Blue and Gray (board game)

Blue and Gray is an abstract strategy board game for two players invented by Henry Busch and Arthur Jaeger in 1903. They obtained a patent for the game, but may never have published it. Blue and Gray was featured in the book A Gamut of Games (1969) by Sid Sackson. It was also featured in The Book of Classic Board Games (1991) by Klutz Press under the name Cats and Dogs. In this book, the game was ranked among the top 15 board games of all time, including checkers, backgammon, Go, and mancala. The game is also known as Wild West, Thumps Game, and Captain and Soldiers. Blue and Gray is a distant relative of draughts.

Goal

The object of the game is to advance the captain to the center of the board (marked as a red dot) through the 17-step outlined path. The first to accomplish this is the winner. At the same time, each player tries to prevent the advancement of the other's captain.

If neither player can advance their captain further down the outlined path, the player whose captain has advanced farthest wins.

An optional rule to winning is for one player to advance their captain three spaces further along the outlined path than the other player.

Equipment

The game is played on a 9×9 board. The board also consists of two 17-step outline paths for each player to advance their "captain" piece to the center of the board which is marked as a red dot. Each player initially has 17 "guard" pieces and one captain. One set is colored black, and the other is colored white, however, any two colors or distinguishable objects will suffice.

Rules and gameplay

References

External links

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