Farm Club Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• The Game
• Setup
• Game Turn
  • 1 — Calling on the Birds (optional)
  • 2 — Hiring an Animal OR Electing a Leader
    • Hiring an Animal
    • Electing your Leader
    • Reorganising the Farm
  • 3 — Harvesting
    • Immediate
    • Deferred
• Description — Goals
• End of the Game
  • Acknowledgement
• Example — Tally

Components

• 45 Goal cards
• 9 Clan cards
• 5 Farm boards
• 9 Animal pawns of each of 6 species
• 15 Bird tokens
• 1 cloth bag (colour may differ)

The Game

Farm Club is a worker-placement game played in 9 rounds. During each round, players choose a set made up of one Goal card and one Animal pawn to be added to their farm.

Depending on where you place your Animals in the farm, you may (or may not) reach your Goals. These goals will earn you points at the end of the game. Each Bird token still in your possession will also earn you points.

Setup

Important: Depending on the number of players, place a certain number of animals in the bag:

• 5 players: all the animals (9 of each species)
• 4 players: 8 animals of each species
• 3 players: 6 animals of each species
• 2 players: 5 animals of each species

(Leave the remaining Animals in the box.)

1. Set up the Election space: Shuffle the Clan cards and reveal one card per player + 1 card (the remaining cards are placed back into the box). Put one Animal pawn of each species (taken from the bag) above the cards: these Animals are called Leaders.
2. Set up the Hiring space: Shuffle the Goal cards. Pile them up under the Election row and reveal three cards from the pile. Then, underneath each Goal card, place one Animal that you have randomly picked from the bag.
3. Place the Bird tokens on the table within reach of each player.
4. Each player gets a Farm board and randomly chooses the side on which to play.

The last player to have been attacked by an animal starts the game (a mere cat scratch will do).

Each Farm board has 9 spaces. Two of the spaces are pens (top left and bottom right), marked with icons of the "Reorganisation" and "Bird" actions as a reminder.

Game Turn

When your turn comes, complete the steps below in the following order:

1. Call on the Birds (optional)
2. Hire an Animal OR elect a Leader
3. Harvest

Then the next player's turn begins.

1 — Calling on the Birds (optional)

If you have a Bird token, you can put it back in the common stock to replace all 3 Goals OR all 3 Animals in the Hiring space with 3 new Goals OR 3 new Animals.

Put the replaced Goals or Animals back into the deck or in the bag.

You can spend as many Bird tokens as you want during your turn.

Note: At the end of the game, each unused Bird token will earn you 1 point.

2 — Hiring an Animal OR Electing a Leader

Hiring an Animal

Choose a set of one Animal + one Goal among the three animals and goals of the Hiring space.

Place the Goal card next to your board and the Animal pawn on any empty space on the board, except the Farmer's house, which is meant only for the Leader (see "Electing your Leader" below).

If you place an Animal in one of the two pens (top left/bottom right) and it matches the associated species, you win a Bird token.

Reveal a new set in the Hiring space.

Example: Herbert decides to hire and take the animal pawn/goal card set 2. He keeps the goal and places it next to his board. He places the Duck pawn in the top left empty pen of his board. As this one displays a Duck icon, Herbert takes a Bird token from the common stock. He could also have placed the duck on any of the other empty spaces.

Electing your Leader

Just once in the game, during any of the rounds, each player has to elect their Leader by picking an animal Leader and a Clan card from the Election space.

Here, unlike the Hiring space, Animals are not linked to a specific card, so you may choose each of them independently of one another.

The chosen Leader can only be placed on the Farmer's house at the centre of your board.

The Clan card is placed next to the board.

Important: Once you have chosen a Clan card and a Leader, do not fill the Election space with a new card or animal.

Example: George elects his leader during the 8th round (i.e. the second to last round). His options are limited since all the other players have already elected their leaders. George places the horse on the intended location at the centre of his board. He cannot fulfill any of the 2 cards requirements, so he decides to discard one of them to reorganise the Farm (see "Reorganising the Farm").

Reorganising the Farm

When you pick a Goal or a Clan card, you can decide not to keep it and discard it instead.

Doing so allows you to reorganise your farm:

• By moving one of your Animals to an empty space, OR
• By swapping two Animals' places.

Important:

• You can never move or swap places with your Leader.
• If you move an Animal to a pen matching its species, you do not win a Bird token.
• You cannot discard a card that you chose to keep during one of the previous round.

3 — Harvesting

There are 2 types of Goals (Immediate and Deferred) that will allow you to "Harvest" points.

Immediate

During this phase, you may validate one or more Immediate Objective cards, marked with a lightning bolt, if the conditions have been met.

Turn the card face down when its Goal is fulfilled.

Note:

• Even if the conditions of an Immediate Goal are no longer fulfilled at the end of the game (because the Farm was reorganised in the meantime), it remains valid.
• The pictures of the 2 pens are not considered as placed animals and cannot be used towards achieving a goal.
• Clan cards in the Election space are Immediate Goal cards.

Deferred

These Objective cards, marked by an hourglass, are only checked (and possibly validated) at the end of the game.

Note: Some Goal cards may indicate two different scores depending on whether the Goal has been partially or completely fulfilled (see "Description — Goals" for a description of the different kinds of Goals).

Description — Goals

• If these 2 animals are next to one another vertically or horizontally, turn this card face down. You will win 3 points at the end of the game.
• If these 3 animals are on the same row or column, turn this card face down. You will win 5 points at the end of the game. Bonus: if the animal shown at the centre of the card is also located between the 2 other animals on the board, you may take a Bird token immediately.
• If these 5 Animals are amongst the ones you have in your farm, turn this card face down. You will win 6 points at the end of the game.
• You win 3 points if the Animal on the left appears in greater number in your farm than the one on the right; 1 point if they're in equal numbers.
• You win 4 points if this animal appears in greater number in your farm than the farm of the player sitting on your right; 2 points if they appear in equal numbers in both farms.
• You win 3 points if you only have one animal of this species in your Farm.

End of the Game

When all the Farm boards are full (after 9 rounds), the game ends.

• Discard all Goal cards that you did not achieve.
• Rotate the deferred Goals you only partially achieved by 90°.
• Turn the immediate Goals you validated during the game face up.

Add all the points won with your Goal cards (both deferred and immediate) and add 1 point for each Bird token still in your possession.

The player with the highest score wins. In case of a tie, the player with the least Bird tokens wins. If it is still a tie, victory is shared.

Acknowledgement

The designer would like to thank his wife, friends and playtesters for all their help and advice. Main Playtesters: Konstantinos Karagiannis, Mike Georgiou, Haralampos Tsakiris.

Example — Tally

George discarded 2 goals during the game to reorganise his farm. He still has 7 goals to tally up:

Immediate (achieved during the game):

1. Duck + Chicken next to one another — 3 points
2. 5 Animals amongst the ones in his farm — 6 points
3. Duck + Chicken next to one another — 3 points

Note: when George validated goal 1, he received a Bird token as a bonus because the chicken is between the two other animals on the board just like on the Goal card.

Goals 1 + 2 + 3 = 5 + 6 + 3 = 14 points.

Deferred:

4. Duck/Pig comparison goal
5. Pig/Chicken comparison goal
6. (not validated)
7. (not validated)

Goals 4 + 5 = 3 + 1 = 4 points.

Bird tokens: x1 = 1 point.

Goals 6 and 7 have not been validated.

In total, George's farm brings him a total of 19 points.