GUERRE des DEUX ROSE

Copyright (c) 2004 Le Korrigan

This game is played with the following setup (the cells with black squares are not used):

Each player has one castle (already on board) and four soldiers (in the reserve).

DROP PHASE - Alternately, each player drops a friendly soldier in an empty cell adjacent to a friendly piece. Soldiers cannot be dropped on red cells. MOVE PHASE - On each turn, each player chooses one of the following actions: Move a friendly soldier to an empty adjacent cell. Move a straight line of friendly soldiers one cell in either direction of that line, provided the next cell in the chosen direction is empty. Move by translation - move two adjacent friendly soldiers to two adjacent empty cells. Attack by phalanx - two adjacent soldiers may move in a line over a enemy piece. This is invalid if the next cell (in that direction) exists and is occupied. If the cell exists and is empty, the enemy piece is pushed there, if there is no cell (the enemy piece was at the board edge) the piece is captured. Attack by support - Two soldiers adjacent to an enemy soldier may push it, as if either one was attacking by phalanx. GOAL - Wins the player that captures by phalanx the enemy castle.

 

Moving examples Any soldier may move to an adjacent empty cell (btw, castles don't move). The two black soldiers may move together one cell to the left or right (both destiny cells are empty) and can also move by translation both one cell to southeast or southwest. The white soldiers can also move to the left (just 2 or all the 3 soldiers), or move by translation the two left soldiers or the two right soldiers to the north or to the south.

Attacking examples If White's turn, then he could attack by phalanx the black soldier at f6, capturing it (since it would be pushed out the board). However, a more urgent move is to remove the adversary winning threat by pushing out the black stone at c3. White cannot win the game with an attack by support against the black castle (only attacks by phalanx are permitted to win). If Black's turn, the best move was to win by an phalanx attack which would capture the white castle. However, White has other attacking options, for eg, attack by support against d4 by moving d3 to d4 (white d4 is adjacent to two contiguous black soldiers). But this last move would be very bad, since it would give White the chance to win in the next move.

Check http://jesweb.net/old/coin/concours04/ for more information about this and other games played on this small board.