War games.(The Straggler)(Column)

Sunday afternoon, the eight-year-old knocking around the house. No one to play with: His pals have relatives over, or are themselves away on family visits. Sister has a play date in the next town, Mom is out shopping. The weather is nice and cold, but the snow is "tired," dirty and icy. He is not in the mood for reading, has exceeded his ration of TV for the week, and is bored with the limited supply of computer games we permit him. "Dad, will you play Stratego with me?"

Dad pulls himself reluctantly away from some online exchanges about the president's morning TV appearance on Meet the Press. The Stratego board comes out; a screen is erected across the middle; much careful placement of pieces goes on--the concentration is intense here--then we are ready. The screen is discarded, battle commences.

Stratego, for those who do not know it, is a board game for two. Each player has 40 pieces of various military ranks--sergeants, colonels, and so on--which he deploys on his side of the board. I can see the ranks of my pieces, but my opponent can see only the identical featureless backs of them; and vice versa. (Hence the screen. Seeing your opponent make his starting deployment would give vital clues as to the position of key pieces.) One piece on each side is a flag, which of course the other side must locate and capture. I advance pieces into the enemy's territory, and he into mine. On encountering one of his pieces, I may attack it, and we must both reveal ranks. If his piece's rank is less than that of my attacking piece, his piece is taken ... and so on. There are clever wrinkles in the game. The cleverest concerns a spy piece, so low-ranked he can be taken by any piece that attacks him; but he alone possesses the power to take a marshal, the highest-ranked piece. Of course, the spy must first locate the marshal, then sneak up on him, or lure him into position, for the "assassination."

The game box and pieces are decorated with pictures of Napoleonic-era soldiers, dressed in shakos, plumes, braid, cloaks, and spurs. This adds charm to the game. I know, of course, that actual wars of Napoleon's time were very grisly affairs--there is a stomach-turning account of Waterloo in John Keegan's The Face of Battle. It was all a long time ago, though. Winston Churchill noted, following his experiences in WWI, that "war, which used to be cruel and magnificent, has now become cruel and squalid." Validated by such an authority, nostalgia towards the color and dash of Dragoon, Lancer, and Hussar can be indulged without guilt, I think. Most of these strategy games (I am not sure about Go) were originally spin-offs from the military arts. You can, in fact, graduate from them to full-scale war games. I have an acquaintance whose hobby is the re-fighting of great naval engagements on a large table in his basement. However, he has a great deal more spare time than I have. Stratego will do for me.

The essence of Stratego is, of ...