Renaissance Magazine
Issue 19, September 2000
Kim Guarnaccia
USA

On August 22nd, 1485, The English king Richard III took 12,000 men into battle against Henry Tudor, whose 5,000 soldiers were French mercenaries and Lancastrian lords and knights. The battle seemed destined to be Richard's, on numbers alone. However Richard did not take advantage of his superior position in time, and the Stanley brothers who commanded a full third of his army, switched sides. As the tide of the battle swung against him, Richard launched a brave assault directly upon Henry's personal guard. The Tudor standard bearer was cut down, but Henry remained out of reach, and Richard became the last English king to die on the battlefield.

This crucial turn in English history has inspired Bosworth, the board game. However, throw away any idea of a meticulously researched war game - Bosworth is an abstract game based on chess, and some imagination is required to relate it directly to the battle of Bosworth Field. It is, however, good fun for two to four players.

Imagine a 4 x 4 chessboard with an extra strip of spaces attached to each side as a base camp, where the pieces are actually cards representing the familiar chess pieces. You begin with four pawns in your camp and deploy new pieces from your hand as the camp is vacated. The pieces move exactly as in chess, with some exceptions: pawns can move sideways in the three/four player games, and kings can capture their own pieces if they need to escape a tight corner. More advanced concepts, such as en passant and castling, have been eliminated, and even check is not included - a player wins by capturing the opposing king.

Two-player Bosworth is like chess on a 4 x 6 board, where the pieces slowly appear on the back rank over time. So three/four player games are much more manic, with threats from every direction and the possibility of a combined assault by your opponents disassembling your defense in one turn. Such games become a matter of thinking ahead and attempting to keep your king off the board as long as possible. Should you capture an opponent's king, all his pieces are immediately removed, his camp is collapsed, and you are given his queen to use as a prize. It is not until the showdown between two players comes the game begins to resemble conventional chess.

Bosworth is easy to pick-up if you know a little about chess, and easy to explain to your friends. Yet it allows varied and intricate play, which changes character as players are eliminated. Physically the components are easy to use, with clean cartoon art for the board and playing pieces. Each piece is shadowed by its conventional symbol, so identification is not a problem.

Chess purists will hate Bosworth, and head-to-head play seems a little like a cut down version of the traditional game, but Bosworth is fun for three or four players, with plenty of opportunities for rivalry and tricky play. And were it a conventional war game accurately simulating the Battle of Bosworth Field, there would surely be more than one page of rules!

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