Graze and Block. Review of Battle Sheep Board Game
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BATTLE SHEEP GAME REVIEW
Battle Sheep is an abstract strategy game for 2-4 players that takes 10-15 minutes. It was developed by Francesco Rotta and released in 2014. In Battle Sheep, players start by building a "pasture" by laying out tokens, each consisting of 4 hexes. When the pasture is finished, players place their sheep in a single stack of 16 tokens, then compete for more pieces of the play area by moving stacks of pieces (their sheep) from space to space. The winner of the game is the player who has the most occupied seats.
Players make moves clockwise, starting with the first player. The trick is for the player to choose one of their stacks of sheep and move from 1 to all the sheep in that stack (always leaving one sheep on your current cell). To move, you take a selected number of sheep and move them in a straight line until you can move no further.
WHAT I LIKE ABOUT BATTLE SHEEP
The components are of the highest quality, from the thick, heavy discs (seriously, these tokens are just gorgeous) to the hilariously gorgeous artwork of sheep belching), showing their behinds, or winking obscenely. Each tile has the same shape, but consists of differently depicted hexagons and is made of thick, durable cardboard. The organizer holds all the pieces together very well without much shifting.
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE
The only negative thing I can say about this game is that the parts of the piles that you move do not connect together. The tokens are made of high density plastic which means they are very smooth. This means that when you try to move or pick up a bunch of them, there's always a chance they'll fall. If only the designers had tried some means of connecting the pieces, perhaps a thin ridge around the top and a recess at the bottom. But this is a minor gripe and shouldn't stop you from picking up this great game.
IMPRESSION
Battle Sheep occupies an interesting place in gaming. This is a short strategy game with an amazing theme. Sheep are peaceful, beautiful, calm creatures whose sole purpose is to eat as much grass as possible. Not sheep in THIS game. They are mean, mean and will block you as soon as they can, making sure they keep the tastiest grass for themselves.
Ignore or accept the theme of this game and go straight to the great gameplay. Laugh at your opponent's screams as you block an entire stack of his sheep. Enjoy the funny illustrations of sheep dominating the pasture.
USEFUL LINKS
Battle Sheep on the BGG portal
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/54137/battle-sheep
Battle Sheep on the Game Theory portal