1870 – Somewhere deep in Texas, the rearing of Longhorn cattle from northern Mexico is booming. It has now become a major source of income for the Texan farmers, while at the same time attracting cattle thieves of all kinds.
In Longhorn, the players assume the roles of two particularly feared outlaws: Eagle Perkins and Jessie Artist Byrd. The aim of the game is simple: to steal cattle (and a few gold nuggets, if possible) to see who can amass the most money by the end of the game — or who can get his opponent arrested by the sheriff!
The game is set up by shuffling the 9 locations and setting them up in a 3x3 grid, selecting 9 tokens randomly and assigning one to each location (if the sheriff token is in play, it must be placed on Nugget Hill), and finally randomly distributing the coloured longhorn cattle meeples to each location, with the number required being shown on each location. The start player then chooses a location with 4 cattle and places the player piece in it.