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In a world of kick-starters, 5th editions, themed variants, and a seemingly never-ending drip feed of zeitgeist hits, it's easy to forget about the classics. Classics such as Stratego Original. The game has something of a chequered past. It took its inspiration from Gunjin Shogi, a Japanese game of strategy that first gained popularity towards the end of the 19th century. A further influence gleaned from the pre-WWI French game L'Attaque seems fairly certain, given the similarity between the two.
Stratego, however, traces its origins to the Netherlands, where a patent for the game appeared in 1942, during a time when the country still struggled with Nazi occupiers. The desire for a game of battle during some of the darkest days of WWII might seem incongruous, and probably was; indeed, it wasn’t until 1958 that Stratego -- under a new registered trademark -- hit the US market. It was an instant hit.
Strat Your Stuff
Part of the appeal of Stratego stems from the dichotomy between the simplicity of the rules and the hidden complexities they suggest. Played out on a ten-by-ten board, each player controls forty pieces. Unlike chess, each piece looks identical and– with the exception of the bombs and flag piece – moves identically: forwards, backward, and sideways, but not diagonal. Armies, it seems, cannot march at an angle. The pieces that can move do so one square at a time, although the scout can move any number of squares in a straight line.
Appearances are, however, deceiving. Despite external similarities each piece – again, aside from the bombs and flag – has a different numerical value attached to it. The most vital piece on the board, the Marshall, has a strength of ten, the weakest – the spy – of just one. The central conceit of the game is that these values stay hidden from the other player, and therein lies the hidden depth. Moving onto a square occupied by one of an opponent’s pieces starts a conflict. Nominally, the highest number wins, meaning that a Marshall can only be taken out by another Marshall. There are, however, exceptions. Revealing a bomb -- unless the piece doing the revealing is an engineer—causes it to explode, taking out itself and whoever attacked. Meanwhile, the spy – the weakest piece on the board – has but one job: to assassinate the other side’s Marshall via a direct attack of its own.
Tanks for the Memories
Since an attack reveals the pieces to both players, remembering where everything is positioned plays a vital role as the game progresses. Winning is achieved in one of two ways. Capturing the enemy's flag results in an immediate victory – pro tip: it’s usually surrounded by explosives – as does forcing a situation where your opponent cannot move a single one of its pieces.
Gameplay is generally fast and furious. With few rules to fall back on and little ambiguity as to how any given conflict resolves, experienced players can clear a board in less than fifteen minutes. Taking a more cautious, considered approach can, however, extend this to well over an hour.
Despite some apparent similarities to chess, Stratego remains worlds apart from its more distinguished cousin. Where chess supports a certain purity of form, Stratego --reliant as it is on imperfect information -- gives rise to bluffs, guesswork, and no small amount of psychological warfare.
Building Defence
Build quality is as you might expect for a budget-level game. The pieces are well-formed yet constructed of single-color plastic with printed art on one side. The board itself is made of quality card stock, as is the screen, used to prevent your opponent from seeing where you place your pieces during setup.
There are, however, few added frills. The screen, a rule book, and a couple of ‘sealed’ envelopes that contain a training mission are all you get outside of the expected pieces and board.
Not that you'll need anything else.
Stratego has survived the decades for the simple reason that it is a hell of a lot of fun to play. Easy to set up and easy to play, yet requiring many games to master, Stratego provides you with something of an old faithful stopgap, a game to play while you wait for others to arrive or perhaps leave set up for one of those long-drawn-out encounters that cats love to ruin.
