Ludicrous and Truculent

This make is of a Roman game. I hear there here are some accounts of this game being played in Scandinavia in the middle ages and if ever I find them I will link them here. For now take that with a pinch of salt. What is certainly true is that there is a lot to be recognised in this game, the equal sided opposition of chess, the lack of heirarchy of the playing pieces as in draughts and the capturing method of the tafl games. The game is Ludus Latrunculorum,  or Latrunculi or Latrones, which means the Game of Brigands, or Bandits or Mercanaries or Soldiers.

Not a chess board.

When it came to making the game I already had the board! I covered this in a previous article (Article! He calls it an article now!) I picked up some Fymo cutters and some self drying clay, and cut out some simple shapes I think are called floreats out of the clay, eight of each to give a complete rank (Beg pardon? You heard.).

Floreat Cambrensis

 They didn't look quite right but I found a dot on each petal added something. 

Shall we play a game?

Latrunculi is a reconstructed game, in other words one which no-one genuinely knows how it was played. However we are not entirely clueless. Cleverer people than I, who call themselves ludologists, have studied long and hard using contemporary records, similar games,  two yoghurt pots and some sticky-backed plastic to produce what are to believed to be a fairly accurate approximation of the rules. Unfortunately ludologists tend to be academics and there is no money in amity, so there are several different versions of the rules, all of which are truly authentic and accurate; for a given value of authentic, accurate and true.

Ranks assembled

So from the literature there are several possible set ups. There are 7x8 boards, 8x8 with 8, 9, 13 and 16 pieces. As you can see I've gone here for an 8x8 board for convenience sake (it's handy to have a board that can be used for several games), and an eight-a-side set with an additional, smaller "Duke" on each side. There are also differences of opinions as regards some of the rules but there are a few things that all versions agree on is the movement of the pieces. All the pieces, regardless of rank, move in straight, orthogonal lines as far as the player wishes without passing over any other pieces (friend or foe); just like a rook in chess. But you do not take your opponent's pieces by simply moving into a square occupied by them (which would make for a game shorter than my attention sp- ooh, look! A squirrel!). Rather a single opponent's piece has to be surrounded on two sides (horizontal or vertical) to be taken .

Variants include;

• the Duke cannot be taken (so will be the last piece on the board) 
• the Duke can jump over a single opponent's piece as part of it's move
• the pieces can only move one square at a time (slooooooooooowww)
• at the begining of the the game the players take turns placing their pieces anywhere on the board (why not just play morris?)
• roll a dice each turn to determine how far a piece can move (WTF?)

The game ends when one side has been reduced to one piece (so cannot take), or a player cannot make a legitimate move or 30 moves have been made without a piece being taken.

In conclusion then this looks like a really nice little game, with a couple of variants should lift it a bit although others I could happily leave behind (you'll never guess which).

If you have been effected by anything in tonight's blog...

Latrunculi at Cyningstan with a downloadable pdf leaflet. The wonderfully knowledgable Damien Walker.
The Game Cabinet although this has not been updated in over ten years the site still seems to be up (for now). Scroll down to the bottom for Latrunculi.
Roman Board Games a nice little site that does what it says on the tin.