Aggression

Most abstract strategy games are played with a single, central goal in mind, or sometimes a secondary goal. For example, in Chess it is to checkmate the King, in Checkers it is to eliminate all of the opponent's pieces or force a stalemate. Aggression is different in that it has several possible goals in play simultaneously. All the pieces move and capture the same as one another. Complexity of play is achieved by having a unique win/loss condition tied to each separate piece type. Players must juggle the demands of multiple goals and adjust strategies throughout play.

Pieces have two kinds of movement, a March or a Lunge. A March is a sliding move in a straight line any number of empty squares, like a Chess Queen. A Lunge is a capturing move. The piece jumps over an adjacent enemy piece to a vacant square on the other side. Only one piece can be captured on a turn. Multiple jumps are not allowed.

The game is played on a 7x8 board. On each player's back row, the central space is marked with a flag.

The Blue player goes first. Each player begins with a Scout in hand. On their first turn, a player moves forward one of his Infantry pieces. Then he drops his Scout on any empty square on the board, as long as it is not under attack. After that, each player makes two moves per turn. First moving one of his regular pieces, then moving his Scout.

The Scout and the General are both defensive pieces and have the further restriction of not being allowed to move to a space where they can be attacked. Since there are two moves involved each turn, it is permitted to move the General to a space where it may be jumped by an enemy piece, as long as the Scout immediately moves behind the General to guard it.

The piece types and their winning conditions are:

Scout: [Blockade] A Scout requires freedom of movement to do its job. If a player is able to trap or capture the opponent's Scout so that it has no legal move on its turn, the player wins.

Infantry: [Elimination] If all seven units of the opponent's Infantry are captured, the player wins.

Sapper: [Arrangement] Sappers seek to construct a fortification within enemy territory. 'Enemy territory' is defined as the four rows on the opponent's side of the board. A 'fortification' is three Sappers connected in a row, horizontally or vertically. Diagonally does not count.

Saboteur: [Traversal] A Saboteur seeks to blow up the enemy's Regimental Headquarters. The HQ is the central space located on a player's back row, and is marked with a flag. The player wins if he is able to move the Saboteur safely across the board and on to the opponent's Regimental Headquarters square.

General: [Checkmate] The player wins if they are able to checkmate the opponent's General. As in Chess, if the player's General is in Check, then the player on their next move must get their General out of check, if possible.

—description from the designer