Description

The ballista was an ancient Greek and Roman missile weapon, which launched a large projectile at a distant target.

Introduction

Ballista is an area enclosure, area control abstract game for 2 players: Black and White. It is played on the spaces of a 10x10 board. The board is divided by two red intersecting lines creating four 5 x 5 quadrants. You will also need a set of reversi pieces. The game starts out with 2 black and 2 white reversi pieces placed on the four marked squares on the board.

Play

Players decide who goes first then play alternates.

On each turn players must take two actions:

1)Move one of your color reversi pieces “ballista” exactly like a queen in Chess, orthogonally or diagonally onto any empty space as long as the piece stays within the quadrant where the move initiated from.

2)Fire a “projectile” reversi piece in your color away in a straight line orthogonally or diagonally from the piece just moved, then placing the new reversi piece in your color onto any empty space within one of the other three remaining quadrants.

Players also have the option on their turn to capture an enemy stone. Captures in Ballista are custodian, i.e., an enemy stone is captured when sandwiched between two friendly stones (orthogonal or diagonal). Captured enemy pieces are not removed from the board but flipped over to your color.

Note: A ballista or fired projectile reversi piece may not jump over a friend or enemy piece, also any friendly pieces that were projectiles may now become a ballista.

The game ends when a player has no valid move.