Pistas (free 2P print-n-play)
A downloadable game
THE STORY
After years of disrupting the insurgency’s opium trade during The War in Afghanistan, the Foreign-deployed Advisory and Support Team (FAST) began a 90-day pilot in Honduras on April 2012. Dubbed Operation Anvil, the program used militarily-trained DEA agents in collaboration with local police to interdict drug flights at clandestine landing strips called “Pistas.”
THE GAME
In Pistas, 2 players compete as FAST and the narco-traffickers, warring over landing strips and drug routes deep in the heart of the Honduras. FAST, with support from Honduran police, tries to lobby for resources and local support, gather intel, and perform program-validating interdictions. The Narco player attempts to plan and execute a successful drug route leading from pista to exfil. The two sides inevitably clash in tense operations filled with deception and violence of action.
Play without printing on Tabletop Simulator!
Designer note: While the core game system is stable, we do think the balance could be tweaked, operations procedure improved, and rules overhead reduced—so please comment any feedback!
THE INSPIRATION
This game hopes to explore the boundaries of what constitutes a war game through the abstraction of DEA agents operating in a military-style capacity overseas. Special Agent Richard Dobrich had this to say about FAST’s mission: “Is it a law enforcement mission or is it a military mission?...“Both!!!””
Related research:
- Honduras: Mission Gone Wrong
- DEA's FAST units in Afghanistan video presentation
- Analysis of DEA's FAST program one sheet
- Justifying militarisation; 'Counter-narcotics' and 'counter narco-terrorism
- Western Hemisphere Drug Interdictions: Why Maintaining Coast Guard Operations Matter
- Not so FAST; The Rise and Rise of the DEA’s Commando Squads
Download
Development log
- Update/change notes | 1.2.bMay 10, 2023
- Update/change notes | 1.1.bApr 05, 2023
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
look good, i will try it and give a comment
Thank you! Excited to hear what you think.
Some good ideas. It seems too easy for the Narco to win. Operation point 4 is confusing even after reading it many times and playing it.
Thanks for playing and the good feedback! We've drafted some tweaks that make it harder for the Narco to build a winning route, e.g. counters would get assigned suits and only routes with suits that match the pista hex's suits can lead to victory. If that doesn't work, it may come down to resource costs changes or cutting an extract.
As for Op step 4, does look like the aim to be concise muddied the instructions. I'll take another stab for clarity. A version without word limits would read something like this:
Narco reveals and discards the stack’s top card, then resolve Attack or Evade based on what was declared in step 2.
A quick edit, but hopefully that's a step in the right direction.
Thanks, I'll try that new text.