Stratego

Stratego is a strategy board game featuring a 10 by 10 square board and two players with 40 tiles each. One player uses red tiles, one player uses blue tiles.

Tiles are colored on both sides, so players can distinguish between their own and their opponent's. But the ranks are printed on one side only, and placed such that players cannot identify specific opponent's pieces. Players may arrange their 40 tiles in any configuration on a designated 4 x 10 section of the playing board. Such pre-play arrangements constitute the fundamental "strategy" of particular players, and largely determine the outcome of the game.

Each player can move one tile per turn. If a tile is moved onto a square occupied by an opposing tile, their identities are revealed; and the weaker tile is removed from the board. Ties result in both tiles being removed.

From highest rank to lowest the movable tiles are:

• Marshal,
• General,
• Colonel,
• Major,
• Captain,
• Lieutenant,
• Sergeant,
• Miner,
• Scout,
• Spy.

The immovable tiles are the Bomb and the Flag.

The object of the game is to find and capture the opponents flag piece, or to capture so many pieces that the opponent cannot move anymore.

For most tiles, the rank alone determines the outcome, but there are special tiles: The Bombs (which only Miners can defuse, but are unable to move) and the Spy (which wins an attack against the highest ranked tile, the Marshal, but loses when attacked by any piece, including the Marshal).

The game was originally published in The Netherlands, and was licensed by the Milton Bradley Company for American distribution, and first published in the US in 1961 (although it was trademarked in 1960). Tiles were originally made of painted wood, but in later editions they are plastic. This change was not made so much for economy, but because the wooden tiles tended to fall over, but the plastic tiles could be designed not to.

The game is particular popular in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium, where regular national and world championships are organized. The international Stratego scene is dominated by players from the Netherlands (as of 2001).