Deconstructing A Board Game!

“Junqi” or “Military Chess"

• Description:

“Junqi” is also called “Lu Zhanqi”, which is becoming very popular among people of all ages in China. It is designed for two players to play. Each player has two “Headquarters” (Areas are filled with red color). Those circular regions are “Camp”. The rectangles are “Deport”. A single red line stands for “Road”, those thick lines are railroads.

• Goal of Game:

To capture your opponent’s “Flag” chess and carry it back to your own “Headquarter” or eliminating all your opponent’s movable pieces.

• Core Mechanic:

Players flip over those covered pieces, until he or she get a “Engineer” unit, then he or she will use the color same as that piece. At the first stage, players move pieces most of the time “Engineer” and “Grenade” to eliminate their opponents’ “Landmines”. All personnel units and “grenade” can be only moved one step on “road” but multiple steps on “railroad”. Consuming an enemy piece is also necessary most of the time. Chess pieces with higher ranks consume the ones with lover ranks. Once all opponents’ “Landmines” have been cleared. A player should use his or her lowest rank chess piece to capture the opponents’ flag and carry it back to his or her own “Headquarter”. Trying not losing “Landmines” or “Flag” and consuming as many enemy movable units as possible.

  

• Space of Game:

The space of this game is in 2 dimensional. On each side of the board, there are 30 spots that can be placed pieces. There are three types of spots: 2x1 Rectangles (“Depot”), Circles (“Camp”) and Shapes are filled with red color (“Headquarter”).

• Objects, Attributes and States:

Objects: There are 50 chess pieces in total. Most of the pieces are designed based on ranks in the army. For example: “Major”, “Captain”, “Lieutenant” and “General”.  There are some other special pieces like: “Landmine”, “Grenade” and “Flag”.  There are white color pieces and red color pieces. Each player will represent one color later, but at the beginning of the game, the two players are not supposed to pick side.

  

Attributes:

Ranks (High to Low)	Name of the Chess Piece	Amount on each side	Special abilities
1	Marshal	1	NA
2	General	1	NA
3	Brigadier	2	NA
4	Colonel	2	NA
5	Major	2	NA
6	Captain	2	NA
7	Lieutenant	3	NA
8	Platoon	3	NA
9	Engineer	3	Moving multiple steps on the rail road, and they can make more than one turns during the moving. Eliminating Landmines.
L	Landmine	3	Landmine cannot be moved. They can be eliminated by engineers or be destroyed together with a suicidal piece.
G	Grenade	2	They can kill any piece except the flag, but this also consumes themselves.
F	Flag	1	They cannot be eliminated.

Defenders (B Group)	Attackers (A Group)
	Marshall	General	Brigadier	Colonel	Major	Captain	Lieutenant	Platoon	Engineer	Grenade
Marshal	Lose both	B wins	B wins	B wins	B wins	B wins	B wins	B wins	B wins	Lose both
General	A wins	Lose both	B wins	B wins	B wins	B wins	B wins	B wins	B wins	Lose both
Brigadier	A wins	A wins	Lose both	B wins	B wins	B wins	B wins	B wins	B wins	Lose both
Colonel	A wins	A wins	A wins	Lose both	B wins	B wins	B wins	B wins	B wins	Lose both
Major	A wins	A wins	A wins	A wins	Lose both	B wins	B wins	B wins	B wins	Lose both
Captain	A wins	A wins	A wins	A wins	A wins	Lose both	B wins	B wins	B wins	Lose both
Lieutenant	A wins	A wins	A wins	A wins	A wins	A wins	Lose both	B wins	B wins	Lose both
Platoon	A wins	A wins	A wins	A wins	A wins	A wins	A wins	Lose both	B wins	Lose both
Engineer	A wins	A wins	A wins	A wins	A wins	A wins	A wins	A wins	Lose both	Lose both
Landmine	Lose both	Lose both	Lose both	Lose both	Lose both	Lose both	Lose both	Lose both	A wins	Lose both
Grenade	Lose both	Lose both	Lose both	Lose both	Lose both	Lose both	Lose both	Lose both	Lose both	Lose both
Flag	B wins	B wins	B wins	B wins	B wins	B wins	B wins	B wins	B wins	B wins

States: The first changing of a piece’s state is when one player’s lowest rank piece carried his or her opponent’s “Flag” piece. On this state, the carrying piece cannot consume any other pieces unless the “Flag” is decided to be put down first. Another obvious changing of states of all pieces is when they are moved from “road” to “railroad”, their states would be changed. Another changing of states of chess is when a player’s “Engineer” and “Grenade” have been all consumed; now all his or her units are allowed to eliminate “Landmines” by sacrificing themselves.  

• Operative Actions:

Below are all the operative actions of a player:

---Flipping over an upside down chess piece.

---Moving a unit forward, backward, left or right.

--Using a unit to carry “Flag”.

-----Putting down the “Flag” on the current space.

--Picking up the “Flag”.

"Carrying a 'Flag'"

                                                                

• Resultant Actions:

--Making a unit die together with an enemy unit. This action is always done, when using “Grenade”, consuming a same rank piece or sacrificing a unit to get rid of an enemy “Landmine”.

--Moving a unit into “Camp” to keep it from any threats.

--Putting down the “Flag” on player’s own “Headquarter” to win the game.

--Eliminating an enemy unit with a higher rank unit.

--Making either one turn or multiple turns when moving an “Engineer” unit on “railroad” to get its maximum moving capacity.

--Eliminating all enemy movable units to win the game.

---Redraw from the “railway” to avoid enemy’s “range attacking”.

--Capturing a crossing point on a “railway” with a high rank unit to block enemy’s movements.

--Placing higher ranked units next to a unit to protect it from being attacked.

• Skills I Learn: 

Below here are some skills I learnt during the playing:

--Sacrificing low ranked units to trigger an enemy “Grenade” is a good way to clear enemy’s “Grenade”.

--Try to move your low ranked units next to enemy’s “Landmine”, once you ran out of “Engineer”, you can straight away sacrificing those low ranked “officers” to eliminate “Landmines”.

--It is not always a good idea to flip a covered piece that was next to a high ranked piece. However most of the time, it is a good idea to flip a piece that is next to your high ranked piece.

--Using “Grenade” to watching a low ranked piece’s back is not always wise.

--Eliminating your enemy’s middle ranked “officers” and all “Engineers”, at the same time, try to avoid the attacking from enemy high ranked units, by doing this victory is not far from you!

• Gaming Procedures and Rules:

Setup the game: Players shall flip the back of all pieces upward so nobody can see what each piece is. Then mix them together. Then put every piece on all “Deport” and “Headquarter” on the board. Those circular areas (the “Camp”) cannot be put chess pieces. 

Gaming process: Flipping over those covered pieces one by one until one player get   an “Engineer”, he or she will use all pieces having the same color of it. Now players can move chess pieces or consume his or her opponent’s pieces. Using “Engineer” or “Grenade” pieces to eliminate all enemy “Landmine”. It is not allowed to use other units to clear “Landmine” by sacrificing them, unless all one player has lost all “Engineer” units AND all pieces have been flipped over. After that, that player can only sacrifice his or her lowest rank unit to clear “Landmine”.

       It is not allowed to use “Grenade” to bomb “Flag”; it is not allowed to use a lower rank unit to consume a higher rank unit; it is not allowed to consume a unit that is in the same camp; it is not allowed to move more than one step on “Road”; Units are not allowed to move OVER a unit; Units except “Engineer” are not allowed to making turns; A unit carrying “Flag” is not allowed to consume another unit; It is not allowed to consume a piece that is placed on a “Camp”; Units are not allowed to be placed on “Frontline” or “Mountain”; it is not allowed to move a same piece along the same path back and forth more than 5 times or it is considered as giving up the game.