Epaminondas

Alternate Names

The predecessor to this game was called Crossings, but was played on a smaller board with slightly different rules for capturing. Epaminondas was a Theban general credited with innovations to the phalanx which led to the Theban victory over Sparta in 371 BCE.

No. of Players

Two

Equipment

The equipment required is a 12x14 square grid and twenty-eight each of black and white counters. This game may also be played on the standard checkerboard.

History

Epaminondas was invented in the United States by Robert Abbott. The predecessor to this game is called Crossings. Crossings was invented in 1963 and the rules were first published in Sid Sackson's A Gamut of Games in 1969. Crossings is played on an 8x8 checker board. but when the game was revised & published in 1975, the board was increased to a 12x14 grid and came to be called Epaminondas, after the Theban Leader who invented the phalanx. He used the formation to defeat the Spartans in 371 BCE.

Objective

A player wins when it is their turn to move and they have more counters on their opponent’s home row than their opponent has on theirs. This specific objective allows a player the chance to capture some of the offending stones on the turn after an incursion or to counter with an infiltrating move of their own.

Play

White makes the first move and turns alternate. By itself, an individual counter may move one space in any direction (orthogonal or diagonal), like the King in Chess. Two or more counters in a straight line, orthogonal or diagonal, constitute a phalanx and may move as a group in either of two directions: forward or backward along its length. This is sometimes called in file or in rank movement. A phalanx may move any distance up to the number of counters it contains but it may not move sideways (also called broadside). A moving phalanx stops when its head reaches the maximum possible distance, the edge of the board, a counter of its own color, or the head of an equal of longer enemy phalanx. Upon reaching a shorter enemy phalanx or single enemy counter, a phalanx captures by replacement the head of that enemy phalanx and all counters constituting a phalanx of which that captured counter is a head. Thus, if the captured enemy counter is the head of two phalanxes that are both shorter than the moving phalanx, both of those enemy phalanxes are captured entirely. The capturing phalanx stops on the cell where the first enemy captured counter was. A captured counter is removed from play for the rest of that game. When an enemy counter comes to reach the home row, a player may fend off that attack by capturing the invading counter or by countering with a move of a friendly counter or phalanx to the opposing home row. If that player can successfully fend of the attack, the game continues and counters occupying their opponent’s home rows may or may not hold that position. If unable to do either of the above described methods when under attack, the player will lose the game on the next turn.

Sources

  1. Schmittberger, R. Wayne. New Rules for Classic Games. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York, 1992. ISBN 0-471-53621-0

  2. Sackson, Sid. A Gamut of Games. Castle Books, New Tork, 1969.

  3. Neto, Joāo Pedro and Jorge Nuno Silva. Mathematical Games, Abstract Games. Dover Publications, Inc. 2013. ISBN 978-0-486-49990-1