Cave

A scary mini-wargame for two players.

Two clever necromancers fight one another to conquest the Cave. They possess armies consisting of skeletons, zombies and black knights. But the bewitched place is not going to surrender their treasures easily. Due to the cavern’s sorcery, neither necromancer is able to distinguish his own soldiers: all of them look the same. So if he intends to win the battle, he will have to do it almost blind.

MATERIAL

A rectangular 4x5 game board (20 grey spaces).
Six red pieces (monsters) for one necromancer and six black ones for the other. Each set will include one black knight, two zombies and three skeletons. The following symbols will be inscribed on one side of the pieces: a helm for black knights, a zombie’s face for zombies and a skull for skeletons.

SETUP

At the beginning, the board is empty. Each player (necromancer) chooses one colour and takes the corresponding six pieces (1 black knight, 2 zombies and 3 skeletons). Those pieces will be set face down (symbols hidden). Therefore, the players will not know the identities of the members of their army (until they are required to be displayed).
The board will be oriented so that there is a distance of five spaces between the players.

MONSTERS AND TEAMS

Any evil lord knows black knights are more skilled warriors than zombies, and zombies fight better than skeletons. So, when attacking, a black knight will defeat any other opponent; a zombie will beat a skeleton or another zombie but will be beaten by a black knight, and a skeleton will only defeat another skeleton. When attacked, a black knight will only be overcome by another black knight; a zombie will be beaten by a black knight or another zombie and a skeleton will always lose the fight.
A player can decide to take the risk and join forces by forming groups (teams) of two (2-teams) or three (3-teams) pieces (putting one on another). In that case, the cave’s magic determines that 2-teams always fight like a zombie and 3-teams always battle like a black knight, whichever the identities of their monsters may be.

MOVES

Every piece or team behaves the same way:
-Move: orthogonal to an adjacent (and empty) space.
-Attack: diagonal to an adjacent space occupied by a foe. Defeated pieces are immediately removed from the board and successful attackers take their position.

GOAL

A player wins when he gets rid of all his opponent’s pieces, keeping at least one of his pieces on the board. If the game ends with all the pieces removed, the result is a draw.