Stratego

Are there any Stratego players here? It’s a marvelous two-player war game, despite the manufacturer’s denial that it’s a war game. Perhaps that’s to lessen the concern of protective mothers. The pieces have depictions of Napoleonic era soldiers. It’s rather a combination of Chess, a trick-taking card game and Battleship. As in Chess, pieces are moved and the object is to capture a particular one of them: the Flag in this case rather than the King. As in card games, only the blank backs of enemy pieces are seen. And as in a card game trick, only the higher-ranking piece wins a confrontation. As in Battleship, each player sets up the secret configuration of his 40 pieces. That includes the placement of one’s Flag, Bombs and Spy, who defeats the highest-ranking piece (the Marshal) but loses to all others.

Here’s a link to a really nice website run by a devoted fan of Stratego: http://www.edcollins.com/stratego/