“Place hen cards in the yard, create large groups, gather eggs and collect medals.”
Link: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/348447/hens
Playing Time: 15-20 mins
Weight: Light
Genre: Chicken-Based Tableau Builder
Designer: Giampaolo Raxxino
Players: 1-4
Once upon a time, there was a wonderful game called Arboretum, a game where players would try to build the perfect tree park in front of them. It haunted this list for years before eventually falling out of favor because, frankly, the scoring for the game was a beast, a complicated affair that took an otherwise simple game and made it difficult to teach.
Hens takes the same engine, but simplifies the endgame scoring. Players will take turns drawing two cards (either blind or from the top of the discard), and then discard one while adding the other to the 4×3 tableau in front of them – following some strict rules about what can be placed next. Once 12 cards are in front of each player, their barnyards are scored – but only a couple of groups are hens – their largest and (if different) one group of hens they chose halfway through the game.
This game works better than Arboretum because while Arboretum let you place more freely but punished you in the scoring phase, Hens instead gets to simpler scoring with harsher placement rules – you can only place cards next to cards that are the same breed of hens, or with a number off by one. By moving the thinking here, the game gets more restrictive but its far easier for players to internalize when they’re being successful.
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