Board Game: Shear Panic

Xmas Day, a traditional time for board games about sheep.

The Game: Shear Panic
The Publisher: Fragor Games
Time: 20-30 minutes
Players: Me, +Michelle, Kai, Cael

Discombobulated Sheep

Game Play: Shear Panic goes in four stages (fields, if you will). In the first, you try and get your two sheep (see how they're colored?) next to each other. In the second, you try to get them in the front row, near Roger the Ram. In the third, you try to get them next to the black sheep. In the last, you try to get them far away from the Shearer Sheep, whom I must assume is some kind of traitor to sheep-kind.

Lookit that bastard.

The sheep start out in a tight little square, but immediately get jostled around by a "lamb slam." That's not a shot in a charcuterie, it's just a nudge of one sheep or another that moves all the others in line, too. From there, on to the first field.

Play progresses using cards that give each player 12 different choices for moves, including a lamb slam, a line push (move sheep orthogonally), a diagonal push (duh), ewe-turn (get it?), which rotates all the sheep's facing 90 degrees, and so on. Once you've used a move, you put a counter on it and you can't use it again, so it pays to be attentive not only to what you can do, but what your opponents can do and how many turns remain in a given field.

See, each move nudges the flock marker a little way along, and when it moves out of a given field (if I were smart I'd have taken a picture of this), the scoring and strategy changes.

Kai and Cael ponder strategy. 

 Opinions: I like this game, but it definitely improves if you're playing with people who understand how to play it. The first time with players, it's pretty random as everyone's trying to remember what the various moves are and all.

The production values on this game are pretty baller, though. The sheep are made of ceramic, I think, and they're quite heavy and sturdy. They're fun to move around and manipulate, though I admit that might be genetic on my part.

McFarlands have long-standing traditions involving livestock. 

Keep? Yep.