Tally Ho!
Thames & Kosmos, 2016
The two-player game Tally Ho! began life as Jag und Schlag in 1973, but was recently brought to the United States by Thames & Kosmos. In Tally Ho!, the players take sides as either the hunters or the “hunted” wildlife. The game is played on a 7 x 7 grid filled with randomly placed tiles. Each player in turn turns over one tile, or moves a tile. Hunters can capture wildlife if they are facing with their gun in the correct direction. Captured tiles go into the players score pile. The hunters are NOT able to turn at any time, so must work to position themselves on the board carefully to take the animals. The Animals (bears and foxes) on the other hand, may capture smaller animals. The bear may capture the hunters, if they can get within one space. There are also trees, which act as blocking terrain, which can only be removed by the lumberjack tiles. Players take turns flipping tiles, moving them and capturing until all the tiles have been flipped over. At that point, four more rounds are played. Players can opt to continue hunting and moving, but now have the option of escaping the board escaped tiles are then added to their players scoring stack. Different tiles have different values, and the highest score at the end of TWO rounds is the winner.
Yes, two rounds. The first round is played, then the players switch sides, with the hunter player now controlling the animals, and the animal player now controlling the hunters. After the second round, scores are tallied, and the player with the highest score wins.
I like the idea of this game, however the play is unbalanced towards the hunters, which is why you have to play two games to determine a winner. I thought this would be good for kids, but my experience has been that the kids don’t want to play two games to determine the winner. When the game is over, it should be over. A little more playtesting and work on rules, tile play, tile distribution and movement could have made this a balanced game that could be played in one round. If this doesn’t bother you, then you may like to give Tally Ho! a try.