''Battle Sheep'' is a 2010

board game A board game is a type of tabletop game that involves small objects () that are placed and moved in particular ways on a specially designed patterned game board, potentially including other components, e.g. dice. The earliest known uses of the ...

developed by Francesco Rotta. It has been published by

Blue Orange Games Blue Orange Games is a board game company based in San Francisco, California. They have been publishing and promoting award-winning games for over 18 years. The company was founded in 1999 by Thierry Denoual and Juilen Mayot. The company is know ...

, HUCH! & friends and Lautapelit.fi.

Rules

''Battle Sheep'' is a game for two to four players. It is played on a

hexagon In geometry, a hexagon (from Greek , , meaning "six", and , , meaning "corner, angle") is a six-sided polygon. The total of the internal angles of any simple (non-self-intersecting) hexagon is 720°. Regular hexagon A regular hexagon is de ...

al grid representing a pasture. The board is made up by connecting four parts of the grid. Configurations of the board are set either randomly or by players taking turns placing pieces together until a full board is formed. The board must remain connected but may contain holes. The board may be recreated or kept constant through multiple games (It is recommended to create a smaller board layout in order to keep the individual games shorter). Each player receives sixteen

sheep Sheep (: sheep) or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are a domesticated, ruminant mammal typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to d ...

of a specific color and places them all, in a stack, on any free hexagon at the edge of the board. On a player's turn, the player takes as many sheep from their own stack as they wish (provided that at least one sheep stays in place), and moves them in any direction as far as they can go, until they hit the edge of the board or other sheep. This causes the stacks to divide and the sheep to take up more space on the pasture. The play then proceeds cycling through the players, eventually skipping players who are unable to move any of their sheep. The game ends when none of the players can move, at which point the player whose sheep take up the most space on the board wins. Typically when playing with a constant board, multiple games are played. Each game won equals one point for the winning player. By the end of a preset number of games, whichever player has the highest points wins the overall game.

MSO

Battle Sheep has featured in the

Mind Sports Olympiad The Mind Sports Olympiad (MSO) is an annual international multi-sport event, multi-disciplined competition and festival for game of skill, games of mental skill and mind sports by Mind Sports Organisation. The inaugural event was held in 1997 i ...

Reception

Battle Sheep won multiple awards : * 2022 Weaver Foundation Best Abstract Game Winner * 2022 Weaver Foundation Best Abstract Game Nominee * 2015 Årets Spil Best Family Game Winner * 2015 Årets Spil Best Family Game Nominee * 2014 Vuoden Peli Family Game of the Year Winner * 2014 Spiel des Jahres Recommended * 2014 Spiel der Spiele Hit für Familien Recommended * 2014 Lys Enfant Finalist

References

{{reflist Abstract strategy games Board games introduced in 2010