Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Easier to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
More strategic control
How it plays
How does it play?
Draft pasture tiles, connect paths, guide sheep into pens, and send a fox along rivals’ roads to steal the flock.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Closed Drafting
Choose from hidden cards or items before passing or revealing the remainder.
Tile Placement
Place tiles to build a shared or personal spatial arrangement.
Push Your Luck
Choose whether to secure current gains or risk them for a larger reward.
Take That
Use Take That as a recurring structure for player decisions and resolution.
Read the full game description
Sheep & Thief is a drafting and tile-placement game about building a safe pastoral landscape while tempting a fox toward rival flocks. Players draft cards that become terrain tiles, then add them to personal maps so roads, streams, towns, and pens connect cleanly. Sheepdogs move sheep along completed routes into pens, where they become secure, while the thief travels from tile to tile and steals any exposed sheep it encounters. Every draft therefore has two faces: a tile may improve your own network or deny an opponent the route they need. The player who protects the largest flock scores best, but opportunistic theft can reverse the standings at the last moment.
