Watergate
Players: 2
Playing Time: 30-60
Board Game Geek
When I was a kid, at the end of the school year we would have a grade-wide event called field day where each classroom would play games and win prizes. It was great! Definitely core memories of my elementary school years. I was a shy, quiet kid that wasn’t super athletic but one of my favorite events for field day was the tug-of-war. I don’t know why but there’s just something primal about pitting two groups of 8 year olds against each other. As if it’s just one or two small steps away from a total Lord of the Flies situation.
My youthful exuberance for tug-of-war unfortunately hasn’t led me to be a professional tug-of-war champion or even play it in the last 30ish years. Well, at least not in its real form with a giant rope and a number of people. No, my tug-of-wars these days come in the form of board games and my favorite of these is without a shadow of a doubt, Watergate.
Watergate pits you and one other player against each other. One side plays the Nixon administration, whose goal is to get 5 Momentum tokens. Their adversary is the Washington Post, working towards connecting Nixon himself to two informants on a bulletin board with pushpins and colored bits of evidence. Whichever side can achieve their goal first wins! But of course there are wrinkles to discuss.
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The nature of the game is that you are constantly being forced to play offensively and defensively at all times. Push too hard one way and you open yourself up to the other player sneaking in there and wrecking your plans. Turtle up and play too defensively, you’ll never achieve your win condition.
The card play helps you agonize over these choices. The cards are split such that there is an extremely powerful event you can use to your advantage, but at the cost of losing that card for the rest of the game. Each card also contains the choice of moving around the evidence tokens, momentum token, or initiative token on the shared tug-of-war track.
If Nixon pulls evidence to their side of the track, they can block spaces off the board. If the Post wins them, they get closer to connecting their informants.
If Nixon wins momentum, they are one step closer to winning the game. The Post obviously wants momentum to prevent this, but they also get some bonuses for collecting it.
Whichever player wins the Initiative gets to go first but more importantly, gets a hand size of five cards instead of four. That seems insignificant until you realize how freaking powerful one extra card can be in the right situation.
Players will go back and forth like this until they either rewrite history and plunge us into an alternate reality where we might not even exist…or just avoid the minor existential crisis and win as the Post. No pressure or anything.
As a bonus, since each card is an actual person or event, you can read a little flavor text on each card and get a neat little history lesson. Something that my wife and I like doing in these games is read the text out loud as we go. Sometimes it helps soften the blow of how we are about to crush the other person. Sometimes…
All told, Watergate is one of my favorite games. I’m not the type of player that cares about wins or losses but this is also the rare game where losing can oftentimes be just as bombastic as winning.
Presentation
+ Cards are large and easy to read
+/- Board state can get busy as the game goes on
Getting it Played
+ Easy to setup, easy to teach
+ Easy to play back-to-back and switch sides
+/- Uneven skill levels will likely mean the more experienced player wins
+/- Theme could be hit or miss
+/- Two players only
Gameplay
+ Every decision feels meaningful
+ Both sides are well-balanced
+/- Having only 4 or 5 cards at a time can feel limiting
Fun Factor
+ Big decisions, small game
+ Both sides are fun to play as and have a unique feel to them
I hope you enjoyed my review! If you want more, you can also follow us on our Instagram page.
Or you can see my other reviews in my geeklist!
Allie 
Beau 