Finally out of the civilized world and into a land adventure! More and more people are longing to leave the modern world. An excursion to a sheep farm is just the thing. For us players, this short and crazy break is possible at any time thanks to the dice game "Volle Wolle", by the game designer Alessandro Zucchini, in cooperation with the Zoch Verlag. Are you ready for a tactical sheep adventure?
Then have fun reading our review of the dice and card game “Volle Wolle” by Zoch.
Crazy game of chance for hobby shepherds
The game Full wool won the Austrian game award from the Vienna Games Academy in 2007, as a game hit for many. But will we still have as much fun playing the game in 2016?
You and your fellow players slip into the roles of a whole flock of sheep and your shepherd only has one thing in mind: your wool! He wants to steal this from you with his new “Schnipps 2010” scissors. So it's time to defend yourself. Because, true to the motto “Everyone is the smith of their own happiness”, only those who play particularly well are allowed to keep their wool with “Volle Wolle”. If you gamble, you don't just lose one game. When a game designer with the funny surname zucchini develops a game of sheep, a good dose of humor is inevitable and this is what we get when we are unboxing the crazy game of dice Full wool sure, no laughing muscles are spared here. In addition to the accessories, which consist of clothespins, dice and wool chips, there are sixty humorously designed playing cards. On these, the players can expect illustrations of adventurous 007 sheep, gift bones for good herding dogs, sheep in boxer shorts and many other humorous cards. When looking through the playing cards it also becomes clear: Full wool is not just child's play. Much more, the illustrations play with adult humor, without going beyond the limit of indecency. The cards can therefore be perceived as funny by children from the age of ten without any background knowledge, even without a guilty conscience, but depending on the character of the child.
Full wool: simple rules of the game and lots of humor
In the card and dice game “Volle Wolle”, which is designed for two to six players, each player is next to himself and tries to save himself and his wool from the shepherd's sharp scissors. This is made possible for the player in the course of the game by tactically clever throwing of the dice and picking up cards.
A game of “full wool” always consists of three separate processes. The actions: display cards, submit bids and perform dice actions.
Laying out cards: First all playing cards are shuffled and placed face down in the middle of the table. Then cards are drawn. You always draw one more card than there are other players. We played with 4 players so we drew 5 cards.
These cards are lined up face up next to the deck of cards. At the beginning of the game, each player receives a bid board, a clothespin and two wool chips. The leftover wool chips are also placed in the center of the table.
The types of cards are divided into bid boards, bonus cards, black sheep cards (minus cards), special cards, guard dog cards and dog bones (bonus card).
Submit bids:
Each player secretly marks a bid on his bid board using his clothespin. He can choose a value between 14 and 26+. The one with the highest bid starts the round. The experienced player quickly notices here: It depends on the tactics! Because when the next action comes, a tactically clever move can quickly lead to victory.
Perform dice actions:
The aim of this action is to reach the number you bid with the three dice in the game. So if I set a bid of fourteen, the value of my three numbers must add up to fourteen. Added to this are wool chips and bonus points or minus points from playing cards that you could already bring into your own possession. It's easy to get a value of fourteen, but not always tactically smart. Because a dice action can consist of three rounds. If you have reached the bid value in the first round, you have to choose three playing cards from the row in the middle of the table and take them. If this is not the case, a die may be selected that should continue to be scored and two dice are rolled again. If you still haven't reached your value, two dice are selected to be scored and one dice is thrown again. After the second throw two playing cards have to be chosen and after the third throw only one. If you do not reach the bid number, you are not allowed to choose a playing card and receive a wool chip. If you are the last player in the game round, you do not roll the dice and have to take the remaining cards; if none are available, the new game round starts without the player having received a card or a wool chip. In this move, tacting becomes important when there are several black sheep and thus minus cards in the row of cards. Now you should carefully consider whether it makes sense to draw several cards or to throw the dice again and again in the hope that you will not reach your bid value in the last round with the bonus or minus points.
Goal of the game of dice Full wool is to be the player with the highest scoring. When adding up the points, the watchdog cards, the bone cards and the special cards must be taken into account. The special cards are specially rated, you have to pay close attention to the number available. For example, three “3-7-0 sheep cards” mean a value of 0, but two have a value of 7 points and one card has a value of 3 points and the watchdog and bone cards also have special points, so that the number of cards in the player's possession does not determine the victory, but the strategically clever selection of the playing cards in the course of the game. The game is over as soon as no more playing cards can be laid out.
Pictures of full wool
Infobox
Number of players: 2 to 6 players
Age: from 10 years
Playing time: 30 to 45 minutes
Difficulty: medium
Long-term motivation: medium
Publisher: Zoch
Year of publication: 2007
Authors: Alessandro Zucchini
Language: German
Cost: 20 Euro
Conclusion
The dice and card game “Volle Wolle” gave us and our fellow players a fun-filled evening. The humor in the illustrations doesn't hit every player's nerve, but that doesn't spoil the fun in any way. So you can change the course of the game again and again through tactically clever moves and strategic selection of playing cards. For this reason, it remains exciting until the end of the game, because none of the players can assess who will win. The only negative thing we noticed was the bid boards, so all players had to hide their cards under the table while choosing, so that the other players could not estimate which value was used. A round card would certainly have been better as an alternative. All in all, a classic game that is worthwhile and, thanks to its handiness, fits particularly well in any luggage.