Games Games Games Magazine
March 1999
David Pritchard
UK

Bosworth is a chess variant (remember how Dickey III, hard pressed at the time, went around offering his kingdom for a knight?). The game, which is for 2-4 players, is played with cards on a 4 x 4 board with four 4 x 1 extensions (players' home bases of 'field camps', illustrated with a line of tents which have to do with Bosworth Field not nothing to do with the game). In short, a 6 x 6 board with the corner squares removed.

Each player has a set of 16 cards illustrated with the normal chess pieces in a distinctive color. The rules are simple. The pieces (cards) are moved exactly like their chess counterparts except that there is no checking, casting or pawn promotion. A player whose king is captured is out of the game; his men are removed from the board and his victor is awarded the loser's queen, which can be immediately brought into play, as a reward. The last surviving player is the winner.

Players start by placing four pawns in their field camps, shuffling the remainder of their packs and taking the four top cards into hand. A move can only be make with a piece on the board, thus the first move of each player must be a pawn move. When a square in a field camp is vacated it is filled from that player's hand who then draws another card to maintain his hand of four cards. Unless you are a genius or dead stupid you will play out your king last.

The four-player game is the most fun and proved very popular at Essen where three tables were in almost constant use throughout the fair. And fun is the right word. Although this is a lot of skill in Bosworth the accent is on entertainment.

My one objection to the game is the award of the opponent's queen for capturing his king. Two reasons: it is both ugly and confusing (the conqueror is not fielding an additional piece of another color), and it dramatically upset the power balance. Both faults could be overcome by allowing the victor to reclaim any piece previously forfeited, which is then place at the bottom of his remaining card stack. The prototype was briefly reviewed by Pevans in GS: 121. The cards are attractively designed and game is sturdily packaged. It has been recommended by several writers.

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