“When two tribes go to war, A point is all that you can score…” Frankie Goes to Hollywood,Two Tribes

Yeah I know two very obvious, even lazy quotes about war.

At least they are on topic.

This post is going to be about some ideas for additional rules/variants for the game War by my friend Byron.

I’m not claiming any of these ideas are any good or fun. Heck I’ve not even tried them! But I think they will work and add a bit of variety.

Variant 1

This a simple one back from when I first played the game some (I want to say) two years ago.

When a unit is destroyed it is put to one side instead of going back into the bag.

Variant 1a!

Same as variant 1 except the removed units are placed face down with neither player able to examine them.

Variant 2

This one is inspired by the setup phase of the Battletech Alpha Strike rules.

First remove all the mountain tiles from the bag. Then starting with the first player, take turns placing the mountains on the play area following the usual placement rules for the tile.

Variant 3

This one builds on top of the variant 1 rule.

Each player keeps the unit they destroyed, face down in front of them. The player can look at the tiles they have in front of them. But they are hidden information. The other player can see how many tiles you have but not their value.

Each destroyed unit is worth points. The value dependent on the health value of the unit. Ie a GUN is worth 1 point, a CPL 2 points, and so on.

As well as winning the game by hitting the opponents base, victory can also be achieved by one player reaching an agreed points total, such as 15 points.

When a player reaches the agreed points total they reveal all the tiles they scored as a check.

There that’s my suggestions for stuff to try with War to mix it up a little. Or more ideas I’ve been thinking of for the game. I’m still mulling over multiplayer.