How to play Schotten Totten, a 2 player, Scottish skirmish of a card game.
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Read the Rules
The aim of the game
In Schotten Totten, you’re laying down sets of cards along points on a border, trying to beat your opponents ones on the other side.
To set up
- Lay out the 9 stone tiles in a line between both players.
- Shuffle the clan cards and deal 6 to each player.
- Put the rest in a central draw pile.
- The player who has most recently been near Scotland goes first.
To play the game
Placing cards
On your turn, pick a card from your hand and lay it face up next to a stone on your side of the border. Then, draw a replacement card to your hand from the draw pile and end your turn.
- You can only place 1 card a turn.
- Once a card is placed it cannot be moved.
- You can place cards on any stone, in any order.
- There can’t be more than 3 cards on your side of a stone.
Claiming stones
Once both players have placed 3 cards either side of a stone, it can be claimed by whoever has the strongest set.
- The strongest set is a colour run of three successive cards of the same colour.
- Then three of a kind.
- Then three cards of the same colour
- Then a run of cards in any colour
- The weakest set is the numerical sum of mismatching cards.
For a run, the order in which you lay the cards down doesn't matter, as long as they can be arranged in successive order.
If both players have the same type of set, the highest value one wins, if it’s still tied, whoever placed their third card first claims the stone.
It is possible to claim a stone before a player has laid all 3 cards, if it’s impossible for them to beat the set opposite, based on the cards already on the table.
When you claim a stone, place it below your winning set of cards.
Game end and scoring
Keep playing until one player either claims 3 adjacent stones, or 5 stones in total, they win!
If you’d like to play over a series of rounds, score points for the number of stones you claim, whoever has the highest total after a set number of rounds wins.
Advanced rules
Schotten Totten also comes with several tactic cards which can be added for a more advanced game, including ones that’s colour or value can be chosen when placing, ones that change the conditions for claiming a stone, and some that can meddle with and move you or your opponents cards. You can add these in once you've played a few rounds without them.
That’s Schotten Totten; a quirky, clever little trick taking came for 2 players.
Enjoy!