"Bosworth Battlefield Chess" a fast, addictive chess-game variant

By MICHAEL ERB
Staff Writer
The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
www.newsandsentinel.com

PARKERSBURG - Ready for a new twist on an ancient game? Then prepare yourself for the battlefield.

"Bosworth Battlefield Chess" by Out of the Box Games is a chess variant for two, three or four players. The game follows most of the basic rules in chess with regards to how pieces move, but the smaller board coupled with several unique game mechanics make it a much different experience than the traditional game.

The various chess pieces all are represented by large colored disks - red, blue, green or yellow, depending on your choice - and are illustrated both with a cartoonish depiction of a character and a silhouette of the corresponding chess piece.

On a side note, the artwork for the game was created by John Kovalic, a bit of a legend in the roleplaying games community with his comic strip "Dork Tower" and his artwork on such notable games as "Munchkin," both of which lampoon gamers and roleplaying. In fact, the illustrations in Bosworth are actually characters from the "Dork Tower" strip, but you don't need to know who they are to figure out which pieces they represent.

When looking at Bosworth, the most important thing to understand is exactly how few spaces there are on the game board. The board is divided into 36 squares, six per side, but each of the four corner squares are considered "dead" areas, illustrated with trees, and are off limits. The remaining four squares per side make up each players "base camp" illustrated with tents. Players can move their pieces out of their base camp and even into other players' base camps, but cannot return to any of their starting spaces. In a two-player game, the two remaining side camps are blocked off; in the three-player game, one side is blocked.

In effect, this means most of the movement of pieces will be restricted to the center 16 spaces of the board, which means nearly every round someone will be eliminating someone elseás playing pieces. Since you only get one move per turn, players often can find themselves in a situation where, though they easily can take a piece, they likely will lose that figure to the next player in the rotation. It forces the player to try and think several moves ahead, just like in regular chess, but also gives them more options for different actions and strategies.

Another interesting aspect is how pieces are brought onto the board. A player begins by placing four pawns in their starting area, and then shuffles the remaining pieces face down, forming a draw pile for reinforcements. Four pieces are taken from the top of the deck, and that becomes the playerás hand. Anytime a player moves a piece out of their base area, they lay down another piece from their hand and then draw enough pieces from the reinforcements pile to bring that hand back up to four.

Potentially you can draw your king as part of your starting hand, but since the only way to win is to take other kings while keeping your own, you likely would want to hold onto that piece until closer to the end of the game.

You also can block other opponents from bringing in reinforcements by placing one of your pieces within their starting area. Players only can bring in new pieces where there are empty slots in their starting area, so this is an effective way to limit other players, but it also ties up some of your pieces, which sometimes can make them vulnerable to attack.

Also, as players run out of pieces in their hand and reinforcement stack, they begin blocking off empty portions of their starting area, giving the players even less room to manuever.

Altogether, Bosworth is a fast, fun and addictive chess variant that seems to work best with four players fighting it out on a crowded board. The game appeals to those who are looking for a new twist on chess, or those who are less enthusiastic about traditional board games and are looking for a new way to compete against friends.

Contact Michael Erb at merb101@gmail.com.

Edit: A review copy of the game was provided for this article.