Boy Scouts
BGG rank
BGG #24,071
BGG rating
6.0

Boy Scouts

1910

Rules assistance for Boy Scouts

Plain-language explanations of turns, card effects and disputed situations, with official source references and saved question history.

  • 2–5 players
  • 45 min
  • 6+
  • Complexity 1.0/5

For 2 players

Rules assistant for Boy Scouts

What would you like to know?

Answers come from the official rulebook, with the page to check.

Boy Scouts is a board game released in 1910 for 2–5 players, 45 minutes per game, and ages 6 and up. Its main mechanics are Hand Management.

Similar games

About the game

This is an old Parker Brothers card game with a Scout theme. The deck contains 5 Patrols (suits) of 10 cards each with the cards numbered from 1 to 10. The 1 card is called the Patrol Leader. The player to the dealer's left starts by playing any card between 1 and 10 from his hand to the center of the table. The next player must either play a card from the same Patrol whose number is 1 greater or 1 less than the card on the table, or play a card from a different Patrol whose number is the same. For example, if an Owl 4 card is led, the next player may play an Owl 3 below it, an Owl 5 above it, or a 4 card from a different patrol (say a Wolf 4) adjacent to it (thus allowing Wolf cards to be played). The lead card designates the number that all other patrols must start on (in this example number 4). If a player has no legal play he must pass. The first player to play his last card scores points equal to the numbers on all the cards still in the other players hands. A Patrol Leader card counts as 15 points for scoring. The first player to score 250 points wins. According to the Dutch rules from publisher Goliath Games, the number of Patrols used in a game is equal to the number of players (e.g. only use 3 Patrols in a three player game).

Publishers

  • Parker Brothers
  • Sio
  • Goliath Games
  • Perry en Co (Penco)
  • The Parker Games Co Ltd
  • Speelkaartenfabriek Nederland

Questions and answers

Boy Scouts supports 2–5 players according to the catalogue. This range comes from the publisher’s listed player count, so the game can be set up for any group size within it. Some setups, rules and scoring details may still vary by player count, so check your edition’s rulebook for the exact configuration.