RUN

Copyright (c) 1992 Reiner Knizia

The game is played on the next hexagonal board, with this initial setup (the cells with squares do not belong to the board):

Each player has, onreserve off board, 5 cowboys and 7 cows.

TURN - On each turn, each player must drop or move a friendly cowboy and drop or move a friendly cow (in either order). In his initial first move, the first player can only drop one piece (cowboy or cow) on his first row. If the player cannot move or drop a cow, he must remove one already on board. The same happens to cowboys. If the player only has one type of piece (on board and on reserve) he just plays one move per turn. Cows and cowboys are always dropped on an empty cell on the first row. A cow can move to an empty forward adjacent cell (no backwards, no sideways). A cow, at the player's last row, can move forwards and out of the board (it does not return to the player's reserve). A cowboy can move to any adjacent empty cell. A cowboy may also move to an adjacent cell occupied with an opponent's piece (either cow or cowboy) which is captured and removed from play. GOAL - The game ends when there are no cows on board or on reserve. The player that moved out more cows thru his last row, wins the game. If players want to play a match of games, each victory is equal to the difference of cows. So, if the winner moved out four cows, and the loser only one, the victory is worth three points.

 

The initial turn Black started by dropping a cow. White, then, must drop one cow and one cowboy (the marked white stone).

Some moves and captures Cows can be blocked by two pieces. That happens to the black cow at e4 blocked by two white cows. If it was White's turn, he may move his cow at e2, out of the board (getting a point). If it was Black's turn, he should use his e3 cowboy to capture that cow. The other black cowboy at f5 can capture a white cow, however, by doing that the piece could be also captured by a white cowboy. If the black cow at e7 moves into the last row, it can move out on the next turn regardless of what White does.

I wish to thank Bernard Wack for game information.