This review is written in German and can be found on the Spieletest.at website.
We chase across an open pasture with herding dogs, collect fat sheep cards and use rocket, slide, block and bomb sheep to disrupt the other herds. After three rounds, whoever's herd scores the most points wins (despite wolves and chain explosions).
Move, trigger, secure points
At the start we lay out a pasture as a grid of cards. With two to four players it becomes a seven-by-seven field, with five or six players a nine-by-nine field. In turn we move our dog orthogonally to an adjacent card and carry out its effect: green sheep cards move face-down into our herd and count points at the end of the round. Action cards change the field or our position. With the rocket sheep, for example, we jump two spaces, the slide sheep forces us to keep sliding, the block sheep locks a green card, the wolf moves an opponent’s dog by one space, and the bomb sheep blows up all adjacent cards and can tear whole areas out of the game. Important: don’t walk into a dead end.
Blocked or blown-away pieces are immediately eliminated from the current round, though their already collected points remain. A round continues until only one person can move. That player then receives two bonus moves. After that scoring takes place: each collected sheep plus one, each wolf minus one.
End of game and variant
After three rounds the player with the highest total wins. For two players there is the “Double-Trouble” variant with two dogs each. Here everyone controls two herding dogs, which noticeably increases traffic on the pasture.
Conclusion
Rocket sheep, bomb sheep, the wicked wolf – if that’s not the recipe for great fun. Sheep Showdown takes a delightfully unserious approach with its art and cards, but still offers genuine tactical challenges. Constantly placing your own herding dog and blocking opponents while maximizing points doesn’t happen “on the side.”
The rule sheet is well explained and the card text is completely language-neutral, so the flow is in place after a few turns and the games become pleasantly brisk.
Only with larger player counts does downtime noticeably increase. Never tragic — it doesn’t get boring, but it’s too much to remain really “lightweight.” In our experience three to four players are optimal.
Plus
- funny idea and artwork
- tactically appealing
- quick rounds invite replay
Minus
- waiting times increase too much with more players
Editorial rating:
8/10
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