Scout is a ladder-climbing game with unique cards.

You must resist the urge to reorder your hand!

SCOUT is a ladder-climbing game in which cards have two potential values.

Scout Game Play

The deck is made of cards numbered 1 to 10 differently on both ends. So when shuffling you have to sort of flip-reverse the deck to ensure a doubly good mix of randomness.

Players are dealt a hand of cards which they pick up BUT MAY NOT REARRANGE THEM! This is key to the gameplay. However, they can choose to, if they wish, flip their whole hand upside down, as long as the cards are in the same order.

On a player’s turn, they take one of two actions:

Play

Play either a set of cards of the same number or in a run from their hand. But, those cards must be adjacent in your hand already. So in my hand above, I have no pairs or sets of cards, but I do have a run of 7 and 8 on the right.

If there is already a set on the table the player must play a higher-ranked set. These are either a set with more cards or have the same amount of cards but with higher values. A set of cards of the same value beats a run with the same amount of cards.

When a player beats the previous player’s set, they put that set facedown in front of them.

Scout

If you don’t play you Scout by taking a card from either end of the set currently on the table. This card can be placed either way up anywhere in their hand. The previous player gains a point token as their hand wasn’t beaten.

Once per round, a player can Play & Scout on the same turn, flipping their token over as a reminder.

When a player has emptied their hand or one set goes around the table unbeaten the round ends. Players get 1 VP for each face-down card in front of them minus 1 VP for each card in their hand.

If a player’s hand went around the table unbeaten they do not lose points for having cards in their hand.

You play rounds equal to the number of players and then whoever has the most points wins.

Theme

No clue! There is a circus theme for some reason with words and symbols on the cards. It means absolutely nothing at all. Even the name Scout doesn’t make sense to me.

Setup

Shuffle horizontally and vertically and deal. Job done.

Components

The main numbers and colours are really nice. However, the ‘reverse side’ number is often dark green and dark blue on a black background which doesn’t work very well.

Ease of Teaching

It’s fairly easy to teach. Explaining what wins a hand can be tricky. Although it pretty much boils down to more cards or cards of a higher value.

Scout Summary

Clearly, the most similar game to this is AbluXXen where you’re playing sets to beat the previous player.

But there you look back around the table to see if you beat anyone. In Scout, there is only ever one hand visible on the table to beat.

If you can’t beat it, you need to look to see which card on the end you can pick, how to rotate it and where you can place it to have a decent hand for next time. This is where using the ‘Scout & Play’ token really helps. Being able to do both on a turn can put you in the driver’s seat… I just kept forgetting to use it!

So you want to play these big sets to get cards out of your hand and hopefully be unbeaten to zero your hand out. But wait too long and you’ll have a hand of cards with a lot of minus points.

Overall, this is a very fun and quick card game that has a lot of strategy. Also, it’s from Oink Games too so you know it’s fairly cheap and in a tiny box.

Jesta ThaRogue