Fanorona
Alternate Names
Fandango
No. of Players
Two
Equipment
A Fanorona board as above, which can be made by placing two Alquerque boards side by side, and twenty-two each of black and white counters are required for play.
History
Fanorona was developed from the game of Alquerque in about 1680 on the island of Madagascar. It has been used for divinatory rituals there.
Objective
The goal is to capture all of the opponent’s counters, the first player to achieve this being the winner. A player may also win by blocking any legal move by his opponent. If it is agreed that a draw seems imminent, the player with more counters may declare victory.
Play
Despite the fact that the geometry of the Fanorona board is much like that of Alquerque and its relatives, its method of play is much different, exhibiting methods of capture rarely seen in other board games. Turns alternate with White playing first. A player’s turn entails the movement, in any direction, of a single friendly counter along a line to an adjacent vacant intersection. Capture of enemy counters is by the rather unusual methods of approach and withdrawal. Capture by approach constitutes moving a friendly counter to an intersection that is adjacent to an enemy counter in the direction of movement. That enemy counter, along with any other enemy counters in the same direction that are in an adjacent uninterrupted straight line behind it, are captured and removed from the board.
Capture by withdrawal is the opposite of capture by approach. If a counter occupies an intersection adjacent to an enemy counter, the enemy counter may be captured by moving away from it to an adjacent vacant intersection. Also captured are any enemy counters in an uninterrupted straight line behind it along the line of movement.
If it is a player’s turn and they are able to make a capture it is compulsory to do so. If movement of a counter offers both types of capture simultaneously, only one of them may be taken.
Strategy
Variations
Sources
Provenzo, Asterie Baker and Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr. Play It Again, Historic Board Games You Can Make and Play. Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1981. ISBN 0-13-683367-5