Dice
**Mission Objective** Welcome to the battlefield, General. You will be taking command of an army in a war to be the first to gain control of all the flags on the battlefield. The battlefield may be occupied by two, three or four armies. Each army must have a flag, but any unoccupied base may or may not have a flag to be captured. **Know Your Terrain** This particular battlefield is organized into one main area of engagement and four colored bases, one for each army. Each colored base has a space for housing the flag and enemy flags, a road from the flag square to the small engagement field, a prison for captured enemy soldiers, a small engagement field for battle maneuvers, a road leading to the main area of engagement and two safe bunkers along that road. **Rules of Engagement** Each army's general will take turns moving his or her troops in a clockwise succession around the battlefield. Before the war can start each general will roll one die and the general with the highest roll will go first. That general will then roll two dice to begin his or her turn. The value of each die can then be employed in deploying the troops. If the same value is shown on both dice the general must complete that roll then roll again. Your turn is skipped if you are unable to move the count of at least one die. **Deploying Your Troops in Engagement Grids** The value of each die can be used to move two individual soldiers, or you can combine the two values and move one soldier. For example, if you roll a five and a two, you can move one man two spaces and another man five, or you can move one man five and two spaces. Your soldiers can move either forward, backward, right or left. They cannot move diagonally. Once a man has occupied a space on the grid, he cannot return to that same space in the same roll. On a grid, only one man may occupy a space at a time. The soldier you are moving may pass over other men but may not land on an occupied space at the end of the die count. He may, however land on a space occupied by a soldier of another army in which case he may attempt to capture that man (see the section on Capturing Enemy Soldiers). **Deploying Your Troops on Roads** On the road, movement is executed in much the same way as it is on the grid. Men can move either backward or forward, but may not revisit a space in the same roll. Spaces on the road can be occupied by up to two soldiers of the same army and form a blockade (see the section on Blockades). A single soldier on any space can be attacked unless he is on a safe bunker space. The spaces with circles are safe bunkers and they may be occupied by two men only if those men are of the same army. **Blockades** Blockades can only be set up on roads. They occur when two soldiers of the same army occupy a space on a road. It can be formed by any two soldiers and is impassable. No man can get by a blockade, even if he is from the same army as the soldiers forming the blockade. A blockade may be attacked. If it is defeated, both soldiers are taken captive by the attacking enemy. For more information, see the section on Capturing Enemy Soldiers. **The Tao** This is when the army is well - none of the soldiers are in captivity and they are under good leadership. If the aforementioned criteria is met and the general rolls a one and a two, he may move all of his or her men either one, two or three spaces; depending on which move will be of the greatest tactical value to that soldier. **Know Your Army** You are in command of an elite troop of men. At your disposal are six pawns, two flag carriers, two medium artillery soldiers and two heavy artillery soldiers. **Capturing Enemy Soldiers** You may attempt to capture enemy soldiers by fighting battles. A battle is fought when a soldier from one army attempts to land on a space occupied by a soldier or blockade of another army. Pawns and flag carriers are easy to capture, any soldier (even other pawns and flag carriers) can capture a pawn simply by occupying the space the enemy pawn or flag carrier was on. However, capturing medium and heavy artillery soldiers is more difficult and a battle must be fought with the dice. In a dice battle, attack values are determined by considering that pawns and flag carriers are assigned a single die roll of a three, medium artillery soldiers roll one die and heavy artillery soldiers roll two dice. If a blockade is being attacked, the combined attack value of both soldiers is used against the value of the attacking soldier. If two blockades of separate armies are set up adjacent to each other, the attack power of each pair is combined and compared when one of the soldiers attempts to attack the other blockade. The highest attack value wins, the losing soldier or soldiers are captured and sent to the captor’s prison and any flag being carried by a losing flag carrier is sent to the captor’s flag square. **Rescuing Soldiers from Prison** To rescue a soldier from an enemy prison, you must navigate another soldier of yours to that prison and situate him on the light colored square just outside the prison. On your next turn (if that soldier is still there) you may forfeit rolling the dice and instead remove one soldier from that prison and place him on one of the three adjacent dark squares around the rescuing soldier. If you have more than one captive in that prison (or you wish to rescue another captive, even if he is from another army) you may do so on your next turn. Rescued soldiers may only be placed on the three squares directly next to the rescuer, thus to rescue more than three you must move one of the rescued men before attempting to rescue more men. **Winning the War** To win the war you must have all the flags on the battlefield in your flag square. To pick up or deliver a flag, your flag carrier must land on the flag square by exact count. You win the war when your flag carrier lands on your flag square with the final flag.