Stratego-style games are about hidden information. You know exactly where every enemy piece stands, but not what it is. The rules below are the ones Rank & Flag uses in the game on our home page, written in plain language so you can learn in a few minutes and look things up mid-game.
The Goal of the Game
You win by capturing your opponent's Flag. You also win if your opponent is left with no piece that can move, because a player who cannot move on their turn loses. Everything else, from bluffing to trading pieces, serves one of those two aims.
The Board and the Setup
The game is played on a board of 10 columns and 10 rows. Two lakes, each a block of 2 by 2 squares, sit in the middle of the board. No piece may enter or cross a lake, so the middle of the board has only three lanes: one on the left, one in the centre and one on the right.
Each player has 40 pieces and places all of them on the four rows nearest to them, one piece per square, so the setup zone is completely full. Pieces face their owner: you see your own ranks, while your opponent sees only the backs. The two middle rows start empty. Where you put your Flag, Bombs and strongest pieces is the first big decision of every game; our ready-made setups show several approaches.
Taking Turns and Moving
- Players alternate turns, and on each turn you must move exactly one piece. You cannot pass.
- A piece moves one square forward, backward, left or right. Diagonal moves are not allowed.
- A piece may not move onto a square held by one of your own pieces, and may not enter a lake.
- Bombs and the Flag never move. Once placed, they stay on their square until captured.
- Once a piece has moved, your opponent knows it is not a Bomb or the Flag. In the game, moved enemy pieces get a small dot.
Attacking and Winning Battles
Moving onto a square held by an enemy piece is an attack. Both pieces are revealed and compared, and the result is settled at once:
- The higher rank wins. The losing piece is removed and the winner stands on the contested square.
- If the attacker loses, it is removed and the defender stays where it was.
- If both pieces have the same rank, both are removed.
- Attacking the Flag captures it and ends the game.
A piece that has fought stays visible to both players for the rest of the game, so winning a battle also tells your opponent what your piece is. A battle never forces anything else: after it, the turn passes as usual.
Draws: if 200 moves in a row are played by both sides without a single attack, the game ends in a draw. Rank & Flag shows a warning when 20 such moves remain, so an attack can still reset the count.
Special Pieces: Scout, Miner and Spy
Scout (2)
The Scout is the only piece that can travel more than one square. It moves any number of empty squares in a straight line, like a rook in chess, and may attack the piece at the end of that line in the same move. It cannot jump over pieces or lakes. A Scout that moves more than one square has given itself away, so the game reveals it.
Miner (3)
The Miner is weak in a fight but is the only piece that can defuse a Bomb. When a Miner attacks a Bomb, the Bomb is removed and the Miner takes its square. Every other piece that attacks a Bomb is lost.
Spy (1)
The Spy has the lowest rank and loses to every piece, with one famous exception: if the Spy attacks the Marshal, the Spy wins. The exception only works when the Spy moves first. If the Marshal attacks the Spy, the Spy is removed like any other piece.
Bombs and the Flag
Each player has six Bombs and one Flag, and neither can move. A Bomb destroys any attacker except a Miner and stays in place afterwards, now revealed. The Flag has no defence of its own: any piece that attacks it, even a Scout or the Spy, captures it and wins the game. That is why most players surround the Flag with Bombs or keep strong pieces close by. The full list of pieces and ranks shows how many of each you get.
Attack Results Table
Every possible battle in one table. It is produced by the same code that decides battles in the game, so the two always agree.
| Attacker ↓ / Defender → | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | S | B | F |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marshal (10) | ||||||||||||
| General (9) | ||||||||||||
| Colonel (8) | ||||||||||||
| Major (7) | ||||||||||||
| Captain (6) | ||||||||||||
| Lieutenant (5) | ||||||||||||
| Sergeant (4) | ||||||||||||
| Miner (3) | ||||||||||||
| Scout (2) | ||||||||||||
| Spy (S) |
Column labels: 10 Marshal, 9 General, 8 Colonel, 7 Major, 6 Captain, 5 Lieutenant, 4 Sergeant, 3 Miner, 2 Scout, S Spy, B Bomb, F Flag.
The Rule Against Repeating Moves
Without limits, a player who is losing could shuffle one piece back and forth forever. Two rules stop that, and the game refuses a move that breaks either of them and tells you why.
- Two-square rule. The same piece may move back and forth between the same two squares at most 3 times in a row. A fourth such move is not allowed; move a different piece or go somewhere else.
- No endless chasing. When an enemy piece steps away from one of yours and you follow it again, you are chasing it. During one continuous chase, the chasing piece may not return to a square it already stood on during that chase. You can still chase; you just cannot run the same circle twice.
If these rules leave a player with no legal move at all on their turn, that player loses, exactly as if they had no movable pieces.