OUR REVIEW

Dice rodeo for cattle herders

El Gaucho

Cattle Business on the Pampa

As so often I was looking for a new game to play. While I was looking through the new games that had arrived recently at the Austrian Games Museum, I noticed EL GAUCHO.

The cover of the game box depicts a Vanquero who is catching cattle with his lasso. As I wanted to give my husband a treat - he loves Western films - I suggested that we try the game. He agreed instantly.

In El Gaucho players try to assemble herds of different types of cattle and to have the maximum possible number of cattle in each herd.

In the game box you find 60 cattle tiles, 9 dice, 32 playing pieces (8 in four color each), 4 money indicators, 1 starting player marker, 1 fence made up from four gate parts and, finally, one board.

The fence is placed on the board on its square (Dice Rodeo).

Nine dice are placed onto the Dice Rodeo space.

The board shows four rows on which players can acquire new cattle.

There are also six different special areas on the board. In each of those areas each player can place only one of his figurines. The six action areas, that is, actions are: Sort, Wish, Immediate Sale, Steal Cattle, Raise or Replace Gauchos and Secret Cattle.

Cattle tiles show a tall and a small number, and you place cattle tiles openly on each of the four pastures at the start of the game.

For each type of cattle there are cattle tiles showing values of 1 to 12 (tall number) and in each pasture you place cattle tiles until the total value of those tiles equals or tops 20.

The remaining cattle tiles are set down as a face-down stack next to the board.

El Gaucho is played in rounds. The starting player is provided with the starting player marker; then he takes all nine dice and throws them into the Dice Rodeo area.

He decides on two dice and can use them to acquire cattle from the pasture or use them for an action in one of the six areas.

If a player wants to acquire cattle tiles he can choose from those options:

Using a die he can place a Gaucho upright on a cattle tile if the die shows the same number of pips that are indicated by the tall number on the cattle tile.

He can use the other die to place a second Gaucho on another cattle tile.

You can also use a die to place a Gaucho on a cattle tile when the number of pips on the die equals the small number on the cattle tile. In this case, however, the Gaucho is asleep. If you want to acquire this cattle at the end of a round you must first raise this Gaucho.

As yet another option a player can add the results of both dice and place one Gaucho on a cattle tile with either the small or the tall number corresponding to the total value of both dice results. The disadvantage in this option is that the player can only implement one action.

When the starting player has used his chosen two dice for one or two actions the next player in clockwise direction can choose and then use two dice to do one or two action. The last player only has a choice from three remaining dice.

To place a Gaucho on one of the special areas for Immediate Sale, Wish or Sort, a player must use a die result of 1, 2 or 3.

The area for Steal Cattle can be used with a die result of 4.

With a die result of 5 you can place a Gaucho on the area that allows you to raise or replace Gauchos.

A die showing 6 as a result allows you to place a Gaucho on the area Secret Cattle.

When each player has used two dice in turn you check all pastures if in one or more of all four pastures Gauchos are standing or lying on all cattle tiles.

When all cattle tiles in a pasture are occupied by Gauchos and there are standing Gauchos among them, players who own those Gauchos take the cattle tile on which their Gaucho or Gauchos are standing. Gauchos go back into the personal stock of each player. Cattle tiles on which Gauchos are lying down, remain on the pasture together with the Gauchos on them. This also goes for pastures in which all tiles are occupied, but where all Gauchos are lying down.

In pastures in which there are still cattle tiles without any Gaucho at all, nothing happens, this pasture remains unchanged for the next round in the game.

After all players have taken all possible cattle tiles, players now form herds of cattle. There are different types of cattle and you can use all cattle of one type for a herd.

Cattle tiles can be sorted into a herd either in ascending or in descending order. In the consecutive rounds of the game new cattle of the same type can only be added on the right-hand side of the herd, that is, row of cattle tiles. When the sorting order, ascending or descending, cannot be adhered to with a new cattle tile, a player has to sell all cattle of this type with the exception of the tile that could not be added. He begins a new herd with this cattle tile.

When all players have assigned their newly acquired cattle tiles to their herds, the pastures are refilled with new cattle tiles from the stack, again you place cattle tiles until the total value of tiles in the pasture equals or tops 20. Please note: This refilling does not only happen for completely empty pastures, you also replenish pastures in which Gauchos are sleeping.

At any time in his turn a player can use Gauchos which he has placed into one of the six special areas in a previous round:

The area Immediate Sale allows you a player an instant sale of a herd, which earns him five Dollars more than a forced sale.

The area Wish provides a player with an imaginary additional die, so that he can implement up to three actions in this round or three dice at his command to acquire cattle tiles.

A Gaucho placed into the area of Steal Cattle allows a player to take a cattle tile from the herd of another player and add it to his heard of the same type. The player who was the victim of this theft receives as many dollars on the money track as the cattle tile was worth.

In the area Raise/Replace Gauchos a player can use his Gaucho to raise/wake up two of his own sleeping Gauchos on cattle tiles. Another option for this area is to replace one opposing sleeping Gaucho with one of your own Gauchos, who is then placed upright on the cattle tile.

The area Secret Cattle always holds four cattle tiles. If a player achieved a result of 6 with one of his dice, you may place a Gaucho into this area. This Gaucho then allows a player to take one of the cattle tiles in the area and to place it into any pasture and to put a Gaucho on it immediately. In case the tall numbers of two tiles in the area not exceed a value of 4, a player might even take two tiles from the area and place them on pastures and put a Gaucho on them.

In this way the game continues until the face-down stack of cattle tiles has been used up. At the end of the round when this happens a round without rolling dice is played, in which only Gauchos in the special areas are used. Then you take all cattle tiles from all pastures on which you have a standing-up Gaucho, sort the cattle tiles into your herds as usual, sell all herds and win if you are the richest player.

El Gaucho basically would be a very good family game. The simple rules and the relatively high element of chance do leave enough room for some strategic planning, so that you are tempted to characterize the game as one fitting into the category “with friends”. The actions Stealing Cattle and Replacing Gauchos, too, could appear to be too complex or incalculable for some players, so we conclude again that the game is a tad too difficult for typical families.

On the other end of the scale the game is not complex enough for an expert game and the standards for a game “with friends” are just barely met.

Interaction is relatively high, on the one hand due to the occupation of cattle tiles by other players while one could make use of them in person. The Steal Cattle action, too, provides some interaction.

The area of Dice Rodeo is a very good mechanism, as it provides a protected area for the dice waiting for selection by players.

The rules are clearly structured and easy to understand and therefore provide a fast and easy access to the game. As soon as you have made yourself familiar with the special areas, players begin to optimize their moves in the game with the help of the actions provided by those special areas.

The relatively short playing time still provides enough time for tactical and strategic decisions and the element of being annoyed or riled can be rather high in some games.

Graphical design and components are very pretty and provide a nice ambiance.

I can recommend the game to all casual players, but not necessarily to expert players, due to the rather low in-game depth.

All in all this game is a very good game, which has only one disadvantage: Nobody will look for such a game from its publisher Argentum Verlag. The typical Argentum customers will be expecting a game with a much higher level of complexity.

Conclusion: El GAUCHO is a very good game, but I am afraid that is will not sell well because buyers expect rather complex games from this publisher.

Maria Schranz

Players: 2-4

Age: 10+

Time: 60+

Designer: Arve D. Fühler

Artist: Dennis Lohausen

Price: ca. 28 Euro

Publisher: Argentum Verlag 2014

Web: www.argentum-verlag.de

Genre: Worker placement with dice, collecting

Users: With friends

Version: de

Rules: de en fr nl

In-game text: no

Comments:

Simple rules

High element of chance

All the same more room for strategic planning

Compares to:

Worker placement games using dice

Other editions:

English and French editions from Argentum, Dutch edition from The Game Master

My rating: 5

Maria Schranz:

EL GAUCHO is a very good game, sitting exactly on the border between family game and a game for somewhat more experienced players.

Chance (pink): 2

Tactic (turquoise): 2

Strategy (blue): 2

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0