Dirty Squad

Playtime: 30 Minutes
Players: 3 – 5

Designers:

Categories: ,
Venues:

Description

What’s the Dirty Squad?
The Dirty Squad is a bunch of dirty cops within the precinct, recruited by the Mafia.

What is the purpose of their recruitment?
A number of killers have been brought to the station for questioning, whom they must covertly help escape.

How do they do this?
The victim’s friends and family members, innocent bystanders, witnesses, and accomplices have been summoned to the station as well. Using them as cover, the cops must bluff the killers out. They’ll do whatever it takes to get the job done, even if it means using every dirty move in the book to do so.

What do they get for this work they’re doing?
The dirtiest cop — the one who lets the most number of killers escape, wins the game by becoming the Squad’s undisputed leader and the Mafia’s highest-paid Inside Man. A reputed spot that can only be won by playing dirty!

Test your skills in this underhanded bluffing card game and find out if you’ve got what it takes to out-bluff and outsmart the others and become the undisputed leader of your Squad!

What’s in the box:
There are 122 cards — a mix of Character Cards and Power Cards:
25 Killers, 12 Accomplices, 12 Family Members, 12 Witnesses, 12 Victim’s Friends, 12 Innocent Bystanders, 2 Character Impersonators + 35 Power Cards + 70 medal tokens. 

The aim of the game:
To release the most number of killers from your hand. 

How to Play:
You start by shuffling the deck of cards thoroughly and dealing 7 cards to each player, along with 3 medal tokens. 

You have to bluff the killers out of your hand, so when you want to let go of killers, they must be disguised as any of the other characters. You must never announce the fact that you are releasing a killer. 

Hand Example: you have 2 killers, 2 family members, 1 innocent bystander and 2 power cards in your hand, and in your first turn you want to release killers:
Place one or both of the Killer Cards face down and announce ANY OTHER character. (Say: 2 Family Members)
Only you know that the two cards are NOT Family Members but the others have to gauge whether you are bluffing or telling the truth
The player to your immediate left gets to decide whether he would like to open the cards and check them, or trust you and let them pass. If he passes it goes to the next player and the decision falls upon him. If no one checks your cards they go face down in your Released Pile. No one knows what cards have gone except you

If a player decides to check your cards: in this case, since you did bluff, you have to give 3 medal tokens to that player. That player ‘catches’ the killers you were trying to help escape and keeps them in his custody.

Custody: is when a player catches another player’s killers and keeps them face UP in front of them. This does not bode well for you, since, all the dirty cops are looking to help escape the most number of players. And when you get caught, it costs you more than just your pride

But: if you haven’t bluffed and a player checks your cards, then, they must give you 3 medal tokens for wrongful doubt, and those cards go face down in your Released Pile. Draw back to 7 cards in hand at the end of your turn. 

Securing Killers: Coming back to caught killers. These killers can be stolen by any of the players, so they must be secured. You can do so by placing up to 4 medal tokens on them. To steal a killer is harder now because the player will have to match the number of tokens on the killer to be able to steal it unless he has a Power Card that allows him to steal without having to give to give tokens. 

To release killers from your custody, you can do 1 of 2 things: 
Give 5 medal tokens and close the killer, or, use the Power Card that allows you to release the killer without having to give any tokens at all 

The Power Cards play an important role in the game too. Each Power Card has its description on the card itself. Please read through the cards to understand them better. But, with those in play, the game keeps changing until the very end. 

So, on your turn, you do one of the following:
Take 3 medal tokens (caps at 8. If you have 8 in hand you cannot take more)
Play character cards 
Play action cards 
Release killers 

The game ends when: 
When there are no playable cards in any player’s hands. 

Scoring:
The player to have the most number of killers in their released pile is the winner. 
But know this, any killers left in hand cancel out 1 killer from the closed pile. So make sure you let go of all the killer from your hand. 

If there’s a tie, then if any player has open killers in their custody wins