Cows To The Mooooooon!
- Players: 2 – 4
- Time: 10 – 30 mins
- Ages 14+
How to Play
Contents
- 1 box
- 1 set of rules
- 4 sets of 10 tokens each in a different color
- 4 large farm cards
- 48 cards
- 1 moon
Story
Many years in the future the world is quite different. The Great Council Of The United Bovine Species (GCUBS) has failed at turning Earth’s human population into vegans and vegetarians. They have decided that planet Earth holds nothing for bovinekind and they shall go to the moon where they will live in peace and prosperity forever. This is no jump over the moon! (which was accomplished in the 17th century) They must safely land a cow on it and set up a permanent colony, not an easy feat. GCUBS travels the globe and finds the galaxy’s best bovine engineers to design and assemble a fleet of rockets to take the Cows To The Moon.
As a player you and your fellow bovines in your farm want to be the first cows to land in operation CTTM (Cows To The Moon) and attain the glory of landing on the moon first.
Objective
Get you cows to the Moon! To win you must get all ten of your bovines to the moon before your opponents.
Setup
Start the game by placing the two halves of the moon together and the deck next to your moon with room for your discard pile. In front of each player, place a farm and training area leaving space for their launch pad (where you will build your rocket). Each player places their ten cows in their farm. Deal out a hand of five cards to each player. Take the top four cards from the deck and place in front of the deck. This will be the ‘rocket store’. The person who was physically on the moon last or got the fewest cows to the moon in the last game goes first (if no one has been to the moon or lost a game then just flip a coin or roll a die).
Note: The launch pad is not listed as a card. It will be the area beside your farm where you will assemble rockets.
Play
On your turn you have two phases:
Draw Phase:
For the draw phase, draw two cards. When drawing cards you may draw from either the deck or Rocket Store. In other words you may either two cards from the top of the deck two cards from the Rocket Store or one from the deck and one from the rocket store. Take the two cards you have drawn and put them into your hand. Do not replace cards in the Rocket Store until the end of the turn! If you have no cards in your hand during this phase then draw five cards from the deck instead.
Action Phase:
During the action phase, you get to perform three actions. For each action you perform you may do one of the following:
Play a card: Put a card from your hand into play, do what the card says, and then put it in the discard pile. If you play a rocket piece keep it in front of you (see more on rocket pieces below)
Recycle: Discard a card from your hand then draw a new card.
Herd: Move one cow from your farm into your rocket.
Nothing: You have a bunch of lazy cows. Doing nothing is always an option.
After your action phase is complete refill the rocket store to four cards and the turn passes to the player on the left.
Moving Cows
When moving cows you will be putting them from your farm into your rocket. There are two ways to move cows into you rocket in the game by using the ‘Super speedy Cows’ card and the herd action. When moving cows take a cow in your farm and place it into your rocket. Your rocket can only hold up to four cows. Your cows are now buckled up and ready for launch!… Or at least until another player moves them out.
Building, Launching, and Getting to the Moon
To get to the moon you must first build a rocket. A rocket consists of three parts: a rocket bottom, a rocket top, and a rocket middle. It takes an action to play a rocket piece and place it in your launch area either connected to another piece or on its own to start a new rocket. You may only have one rocket at a time on your launch pad. There are four different types of rockets each with corresponding pieces (Image below) and if you assemble a rocket using all of one type of rocket that rocket may hold one extra cow.
To launch a rocket you must have a completed rocket (it is recommended to have cows in it as well) and a Launch card. When launching you must first play a Launch card. This will ignite your engines and blast your cows off towards the moon. In an ideal world your cows would then wind up on the moon happily grazing on cheese, but another player can cancel your launch by immediately playing a ‘Cownter’ card. Any player can counter your launch. If they do, your launch is canceled and then you must discard one rocket piece of your rocket at random then place the rest back in front of you with your cows safely inside. If YOU also have a ‘Cownter’ in your hand you may play it to cancel their ‘Cownter’ and your cows make their way to the lunar surface. Only one attempt may be made to cancel a launch per turn.
Example of play
Player one begins their turn. They start by taking two cards from the Rocket Store and putting it in their hand. For their first action they will herd they move one cow from their farm into their rocket. For their second action they will play launch launching their completed rocket. Player 2 does not like this and they will play a Cownter stopping the launch. Player Ones’s rocket will fall back to earth and one of their rocket pieces will be destroyed (the cows stay in the rocket). They have a back up plan. Player one will use their Cownter and cancel player 2’s Cownter. Their rocket is now safe, no one else is allowed to play a Cownter. Their cows have been through enough already. For their final action player one will play a rocket bottom starting a new rocket.
Winning the game
Once a player has all ten of their cows on the moon they win the game. The game is now over and the winner should clean up (It’s good sportsmanship).
Cards
Rocket Pieces
When you play a rocket piece place it on your launch pad either starting a new rocket or adding to a previous rocket. There are three different rockets with corresponding pieces that give you an extra cow if assembled corresponding correctly (see below).
Space Cowboy / Mini Rocket
The Mini Rocket places a cow from the farm or a rocket onto the moon. The Space Cowboy takes a cow from the moon and places it in its owner’s farm.
Cow Wrangler / Rocket Thief / Bad weather / Wind
Cow Wrangler takes all the cows in a players rocket and places them in their owner’s farm. Rocket Thief takes any rocket piece in play and allows you to put it in your hand. Bad Weather when played, make it so no one may launch rockets until the beginning of your next turn.
Launch
This card is used for launching see the launching section.
Cownter
This is a special card that requires no action to play. A cownter can be played after another player plays an event card (a green card). When the cownter is played it cancels the effects of the action targeted. There are special rules for canceling launches described above in the launching section.
Wild Card
The Wild Card is a rocket piece but is is special because it counts as any rocket piece. The piece does not have to be declared when you play it. It can be a rocket top then when you lose your middle and get a top it can be a rocket middle or bottom. This does not count towards the matching rocket bonus of getting an extra cow in the rocket.
Lastly
This is supposed to be a fun and friendly card game so try out some house rules and feel free to experiment! Let me know of any great variations you find that work at my website: