Stratomic

Stratomic gameboard and starting position. In the diagram, missiles are represented by inverted kings. The notation system shown is of the inventor.

Stratomicis achess variantinvented by Robert Montay-Marsais in 1972.The game is played on a 10×10boardwith all the standardchess piecespresent, and in addition, twonucleapieces (representingnuclear missiles) and two extrapawnsper side. The game brings the concept of modern warfare weaponry tochess.

Game rules

The starting setup is as shown. The standardconventions of chessapply, including normalcastlinganden passant.Pawnspromoteon the 9thranks(ranks1and8in the diagram), and may promote to missile. The missile moves and captures as a chessking:one step in any direction. It may be captured like any other piece.

Missile launches

A player canlauncha missile at any time to any board square, occupied or not. The launched missile "destroys" (eliminates from play) all pieces (except kings, which are immune) of either colour on the target square, as well as on all immediately surrounding squares. The missile itself is also destroyed in the launch.

Launching a missile constitutes a turn. There are two prerequisites for launching a missile:

• A non-pawn piece must have been captured at some point prior in the game.
• The missile cannot be under attack by an enemy piece at time of launch.

Since a single-step move of the missile can be ambiguous to a launch of the missile, the player should announce his intention when moving.

See also

• Atomic ChessandBeirut Chess– other variants based on detonations

References

Bibliography

• Pritchard, D. B.(1994).The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants.Games & Puzzles Publications.ISBN0-9524142-0-1.
• Pritchard, D. B.(2007). Beasley, John (ed.).The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants.John Beasley.ISBN978-0-9555168-0-1.

External links

• Stratomic Chessby Bo Leuf and revised by Jean-Louis Cazaux,The Chess Variant Pages
• Stratomica simple program by Ed Friedlander(Java)