Fields of Action

Fields of Action is a two-player abstract strategy board game invented by Sid Sackson.


Fields of Action is played on an 8x8 board.  There are two players: Black (dark color) and White (light color).  Each player has 12 pieces of their color. Each set of pieces is numbered from 1 to 12.

The initial position of pieces is shown in the following picture:



The goal of the game is to capture five enemy pieces that are numbered sequentially, e.g. 5-6-7-8-9 (the order in which the captures were made is not important). A player also wins the game if his opponent has no legal moves when it is the opponent's turn.


Players move alternately, starting with Black.

A player can move any of his pieces horizontally, vertically, or diagonally exactly as many cells as there are pieces (of any color) adjacent to it before the move. The chosen piece may jump over pieces of
any color. The piece may not land on a friendly piece but it may land on an enemy piece, which is then captured and removed from the board.

An isolated piece (i.e. a piece with no adjacent pieces) is free to move any number of cells in any direction if it lands on an empty cell with at least two adjacent pieces (of any color).

Below are some examples of possible moves:

The dark "6" has 3 adjacent pieces (light "2", light "11" and dark "11") so it can move exactly 3 squares in any direction if it doesn't land on the friendly piece. Note that one of the options in this position is to capture the light "9".   The dark "11" is isolated. It can move in any direction if it lands on an empty cell with at least two adjacent pieces. These possible moves are highlighted.


