Emboscados

About this board game

Emboscados is a forest animal game for 2–5 players that plays in about 25 minutes. Each player is secretly assigned one predator and one kind of herbivore, creating hidden scoring goals across a changing forest display.

At the start, five predator cards form a row, with three random herbivore cards placed above them. During a turn, a player moves an open herbivore below a predator card. The position of these animals matters, because neighboring herbivores of the same kind can trigger a fight or create new life.

• Same gender: adjacent herbivores fight, and a card is removed.
• Different genders: adjacent herbivores mate, adding a cub token to one of the parents.
• Predator feeding: predators eat the top four size points of herbivores in their column.

After predators feed, each eaten herbivore scores a point for the player who owns that predator. Every surviving herbivore card or cub matching the kind you control also scores one point, so your secret assignments reward both predator feeding and the survival of particular animals.

Watch the available herbivores, manage their positions, and look for opportunities to make your hidden objectives pay off. A fight can remove a card, while mating can add a cub token that contributes to scoring. The changing columns keep the outcome tied to where animals are moved and what remains when predators eat.

In Emboscados, the first player to reach nine points wins. Released in 2020, it combines secret roles, animal encounters, predator feeding, and straightforward point collection in a compact forest contest.