How To Play Stratego

Stratego, a two-player board game involving military strategy and tactics, originated in France more than a hundred years ago and was introduced to the United States by Milton Bradley in the early 1960's. It has been enjoyed by succeeding generations of players, and has established itself as a classic, with many new modern variations, competitions, and tournaments.

• The Stratego board consists of 92 grids with the images of two lakes in the center of the board, where pieces cannot travel.
• Each player has forty pieces, with the identifying rank printed on only one side, colored red or blue representing their armies.
• The object of Stratego is to capture your opponents flag, or to place them in a position where they can no longer make a move, at which time the game is over.
• The armies consist of ranks, the highest being the Marshal, and go down through Generals, Colonels, Majors, etc.
• The higher the rank the fewer the pieces.
• Each ranking piece may only move one square in turn, with the exception of the Scout, who can travel the length of the board providing no other piece blocks its way.
• There are also six stationary bombs, which can destroy any piece that hits it, with the exception of the Miner, who can disarm the bomb.
• Whenever an attack is made, each player reveals the rank of their piece, and the lower ranking piece is removed from the board. In the event of a tie, both pieces are removed.
• The highest-ranking piece, the Marshal, can only be taken by the Spy, of which there are only one for each army.

The early editions of Stratego, which consisted of wooden pieces (as opposed to the current plastic) are eagerly sought after by collectors. Some purists, however, insist that plastic is superior, as the older wooden pieces tended to tip over easily, thus revealing the rank to the opponent.

Many different strategies and tactics are utilized when playing Stratego. Piece placement, flag defense, and bluffing are all taken into consideration by the accomplished Stratego player, and as a consequence high levels of skill can be achieved. The accurate representation of actual battlefield tactics is just one of the reasons Stratego has enjoyed such an enduring popularity, and will undoubtedly provide hours of enjoyment for board gamers for many years to come.