Not too long ago I went with my friend Bill to Origins, It was Bill's first time and he went wild with game purchases. I don't blame him because he got such a great discount as a teacher.

One game that he picked up was Saboteur at the Z-Man booth.

Yesterday at our weekly gaming group we broke out the game for the first time.

First impression was the art work was very nice to look at and several people commented on the artwork. It is strictly a card based game with several different types of cards. The cards are of very good quality and should have no problem lasting several years of continuous play.

We started to read the rules and the rules were very intuitive. In less than 20 minutes we were up and running full tilt no problem.

The whole jist of the game is you start with a mine enterance card. Seven card lengths away is three potential gold nuggets. The nugget cards are face down and only one is really a gold nugget card. As a miner you want to be the first to get to the gold and claim the gold. The Saboteur wants to stop all the miners at all costs.

We played a game with 5 people. There are 6 character cards randomly shuffled with one card drawn by each player. The remaining player card is placed face down. No one knows who is a saboteur and the possibility exists that two saboteurs may be active in the game.

During a turn it is a very quick draw one and play one.

you can play a mine shaft card and try to connect the mine enterance to the gold nugget. You can play a broken equipment card on someone that stops them from laying a mine tunnel card. you can use a repair card to reverse the effect of a broken mine equipment placed on you. you can cause an cave in to destroy a part of the tunnel or finally you can play a card to look at one of the face down nuggets.

The game is spent similar to Bang! that you want to know who is against you and who is with you. the saboteur can really mess with the minds of the players by helping and hurting the players.

The saboteur wins the game when the draw pile of cards is exhausted and everyone has to pass on there turn with no one reaching the gold.

If a miner reaches the gold nugget then gold cards are drawn and all the miner split the spoils.

The game was very quick to learn and quick to play.

We will use this as a "filler" game. Our group will play long games of Power Grid and other alike but while waiting for pizza or someone else to arrive we will break out Saboteur again.

Learning the Rules: 20 minutes tops

Game play: 30 minutes for 3 rounds (with more experienced players this will reduce)

Game components: All cards with nice artwork

I would recommend this game as a great "filler" game and a good bridge game into other games of this type. If you like Bang! or Citadels you will pick up on this game really quick.