Stratego Fan Site

On a lonely battlefield you meet your opponent for a skirmish that will decide the fate of your army. You must plan the battle, advance your men, attack and capture the enemy Flag.

Your Marshal is your strongest man, but vulnerable if not protected from the Spy. Your Scouts are weak but mobile and effective in discovering your enemy's manpower. You need the skills of Miners to disarm enemy Bombs, so don't lose them all early in the battle. Plant your Bombs skillfully. They will protect the most precious piece on the gameboard, your Flag. …

• Choose different Setups

  When you play each game against the same opponent, then alternate your flag location as well as bomb setups, to insure you opponent can't predict where your flag is located.

  I often use similar setups as far as bomb locations, but alternate where my flag is located. Once my opponent figures out my bomb formation for certain setups, he has to guess between three different locations for my flag.

• Use bombs to protect your flag

  It is usually a good idea to completely surround your Flag with Bombs. If you do so, and if during the game you are able to capture all of your opponent's Miners, you reduce the number of ways your opponent can win the game in half. …

These next two tips are from Ken McElhaney. Thanks Ken.

• Killer Pack - I group four pieces together, two on the front line and two behind, to form a strong unit. For example:

  These four pieces work together to dent the opponent's line. Variations include substituting a Sergeant with a Major and the Colonel with the General if the Spy is nearby.

• Variation of the Shoreline Bluff: Remove the Bomb on the inside and keep the Marshal nearby. This sacrifices some offensive firepower, but keeps the Flag a little safer, in my opinion. …

By Seth Brown.

The Corner

• PRO: The corner flag placement has a few things to recommend it. Most obviously, your flag in the corner can only be approached from two sides, as opposed to three or four. The flag is thus very easy to defend without needing many of your bombs or power pieces, by occupying the two spaces adjacent to the corner space.

  Unless the enemy eliminates most of your back row, your corner flag is only vulnerable to a direct frontal assault, so it is easy to stack powerful defense there. …

By Seth Brown.

When it comes to setting up your board in Stratego, the position of your bombs should be a key consideration.

Cleverly placed bombs can be devastating to an opponent by destroying their best pieces, or even guarantee you a victory if the opponent has no way to disarm them. Here are the general types of bomb placement options, and why you might want to use them:

Bombing The Flag

• PRO: Bombing the flag is the term for surrounding your flag with bombs on all sides. Obviously, this takes fewer bombs in a corner than it does in the middle of your board. But generally speaking, bombs are the best defenders in the game, victorious against every piece except miners. …

Disney's best loved heroes take on Disney's most booed villains. Secretly set up Peter Pan, Snow White, Simba and Robin Hood. Will they be strong enough to get the better of Captain Hook, Scar, Ursula and The Wicked Queen?

Components

• Game board
• 2 big dice
• 16 small red castles
• 3 big red castles
• Cardboard screen with a red border and 19 illustrations
• 16 small blue castles
• 3 big blue castles
• Cardboard screen with a blue border and 19 illustrations
• Instructions

The First Time you Play:

Carefully attach the 19 blue illustrations to the blue castles as follows: first, find the pictures of the Treasure Chest, The Genie and the Dalmatian on the blue background and slide each into one of the three big blue castles. …

• One-time Bombs

  Bombs blow up for good after the initial explosion.

• Attacker Advantage #1

  When pieces of equal rank battle, the attacking piece wins.

• Attacker Advantage #2

  The attacking piece Is always increased In strength by one rank.

• Reduce the number of pieces in the game

  Start the game with a reduced army.

• Open-faced Stratego

  During the game, the identity of every piece is known to both players. Alternately, pieces remain face-up once their identity is revealed.

• Change The Playing Field

  Play on a board which has hexagons, or pentagons, instead of squares. …

Components

Each army consists of:

• 7 x Blue Pieces
• 45 x Red Pieces
• 13 x Black Pieces
• 1 x Game Board
• 1 x Battle Die
• 2 x Hill Tiles
• 2 x Mud Tiles
• 3 x Building Tiles
• 15 x Maneuver Cards
• 6 x Line of Retreat Cards
• 12 x Weakened Blocks
• 6 x Building Counters
• 3 x Ownership Flags
• 1 x Turn Counter

Setup

The game board is put in the middle of the table in-between both players. The French player must sit on the side of the board with the French flag, the Allied player on the side of the board with the flag of the United Kingdom. …

For the die-hard war gamers and for those players that, after having played the standard game a few times, are still in search of yet another challenge, there is the Expert version. As much as this is possible for a board game that is intended to be fun, an attempt has been made to follow the historical reality of the battle.

In this version, the following rules apply:

If Napoleon falls in battle, the game immediately ends. In this case the Allies will have achieved a decisive victory! If Wellington falls in battle, the game continues, but the Allied player will have two actions less. …