GI Joe Deck Building Game: Silent Interlude Expansion Review

Since its release in 2021, the GI Joe Deck Building Game has been a staple in my gaming collection, coming off the shelf quite often, especially when a new expansion is released. It has survived quite a few cullings that other deck-building games weren’t able to withstand (sorry Clank!). As a child of the 80s, GI Joe has always been my jam, and I’m glad that the deck-building game does it justice.

Today we are going to take a look at the Silent Interlude Expansion. Based on the famed comic without a single word spoken, Silent Interlude introduces two distinct modes of gameplay: a solo mission for Snake Eyes and a traitor mode.

Expansion Overview:

Silent Interlude almost feels like two expansions in one box because the two missions are so wildly different. The first mission (technically Mission 8, but who’s counting) is based around Snake Eyes’s mission to infiltrate the Silent Castle to rescue the captured Scarlett. Yet if you’ll recall from the comic, Scarlett can quite easily take care of herself, so the mission ends with both of them escaping.

For the gameplay aspect, what’s new here is that you are only controlling Snake Eyes or Scarlett. Any Joes you recruit from the main deck are placed on the reserved tile (instead of in your discard pile). Snake Eyes (and Scarlett to a lesser extent) can use those cards to boost their own abilities. For example, Snake Eyes lets you remove 4 “costs” worth of Joes you’ve recruited to give him a +1 wild skill on a mission.

What’s also different is that this scenario is only 6 missions (2 per act) instead of the usual 9. So you’ll be playing a bit of a shorter game. There is also a Silent/Noisy token which tracks your stealth, making the game a little harder once you are discovered.

For Mission 9 though, things do a U-turn. Mission 9, dubbed The Traitor Within, finds a group of Joes held captive by Cobra. After the escape, it turns out Dr. Mindbender has messed with their heads. As you might expect, each player has secret loyalty cards that determine if they are a traitor or not. What’s unique is that every player has 3 loyalty cards. one loyal, one traitor, and a random one (either loyal or traitor). The more players there are, the greater the chance that someone is a traitor (40% at a 2p game up to 80% at a 5p game).

However, once the game starts, a player’s loyalty cards are placed face-down and shuffled and they are not allowed to peek at them during the game. Instead of precision strikes, there are now Accusation side missions. Once those are beaten, the player who had it has to reveal one of their loyalty cards. Yet they won’t know which card is which and until a player has turned up 2 traitor cards, nothing is certain.

If the traitor is ever discovered, then they can no longer go on group missions (and be able to hinder the progress of those). Instead, they can run any number of Menace side missions against other players and will have access to sabotage cards. Finally, the other players can attempt to rehabilitate the traitor by running a group mission against their leader card. Success turns the player back loyal.

Game Experience with the Expansion:

My first game of this expansion was Mission 8 because I was curious how the solo mode played out. I’ve played the game before with the standard solo mode (and enjoy it quite a bit), so while I never thought revised rules were necessary, I was interested to see how it played. And it was a bit of a different experience. To be honest, it was almost painful to put all those recruited joes off to the side instead of into my deck. But on the other hand, it did help me to keep my decks somewhat leaner than usual. You can still use gear and utility cards, so there are still plenty of ways to boost your power.

I found the silent/Noisy mechanic to be a tad clunky though. Before you go on a mission, you reveal the top card of the main deck. If you play more cards to the mission than the number on the revealed card, you become noisy. All future missions have +1 difficulty while you are not silent. Thematically I get what’s happening here (kind of), but overall it felt like extra rules that weren’t really necessary, and most of the time I just ended up going noisy eventually and not worrying about the +1 difficulty.

I did enjoy how Scarlett joined the battle in Act 2, and then in Act 3, you have access to both leaders. Her power is a bit different, allowing her to gain the skills of a Joe in the reserved area. But what’s interesting, is Act 2 missions can only be tackled by her. So you’ll need to fish her out of your deck before running a mission. Yes, the good thing is that if the mission fails, she goes back on top of your draw pile, meaning you only need to search for her once.

And then we get to the traitor mode. I must say, this is probably one of the most unique traitor experiences I’ve ever played. I thought that the idea of having 3 loyalty cards was great because even if you reveal a traitor card, that doesn’t actually mean the player is a traitor. And since everyone has one, and they don’t know which card is which, it keeps the game tense as players will need to accuse each other a lot to truly sus out who can be trusted. You might think I’m a traitor but unless I flip over a second one, you won’t know for certain if I’m the bad guy.

I also thought it was interesting that you can rehabilitate a traitor (whether they want it or not). By running a mission against their leader (who is now a Cobra officer), you can bring them back into the fold. So really, the traitor player can continue to sabotage the Joes, only this time openly, or really push for them to rehabilitate so they can rejoin the team. This creates some really fun decision points during the game.

Finally, I want to touch on the universal content. Silent Interlude comes with a bunch of new cards, but most of them are specific to these two missions. Outside of these two missions, there are only a couple of new leaders and 1 new main card that’s universally added to the deck (the CLAW). So if you aren’t interested in solo or traitor gameplay, there isn’t a ton here for you.

Final Thoughts:

Despite being a pretty good expansion, Silent Interlude is also not going to be for everybody. This is a hyper-targeted expansion towards players who enjoy either solo gameplay or traitor modes. If you don’t fall into one of those two buckets, then there really isn’t anything here for you. It’s not worth buying just to get the few extra leaders and 1 vehicle card.

That being said, if you do fall into one of those two groups, then it’s worth picking up. The solo mission is a unique way to play the game, and the traitor mode is really well done.

Hits:
• Unique solo mode that plays quicker
• Interesting loyalty mechanics
• Silent Interlude is really thematic

Misses:
• Not much for players not interested in solo/traitor mode.

Disclosure: Someone who works with Renegade Games also writes for Board Game Quest. He had no influence over the opinions expressed in this review.