Land Battle Chess

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Land Battle Chess is a board game developed in China. It simulates modern army combat, in a manner similar to Stratego. The objective is to capture the opposing player's flag.

Contents

1 Pieces
2 Board
3 Movement
4 Combat
5 Game modes

5.1 Closed
5.2 Open
5.3 Reveal

6 Variations

Pieces

Each side has 25 pieces (all rectangular blocks) which fall into two categories as ranked pieces and weapons.

Ranked pieces, from weakest to strongest:

3 Engineers
3 Platoon Leaders
2 Company Leaders
2 Battalion Leaders
2 Regiment Leaders
2 Brigade Leaders
2 Division Leaders
1 Corps Leader
1 Commander

Special Pieces

1 Player Flag. If the flag is captured the player loses
3 Landmines
3 Bombs

Board

Each side has 30 places to place its pieces, of which two are headquarter tiles, on one of which the flags must be placed. There are also five field bases, and units stationed inside these based are safe from attacks.

Unlike other board games, the starting location of the pieces is not fixed. The placement of pieces is entirely the choice of the player, subject to some regulation. Landmines can only be placed in the two rows closest to the player. Bombs cannot be placed in the row furthest from the player. Also, pieces cannot be placed inside a field base at the start of a game.

Movement

Neither the flag nor the landmines may be moved. In each turn one piece may be moved one tile. However, on railways pieces may move an unlimited number of tiles in one direction, except for engineers, who may turn on railroad joints).

Combat

Similar to Stratego, the rank of the combatant pieces alone determines combat outcome, as stronger pieces defeat weaker pieces. Ties result in both pieces being removed. Bombs are always removed together with the opposing piece, regardless of the rank. Mine defeats everything except engineers.

Game modes

Closed

In this mode, three players are needed of which two are players and the third one acts as a referee. During the game, the pieces are placed so that the top face of a piece faces the player so that his opponent cannot see it, acting as a fog of war. Also because the player cannot see the rank of a particular opponent piece a referee is needed to make judgments in a combat.

Open

Similar to closed mode, except once placement of the pieces is completed, the location of the pieces are revealed to both players.

Reveal

All pieces are shuffled and placed face down at the beginning of a game. Each player can move a piece or flip over a piece to reveal the piece. The game ends when a player loses his flag and all three landmines. To add a random factor, a piece is allowed to engage combat to an unrevealed piece.

Variations

Sea-Land-Air Battle Chess, adds naval and air units to combat.

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