Stratego Rules Pages

Stratego Classic Two Player Rules
Rules for Barrage
Rules for 4 player Stratego
The ISK Tournament Stratego rules
Links to rule pages

Stratego Classic Two Player Rules

The following text is taken from the booklet from the Jumbo Travel Stratego and edited. My personal remarks are linked to it.

The game in brief Both players have an army of 40 pieces which includes a flag. The object of the game is to capture the opponent's flag. Before play starts, the players deploy their troops in secret.

Preparation
Decide who is to play with which colour. The pieces are set up on the four rows nearest to each player, one to each square, with the backs of the pieces towards the opponent. Setting up is an important part of the game; victory or defeat can depend on it. A few tips are given at the end of these rules. The marshal holds the highest rank, followed by the the general etc.

Playing the game

Red begins! A turn consists of either moving a piece or attacking an opponent's piece. The flag and the bombs are never moved.

Moving

Pieces are moved one square at a time either forwards, backwards, to the right or to the left. The scout is an exception to this rule as explained below.
No more than one piece may stand on a squre, there is no jumping and no diagonal movement. The two lakes in the middle of the board may neither be entered nor crossed.
Pieces may be moved between two squares no more than five times after which the player who initiated the sequence must vary.
Scouts can move across any number of vacant squares.

Attacking

A piece, other than a bomb or a flag, may attack an opponent's piece that stands immediately in front of, behind, or to the right or left of it. The action involves picking up the the attacking piece, tapping the piece attacked, and declaring the rank (and also the number, if desired) of the attacker. The attacked player must then disclose the rank of the piece attacked. The lower ranking piece is removed from the borad. If the attacker wins, the pieces occupies the square vacated by the captured piece; if the defender wins, there is no movement. If both pieces are of equal rank, both are removed.
A scout (2) can attack from any distance provided the squares between itself and the attacked piece are vacant.
Attacking is always optional.

The ranks

A marshal (10) defeats a general (9) and all lower ranks; a general (9) defeats a colonel (8) and all lower ranks. This continues down to the spy (1), which is the lowest rank of all.

Any piece that attacks a bomb, other than the miner, is destroyed. If a miner attacks a bomb it it defused and removed from the board, the miner then occupying the vacated square.
The spy's mission is to capture the opposing marshal which it does by attacking it. The spy is lost if attacked by any enemy piece, including the marshal.
Any piece can capture the flag.

Winning the game
You win if you succeed in capturing your opponents flag. You also win if your opponent is unable to move, because he has only the flag or flag and bombs left.

Strategy and tactics

The results of a game depends to a considerable extend on the initial deployment. The flag is the most important piece and it is a good idea to surround it with bombs. Scouts are important pieces in the later stages of a game. Miners should be safeguarded until bombs have been identified. Protect the spy; if it is lost the opposing marshal becomes very powerful. Keep a tally of captured pieces so that the opponent's strenght can be monitored

Scouts are allowed to move a number of squares and hit a piece in the same turn. For instance a scout can jump on a unknown or known enemy piece which is four, five or even nine squares away . This is very handy to capture a spy or to exchange scouts.

Exception I think is when it is your last piece and your opponent is standing all around you. You have to move and thus to attack.
I think it is possible that you used bombs to lock you own pieces inside a net of bombs. So you might still have pieces, but you are still unable to move and loose the game. A lot of games end not with capturing the flag, but by systematically capturing all enemy pieces. This enables players who loose all there miners and face an opponent who has put the flag behind bombs to win anyway. With 2 or 3 higher pieces depending on the situation you are normally able to win. A good tactic to play against a player who hunts all pieces, rather than search for the flag is to have more scouts in the end play. Put the flag behind bombs, save some scouts and ambush all enemy miners. Then the opponent needs at least 5 or 6 higher, slow pieces in order to capture your wild scout that is running around the board.

Two other rules in Siege and Capture:

When attacking with an equal piece in the European version both pieces die (suicide). In the American version the attacking pieces stays on the board.

When a piece is hit by a lower piece, which is not a scout, the higher piece moves into the field formerly occupied by the lower piece.
When even pieces hit each other only the defender dies.

The first rule makes sacrificing pieces sometimes very interesting because you are able to clean the road.

Rules for Barrage

Barrage is played on the Stratego Classic board. Each player has a Marshall, a General, a Miner, a Spy, 2 Scouts, a bomb and a flag. You are allowed to put these pieces on any square of your own normal 40 square start position. Use something to prevent the other player from seeing where you put your pieces. The latest version of Stratego Classic comes with a reference which can be set on the board for preparations. A paper or something else which is held in between also works fine.

The player who captures the flag wins or a player who is not capable of moving a piece loses.

This sounds silly, but it is possible of course to build in one of your moving pieces in the corner with the flag and the bomb.

Rules for 4-player Stratego

The link to the Gamescabinet. For Stratego 4-player version: http://www.gamecabinet.com/rules/Stratego4.html

Just the rules. Im not sure it is sold anymore in shops, but it can be found at Ebay. I like the 4-player variant because you need to convince other people to destroy each other instead of doing the job all alone...

ISF Tournament Rules

Please see the ISF Stratego Site for the rules used in the World Championships.