Spies, Lies & Supplies Review – Trading Front-Line Firefights for Subtle Espionage

Moments after my first play, Air, Land, & Sea swept me off my feet like a Hollywood heart-throb in a corny (but sweet) romantic comedy. The way it cut through the chaff to create an exhilarating game of attack and defence was masterful. So in hearing about the stand-alone sequel Spies, Lies, & Supplies I was excited to be swept up again.

How to Play

In Spies, Lies, & Supplies, both players start with a hand of six cards and battle over the three theatres of war; Intelligence, Diplomacy, Economics.

On your turn, you’ll play a card with a theatre type, strength value, and special ability that becomes active immediately.

The theatre type of the card determines where you play it. While the strength value is used to calculate who wins each theatre at the end of the round.

This happens when both players have played all their cards. You total the strength on each of the three theatres of war, and the player with the most strength in two of the three theatres claiming victory of the round.

Although, rounds may not reach a natural end.

Where Spies, Lies, & Supplies and its predecessor differ from other card games is that you play until someone gets 12 victory points. Winning a round nets you six victory points, but only if both players play all of their cards.

You and your opponent can withdraw and forfeit the round at any time giving your opponent less victory points, depending on when you withdraw.

For instance, if the six cards you drew at the start of the round inexplicably contains a Uno card. Then withdrawing straight away, would only award your opponent one victory point.

That covers general gameplay, but like the original, it’s the exciting card powers that make this game. Some cards can flip over other cards, reducing their strength. Others can move cards from one theatre to the next. Others still can get your opponent to show you the remaining cards in their hand.

How you use these cards, and in what order, will determine if you’ve won the battle or lost the war.

What’s New in Spies, Lies, & Supplies?

As mentioned Spies, Lies, & Supplies, introduces three new theatres of war in Intelligence, Diplomacy, and Economics. Each of these brings a new set of six cards, along with some new keywords and abilities.

Economics cards let you bolster different theatres by adding supply tokens. These new types of tokens give theatres more strength without the need to play additional cards.

Intelligence cards focus on disrupting your opponent. Whether that’s by copying their card abilities, flipping their powerful cards, or forcing them to play a card they’d rather not.

Meanwhile, Diplomacy cards are powerful but come with a cost. To use their abilities you must first offer something up to your opponent. In a few cases, this is just revealing a card and giving them more information. But in one particular case, you must remove one of your cards from the game to do the same to your opponent.

These new battlegrounds are the Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy to the original’s Saving Private Ryan. While the original was a cut-throat battle on the front lines, this new one is a more subtle game of information and espionage.

Spies, Lies, & Supplies also introduces a couple of different game modes. You can combine the new cards and theatres with the original game, playing with any combination of three theatres. Or use five theatres and hands of 10 cards in the new Epic Mode. There are also rules for a new three and four-player variant.

Better or Worse Than Air, Land, & Sea?

Right off the bat, you’ll notice information about what’s in your hand flows more freely in Spies, Lies, & Supplies than in the original. The new keyword ‘reveal’ makes sure of that.

This shift in focus changes the game from playing what’s in your hand, to figuring out what’s in your opponents. With the original, you had to rely on deductions and probability to know when to play and when to retreat. Spies, Lies, & Supplies leans into its espionage theme and removes some of this guesswork.

However, in doing so Spies, Lies, & Supplies introduces more complex cards and gameplay. It’s still a light game, but knowing what your opponent still has left to play creates new avenues for thought. As you can now try to play around these future cards, or just give up the round earlier.

I appreciated this new approach for what it was but left feeling like the cards lacked the same punch as the original. In large part because there’s so much give and take with these cards. While predominately within the Diplomacy cards, cards from the other theatres also gave you a devil’s bargain. Often requiring you to make some sacrifice to activate an ability.

This I didn’t enjoy as much as just throwing haymaker after haymaker like you would in Air, Land, & Sea. So to answer the question of which one is better, my vote goes to the original as it’s also the better starting point.

What About Epic Mode?

Sadly Epic Mode didn’t do much for me. I enjoy the elevator brawl feeling of Air, Land, & Sea. Having only six cards and three theatres to conquer, means every move is a big one and has massive ramifications.

When playing with more theatres and cards, you get more options each turn but everything feels looser. It’s not until your hand starts slimming down that Air, Land, & Sea begins to feel like itself again. At that point, it’s great, but then you’re just playing the original mode anyway. So you may as well play that.

As an expansion, Spies, Lies, & Supplies delivers variety in spades. You can play it on its own using all of the new cards, mix and match with the original to create different matchups every game or combine with the original to play the new Epic Mode.

Even though this stand-alone version felt like a small step down from the original, it’s still a delightfully clever game. However, it’s the variety added that makes this expansion worthwhile as it will ensure that you keep coming back to Air, Land, & Sea again and again.