Agent Avenue + Divison M – Quick Guide for Beginners

60-Second Refresher

For anyone who already knows Agent Avenue and just wants a quick refresh before the next game:

• You play 2 cards: 1 face up, 1 face down, with different names.
• Your opponent picks one of the two cards, you are forced to take the other one yourself.
• Movement depends on how many matching cards you have in play: 1 card uses the 1st icon, 2 cards the 2nd, 3 or more the 3rd.
• 3 Codebreakers = instant win. 3 Daredevils = instant loss. Both are only checked at the end of the turn.
• You only get a Black Market card if you land exactly on a corner space, not if you pass over it.
• With Division M: your token on your home space is a second trap. If your opponent lands on it exactly, you win instantly.

If any of these six points still feel unclear, the full explanation for each of them follows below.

Goal of the Game

In Agent Avenue, two retired spies live next door to each other without knowing it. When both stumble onto mysterious clues, their old instincts kick back in. To uncover their neighbor's identity, they recruit locals from the neighborhood and try to catch the other's meeple on the board before it happens the other way round. Whoever catches the opponent's meeple first wins.

Setup

• Players: 2 (with a team variant for 3–4 players)
• Age: 8+
• Playtime: approx. 10–20 minutes
• Components:
  • 1 double-sided board
  • 38 agent cards
  • 15 black market cards (advanced mode only)
  • 2 meeples
  • 2 player aid cards
• The Division M expansion adds 6 more agent cards, 2 "Division M" tokens, and 15 additional black market cards.

Setup (Simple Mode)

1. Place the board on the table with the simple mode side face up.
2. Each player picks a color and places their meeple on the matching home space.
3. Shuffle the agent cards and deal each player 4 cards. The rest becomes the draw pile.
4. Whoever last watched a spy movie goes first.

Playing with Division M: simply shuffle the 6 new agent cards into the deck, and set each player's "Division M" token next to the board within reach, it only enters play later.

Game Turn

A turn runs through three fixed steps.

1. Play

• Play 2 cards from your hand into the center of the table, 1 face up and 1 face down. They must have different names.
• Optional: before playing, you may discard a hand card face down and draw a new one, multiple times per turn, but only 4 times in the entire game.
• Afterward, draw back up to 4 cards in hand.

2. Recruit

• Your opponent picks one of the two cards and places it face up in front of them.
• You are forced to take the remaining card and place it face up as well.
• Both players now move their meeple, based on how many cards of that same name they have in play: 1 card uses the 1st icon, 2 cards the 2nd, 3 or more permanently uses the 3rd.

3. End

Only now is it checked whether a condition has been met:

• Your meeple reaches or passes your opponent's → you win. If it gets passed again during the same turn, it doesn't count as caught.
• You have 3 Codebreakers in play → you win.
• You have 3 Daredevils in play → you lose.
• The draw pile is empty and your opponent has fewer than 2 cards in hand → the game ends, whoever is closer wins.

In case of a tie in any of these situations, the active player always wins.

Advanced Mode: Black Market Cards

• Use the side of the board with the black market spaces in the corners.
• Shuffle the 15 black market cards, lay out 3 of them face up as the supply, the rest becomes the draw pile.
• Only a meeple that lands exactly on a black market space may take a card from the supply and immediately replace it with the top card of the draw pile.
• Instant ability (lightning bolt): resolved right away, then goes to the discard pile.
• Ongoing ability (infinity symbol): stays face up in front of you and is active from now on, but not retroactively for agents already recruited.
• One black market card can flip one of the core rules on its head: while it's in your play area, having 3 Daredevils makes you win the game instead of lose it. In the German edition this is the card Rudelführerin — the exact official English card name has not been verified against the printed English Division M leaflet, so please double-check the wording on your own copy before relying on it.

Team Variant (3–4 Players)

Teams share a single meeple as well as the agent and black market cards they have in play, but each player keeps their own hand and may not show or describe it to their teammate. One teammate plays face up, the other face down, then the opposing team agrees together on which card to take. The optional discard-and-draw is limited to 2 times per player in the entire game in the team variant, not 4 times as in the standard two-player game.

Expansion: Division M

• The 6 new agent cards simply get shuffled into the deck.
• New recruiting icons: Home places your "Division M" token on your home space, 1 and 2 move it up to 1 or 2 spaces forward or backward, and you may choose not to move it at all.
• Extra win condition: if your opponent's meeple lands exactly on your "Division M" token's space at the end of a turn, you win instantly.
• The "Division M" token can't be caught or removed from the board, it's a pure trap, not a second racing meeple.
• In advanced mode, 15 additional black market cards are added; for your first game with the expansion, it's recommended to play with only the new cards.

Official rulebook (PDF, external link to Nerdlab): Rulebook

Common Mistakes When Getting Back Into the Game

• Celebrating too early: a third Codebreaker doesn't win the game the moment it's recruited, only once the End step is checked. Your opponent can still react during the same turn.
• Miscounting a catch: passing your opponent's meeple counts as catching it even without landing on the exact same space.
• Missing the Black Market: crossing a corner space without landing exactly on it gives you no card, this gets mixed up often.
• Mixing up the Division M token: movement cards always move your regular meeple, never your "Division M" token, unless a card explicitly says otherwise.
• Playing two identical cards: the face-up and face-down card must have different names. Two identical cards are only allowed if your entire hand happens to consist of cards with the same name, which is the rare exception, not the norm.

Tips for Beginners

• The face-down card is your bluffing tool: play a genuinely good card face up and a weaker one face down next to it, so your opponent has to guess instead of knowing.
• This also works the other way around with two bad cards: playing the Saboteur face up and the even more damaging Mole (-3) face down forces your opponent to choose between two unpleasant options, never sure which one is worse.
• Keep track of how many cards of a given name your opponent already has, especially with Codebreaker and Daredevil, since the third copy can decide the game instantly.
• In advanced mode, it pays to plan your target spaces ahead, not just your next move.

Conclusion

Agent Avenue is a compact two-player bluffing game with a very manageable rule set. The advanced mode with black market cards noticeably raises the tactical depth without meaningfully extending playtime. The Division M expansion adds another layer on top, since both sides now also have to defend their own home space while chasing their opponent at the same time.