Battle Sheep screams, “Kids’ game!” The box, with it’s frolicking sheep on the cover, looks like something that would be in the kids’ section of the game aisle. And here’s where I think the game either got it brilliantly right or tragically wrong in terms of marketing. It’s a lot more appealing to them than checkers or chess. This can be a great game to get kids into abstracts. All of the sheep are different (and adorable). They’re heavy plastic that have a satisfying heft and thunk-y sound when you drop them into place on the board. The designers could have just made all the sheep tokens the same (boring) but they went a little further and made them different so you have a little something extra to look at as you play. Each sheep in the stack is presented in a different humorous pose. They may not love it in the end, but the cuteness makes them want to at least try it.Īnd speaking of cuteness, a quick word about the sheep themselves. I know plenty of people who wouldn’t try something as plain as checkers or Othello, but who can be brought to the table by cute sheep and bright colors. Cute sheep probably won’t make an abstract-hater love this game.Īlthough the sheep and pasture tiles don’t change the gameplay, they definitely make it more attractive. (It looked much like Othello.) That it plays exactly the same whether the components are plain or decorated with sheep tells you that this is and always will be an abstract game. It was the same game, only back then it consisted of plain brown tiles and single-color chips. This game was originally released as Splits in 2010. If there is a tie, the player with the most sheep on connected pastures (pastures that touch on at least one side) wins. Players count how many pastures they occupy and the one with the most wins. Players continue alternating turns until no one can move any more sheep and the game ends.
If you cannot move any more sheep, you are out of the game. If your sheep stack is blocked in on all sides by other sheep it can no longer be moved, regardless of how many sheep are left in the stack. You may not jump over, combine with, or go around other sheep stacks.
Movement stops when you either a) reach the edge of the field or, b) encounter another sheep stack (either your own or that of another player). Leave your original sheep stack where it was and move your new stack in a straight line as far as it can go in any direction you choose.You choose how many sheep you want to have in each stack, but each stack must have at least one sheep. Split your sheep stack into two stacks.Players should set their stacks on opposite sides of the field to spread out the sheep stacks. Once the field is set up, each player places their entire “sheep stack” (all 16 of their sheep tokens) on a space of their choosing on the outer edge of the pasture. Every game can have a different field arrangement. No putting tiles in the middle of nowhere! However, you can construct the field so that there are holes in the middle, or you can create small, tight fields or wide open spaces. The only rule is that newly placed field tiles must touch at least one side of an already-placed tile. Players take turns placing the tiles in any formation they choose. It is these individual pastures that you are fighting to control. Each tile consists of four individual “pastures” marked by hexagonal spaces. At the beginning of the game, each player takes four of the identically-shaped field tiles.
Why share when you can have it all?īattle Sheep is a simple to learn abstract strategy game. You want to own those pastures and keep the other sheep off your turf by surrounding them and preventing them from moving in. In Battle Sheep, your flock of sheep is fighting against other sheep for control of the most pastures in the farmer’s field.
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