Dairyman is a dice, press your luck game for 2-4 players ages 14+ (according to the box, we had no issues playing it) from Tasty Minstrel Games. In the game you play as a dairy farmer trying to produce enough milk to fill the day’s orders without letting it spoil and waste the entire day’s product. The game just a small amount of table space to place 3 barn tiles and 3 milk order tiles allowing it to be played in area where space is an issue.

Each turn players roll 8 dice in an attempt to have 2-3 of their dice total 10. As long as they can make a total of 10 they may ‘lock’ those dice by placing them on a barn tile and re-roll the remaining dice or stop rolling. On the third and subsequent rolls of any turn players collect a freeze token that may be used later to save dice between rolls or turn their milk into ice cream. If at any time they are unable to total 10 on the dice any milk they produced that turn is spoiled and their turn is over and they collect 1 backorder token (worth -5 points at the end of the game) and a red die which can be added to their dice pool on future turns. After a player decide’s to stop rolling they may use the ‘locked’ dice to fill any of the three milk orders available before passing the dice to the next person.

Each of the milk tiles may be flipped over using a freeze token or the special yellow die turning them into ice cream (gives you extra abilities on future turns) and cheese (gives you an extra 5 points at the end of the game. This adds an extra layer of strategy to the game as players must decide which orders they want to fill so they can try to get points but also helpful tiles. When the last milk tile from the stack of available tiles is drawn the game ends and the player with the most points wins.

This is a fun little game that adds an extra layer of strategy to press your luck dice games while still being easy enough that most players an learn it quickly. Its small size and footprint means that it can be taken and played just about anywhere which is a plus for us.

Blynken’s Thoughts:

This was a good game, I liked that you could turn the milk that you produced into ice cream (gave you extra abilities) or cheese (bonus points).  I didn’t like that it was really hard to make cheese in the game though, I wish that was easier. I thought this was a fun little game and enjoyed playing it.  

8/10

Wynken’s Thoughts:

I liked this game a lot.  I liked that the ice cream tokens could give you extra abilities like being able to re-roll your dice on your turn if you needed to.  I liked that you got red dice each time you failed to produce milk on your turn and that you could use those to help you in the game.

7/10