaces, or even let you use another loadout card after using it. These have been game-winning for the sniper in the past. One space of extra movement can make all the difference, and that moment where you can trigger a mine that can take out multiple opponents can be game-changing. These do exactly what they say on the tin; they’re the cards you know with some extra, exciting oomph.
Escalation Missions
These are special asymmetrical abilities, and the sniper has their own two, and so do the defenders. The Sniper has one called Kill Shot, which essentially lets you take out a second defender in one shot if they are both in the same line of sight. However, being able to pull this off depends on how many recoil tokens you also pull from the bag. 0-1 and you can take out both; pull more than two, and you choose which of the two you take out.
They also have the best of all the escalation missions, which is, of course, the Good Boy, which comes with its own dog miniature! I mean, is this even a choice to take this every time? When you inevitably take this mission (let’s be honest, you're a monster if you don’t), once per game, you can mark the dog on your board, and then on your turn, you can move the dog one space, and it alerts the defenders in the same way as the sniper. When you let the defenders know about the noise, you don’t have to tell them if it was you or the dog that made the noise. If the space with the dog is ever swept or spotted, then reveal the dog; it now can’t move again, presumably because it’s been distracted by everyone petting it.
Kill Shot is fun, and having the opportunity to potentially take out two defenders is great, but this can also be very situational, and how often you actually get to pull it off could be quite rare. Especially if the defenders know you have that card and actively try to avoid putting themselves in that position. The Good Boy is genuinely one you'll want to take almost every time. Having a permanent distraction on the board is huge. Again, how well this works could be situational because it can only move one space, and if the defenders move away from it, then all you can do is move it slowly towards them again to make it useful. Overuse of making noise with the dog could make defenders suspicious that it is the dog rather than you being reckless, although you could use this as a clever double bluff.
The Defenders Edge (the difficult second album)
Elite Specialist Cards
The defenders have their own upgrades. Let’s face it, it’d be a bit unfair if they didn't. They've got 6 Elite specialists they can choose from, and much like the sniper's loadout cards, they will give better abilities to the base defenders' specialists. For example, the elite sniper can now target a space up to three spaces away, or the elite medic can protect soldiers by giving them armour two. These elite specialists can still only use their main ability twice, but all of them now come with passive abilities that can be used all the time. An example of those is one that can move a unit in its squad if they’ve used the gathering intel action, which can be huge for an always-on ability.
Escalation Mission
Like the sniper, the defenders have their own two missions they can choose from. Flares give every defender a one-use flare token, which they can use on their turn as a free action. They can place the flare up to two spaces away, and on the sniper's turn, if they are in an open space within two spaces of the flare token, they add a recoil token to their bag and say if they are in one of those spaces (not saying which one) and remove the flare from the board regardless of if the sniper was affected.
The other mission is Call the Hunter. This imposing figure gets placed on the board (whereabouts will depend on the map being played). This is now an extra squad for the defenders and can take one action per round: either move 2 spaces, move 1 and spot, move 1 and attack, deploy, or dismiss. Other squads can forfeit both their actions to give the hunter another action that he hasn't already used this round. He also has armour two, meaning taking him off the board isn't going to be easy. The other squads can give him an extra action by forfeiting their own action.
Anything that lets you cover more ground as the defender is always gonna be welcome in my games. The flares are great for searching that couple of extra spaces, especially when you think you've got the sniper's position down and need that extra kick to find them. The Hunter is the equivalent of you deciding that your regular troops are biffing it, so you send in the Terminator to help out. He’s literally a one-man army and can make for an intimidating figure on the board as he stomps around looking for his prey, and given that he's got two armour, it makes him a tough cookie to kill from afar. I like that he can be given extra actions by the others. If he’s closing in on the sniper, then the possibility of him activating more than once gives an extra sense of dread to the sniper, who might otherwise have thought they were safe.
Advantages
The last thing the defenders have in their arsenal are Advantages; guess what they give you. Here you'll find things like giving the sniper only seven turns rather than ten to complete objectives, adding in the tanks, making particular spaces into difficult terrain, or making the sniper disclose where they entered the board on their second turn. Aside from the Accelerated Schedule (that gives the sniper seven turns), these advantages are map and expansion specific. For example, you can add the vehicles from the Operation Kraken expansion to a map from the Eagles Nest expansion using these cards, but this obviously requires you to have both expansions. These cards are a fun way to add new twists to your existing maps by bringing different elements in, but you may be limited depending on what you own.
I think some of the language in the rulebook could have been explained better. You're told that to use this expansion, you need to play a ‘special op’. I’ll be honest, this confused me, and I went scouring through the original rulebook to see if this was a mode that was referenced in the base game or if it was something that you play in one of the expansions. It’s not; it's just a term they use for adding these modules, but that's never made clear. I also got confused by their use of the term ‘edges’, which is the collective term they use for these modules. They don’t outright say that this is their term for them, and when they come to the “select edges” section of the rules, they give a visual indication of them, but for some reason, this still felt a bit vague, and so our first game we threw in about 4 things each. Luckily, it didn't affect the game, and we did correct that from then on. The whole confusion with ‘edge’ could just be a me thing, and even if it isn’t, then hopefully this will have cleared it up for anyone reading this.
In the world of modular expansions, it’s often the case that some modules will get used frequently, even all the time, and some will sit in the box desperately staring up into the light when the box opens, hoping and praying that this is finally their time to get used, and it never is. When it comes to Escalation, I can see myself consistently using all of these in some combination or another. It’s fun to just explore what each of these does, and as time goes on, you're bound to find your favourites amongst them, and while, yes, there will be certain things that your particular group will bury in the bottom of the box, there is plenty here for every type of player and group.
This is one of those expansions that you can add to your games of Sniper Elite if you're not wanting to explore any new maps just yet but want to change things up. Subsequently, if/when you do pick up new expansions, this can be used to enhance those games as well.
Aside from just being fun additions, these are also another way to balance the game. So if you find players consistently taking the win, then throwing one or two of these in can help address that and also present a fun challenge to those that are taking the wins because, let's be honest, those easy wins get pretty boring pretty quickly.
Escalation is a great way to change up your games of Sniper Elite without breaking the bank and taking up more room on your shelf because, yes, this does fit in the base game box.
Right, I need to go and paint my Good Boy miniature to make doubly sure that he’s the 'goodest' of good boys.
