Description

Gulf War is a Malaysian board game from 1990, using as its theme the then ongoing war in the Persian gulf. Its game mechanism is borrowed from An Qi (literally dark chess, because pieces are covered at the start and so unknown to the players: it is a game played using Xiangqi pieces). Each side has a number of pieces ranking from President down to Hostages or Civilians, and also Bombs, Fighter Planes and Oil-fields. Like An Qi (and for that matter games like LuZhanJunQi and Stratego), the pieces have a ranked order and higher ranked pieces eliminate lower ranked ones. Pieces start face-down and are randomly distributed in alternate colors on the 6X6 square grid that is the game board. Players take turn to expose pieces and once exposed, pieces may be moved one space orthogonally. Enemy pieces are eliminated by a higher or equal ranked piece moving on to them. There are special rules for specific pieces - the Assassin may eliminate the President, Bombs neutralize (i.e. both pieces get eliminated) all other pieces, capturing an Oil-field/Hostages/Civilians piece allows substitution of your own piece for a previously eliminated piece, etc. The Fighter Plane has the capture of the Pao (Cannon) in An Qi - just like in Xiangqi, it jumps over another piece to land on a distal piece and capture it.
The game is won by the player who is able to capture both the opposing President and Vice-president.

The game has interesting details - one player takes the Iraqi side and the other is the Allied side. The President, Vice-president and Ally pieces are different and have pictures appropriate to the side (Saddam, Bush, Gaddfi and Thatcher all feature). Another difference is that the Iraqis have a Civilians piece but the Allied forces has a Hostages piece instead (in the game, they are equivalent). The board comes with two sides - one side has yellow and blue circles to show where the pieces go. The other has the same 6X6 grid superimposed on a background map showing the Persian gulf.