The Duke

Board

6 × 6 squares

Army

19 tiles per side

Turn

One maneuver or one levy

1. The armyeach side has nineteen tiles — one Duke, three Footmen, three Pikemen, and one each of Knight, Wizard, Ranger, Seer, General, Priest, Champion, Marshall, Bowman, Dragoon, Assassin and Longbowman. The Duke and two Footmen begin on the board; the other sixteen (one Footman, three Pikemen and the twelve specialists) go into that player's own bag and can only reach the board by levy.
2. Setupplace your Duke on either of the two center squares of your home edge, then place two Footmen on empty squares orthogonally adjacent to it; both armies set up symmetrically across the board and the light side moves first. Here you place your own three tiles and the computer answers with the mirrored standard setup.
3. One action per turnevery turn is exactly one maneuver or one levy, and passing voluntarily is not allowed. A maneuver plays one mark from the grid on the face currently showing, and when it resolves, the tile that acted must flip to its other face. A levy draws a reinforcement and deploys it, described below.
4. Reading the markson the grid, a filled circle is Move, a hollow circle is Jump, a filled triangle is Slide, a hollow triangle is Jump Slide, a star is Strike, and the loop symbol is Command; the diamond in the very center is the tile's own square. Triangles point along the direction of the slide, and every other mark sits on the square that action targets.
5. Move and Jumpa Move requires the straight path between the origin and the marked square to be clear, while a Jump ignores everything along the way and lands directly on its marked square. Neither may land on a friendly tile, and landing on an enemy tile captures it.
6. Slide and Jump Slidea Slide extends outward from the adjacent square in the printed direction and may stop on any empty square along that ray; a friendly tile stops it one square short, an enemy tile may be captured and the slide ends there. A Jump Slide skips the adjacent square entirely and begins on the second square — the printed mark itself — then follows the same rule, so a tile next to the actor neither blocks it nor can be captured by it.
7. Strikethis action is only available when an enemy tile actually stands on the marked square. It captures that tile outright while the striker stays where it is, though the striker still flips. If the marked square is empty, a Strike is not available, and it can never be used as a way to move.
8. Commandevery square marked with the loop symbol on the commander's visible face forms its command area. You may relocate one friendly tile from one square of that area to another, ignoring anything in between; an empty destination is a move, an enemy tile there is a capture. Only the commander flips — the tile it relocated keeps the face it was already showing, and the commander itself stays put.
9. Capturing and Guardany action that lands on an enemy tile captures it, captured tiles are out for good, and capturing the opposing Duke wins immediately. The rules also forbid any maneuver that would leave your own Duke capturable at once, which is why a tile can carry marks and still be unable to move a single square: moving it would expose the Duke.
10. Levyyou may levy while your bag still holds tiles and at least one of the four squares orthogonally adjacent to your Duke is empty. The drawn tile is revealed immediately and must then be deployed, starting face up, onto one of those empty squares; drawing and deploying together are one full turn, and the new tile cannot act on the turn it arrives. Levy also stays legal while your Duke is under attack, but the drawn tile must be placed and the threat does not clear itself.
11. Losing and drawinga player who begins a turn with no legal maneuver and no legal levy loses. This implementation adds two digital adjudications on top: the same full position occurring a third time is a draw, and 200 consecutive turns without a capture or a deployment is a draw. Both are explicit online rulings, not text from the 2013 base rulebook.

1. Select first, then plan: clicking one of your tiles highlights every legal destination from the face it is currently showing, so you never have to memorize all thirty action grids up front.
2. Check the reverse before committing: the small grid at the bottom of the detail panel is the face this tile will show after it acts. Where it lands matters, but whether it still contributes after flipping usually decides whether the move was worth it.
3. Click enemy tiles to inspect them: selecting an opposing troop outlines every square it can currently reach or affect in blue-violet. It is by far the fastest way to answer "would I be captured on that square?".
4. Orange-red squares are forbidden: once your Duke is selected, destinations that would let it be captured next turn are drawn in orange-red with an exclamation badge. Clicking one explains the danger instead of playing it.
5. Keep one square open beside the Duke: as soon as all four orthogonally adjacent squares are occupied, levy stops being available, even with a dozen strong tiles still sitting in your bag.
6. Read enemy tiles upside down: the interface rotates the opponent's tiles by 180 degrees exactly as two players would across a table, so the forward direction printed on them points toward your own home edge.
7. Separate Slide from Jump Slide: a Slide is counted from the adjacent square outward, a Jump Slide from the second square outward. Mixing them up is the most common way beginners imagine a threat that does not exist.

• Grids are always read from the controller's side: forward means toward the opponent's edge, and each side reads its own directions. This page turns the board and the tiles toward you, so your own troops always read upright while enemy troops always read upside down.
• Only the acting tile flips: a captured tile never flips on its way off the board, a tile relocated by Command keeps its face, a newly levied tile always arrives on its starting face, and only the troop that performed the action turns over.
• Levy stays legal in Guard: when your Duke is attacked the interface flags it as Guard. You must answer the threat with a legal maneuver, yet levy remains available while an empty square borders the Duke — the drawn tile must still be placed even if the threat survives.
• The action vocabulary is fixed: Move, Jump, Slide, Jump Slide, Strike and Command share one compact 5 × 5 visual language but resolve in six different ways, and no tile face mixes in any other kind of action.
• 2013 base set onlythis page implements the nineteen-tile core army and nothing else — no Musketeers, Arthurian troops, promotional characters, terrain tiles or other expansion material.

• Playing a Move as though it were a Jump: a Move may not pass through any piece, and only the hollow-circle Jump marks ignore whatever stands along the way.
• Sliding past the first piece met: the first occupied square on the ray is always the end of a Slide — a friendly tile stops it just short, an enemy tile may be captured there, and neither case continues further.
• Forgetting that the actor flips: after the move resolves, that tile is using the other grid entirely, so planning next turn from the face you just played is guaranteed to fail.
• Treating levy as a bonus action: drawing plus deploying is the whole turn, the arriving tile cannot move afterwards, and you do not also get a maneuver.
• Commanding a tile to any empty square: both the origin and the destination must be command-marked squares on the commander's visible face, not simply free space nearby.
• Copying the opponent's orientation: every grid is read from its own controller's home edge, so the same troop points in opposite screen directions in the two armies.

• The Duke RulebookCatalyst Game Labs2013 core rules

Rights holder and physical editionCatalyst Game Labs