Each troop tile in The Duke carries its own movement chart on both faces, and the tile turns over every time it acts. A Footman that steps forward this turn reads a different chart on the next one, so the face you need to plan around is the one that will be showing after the move. You open with three tiles on a 6×6 board, your Duke and two Footmen. The other sixteen wait in a bag and come out one at a time, at random. This version plays the 2013 core set of nineteen tiles a side, with no expansion troops or terrain.
A turn in The Duke is one of two things, either acting with a tile, which then flips over to its other side, or drawing a new tile from your bag and putting it next to your Duke. Capture the opposing Duke and the game is yours.
The board has no labels, so this guide names the files A to F from Light's left and the ranks 1 to 6 starting at Light's back row. Light's home row is rank 1 and Dark's is rank 6.
Before the first move you place your own three tiles. The Duke goes on one of the two middle squares of your back row (C1 or D1 for Light), then each Footman goes on an empty square touching the Duke's left, right or front side. The game starts as soon as the second Footman is down. The computer always opens the same way, placing the Duke on C1 with Footmen on B1 and D1 as Light, or the Duke on D6 with Footmen on C6 and E6 as Dark. In a two-player game Light sets up first, then Dark.
Light moves first.
On every turn you do one of these two things. Passing is not allowed.
Ending an action on an enemy tile captures it, and captured tiles are gone for the rest of the game.
Each face shows a 5×5 grid with the tile itself in the centre (◇). The marks around it are read from the owner's side, so forward always means toward the opponent. Your own tiles stand upright on the screen, while the opponent's are turned around, as they would be across a real table.
| Mark | Action | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| ● | Move | Goes to the marked square. If the mark is two squares away, the square in between must be empty. |
| ○ | Jump | Lands on the marked square no matter what stands in between. |
| ▲ | Slide | Travels as far as you like in the direction the triangle points. It stops short of your own tile, or stops on an enemy tile and captures it. |
| △ | Jump Slide | Like a Slide that begins on the second square: a tile on the first square neither stops it nor gets captured. |
| ✦ | Strike | Captures the enemy tile on the marked square without moving. With no enemy there, the mark does nothing. |
| ⌘ | Command | Moves one of your tiles from one ⌘ square to another ⌘ square, capturing an enemy on the destination. The commander stays where it is. |
Whichever tile's chart was used is the one that flips. A Striker flips even though it never left its square, a Commander flips while the tile it relocated keeps the side it was showing, and a tile that gets captured leaves the board unchanged.
The panel next to the board shows the chart the selected tile is using now, with a smaller chart underneath labelled "Flips to" for the side it will turn to.
You can levy only while your bag isn't empty and the Duke has a free square directly above, below, left or right of it. The tile you draw is shown straight away and has to go on one of those free squares, starting side up. It cannot act until your next turn.
Every tile still in the bag is equally likely to come out. A full bag holds sixteen tiles, consisting of one Footman, three Pikemen and one each of the twelve other troops. Your first levy is therefore a Pikeman 3 times in 16, the spare Footman once in 16, and one of the twelve single troops the remaining 12 times. Neither bag is secret: the bag grid shows which troops are still inside.
Undo does not reshuffle the bag. Take back a levy and draw again from the same position, and the same troop comes out.
You win by capturing the opposing Duke with any action, a Strike and a Command included. You also win when your opponent's turn comes round and they have neither a legal maneuver nor a levy available.
The site adds two draw rules that are not in the 2013 rulebook. A game is drawn when the same position comes up for the third time, with both bags and the side to move counted as part of the position. It is also drawn after 200 turns in a row, counting both players' turns, without a capture or a new tile placed.
The guard rule is stopping it, since no action may leave your own Duke where an enemy tile could capture it on the next turn. It limits every tile, not just the Duke, so a tile standing between an enemy Slide and your Duke can show fewer destinations than its chart suggests, or none. When you select the Duke, the squares it is not allowed to enter turn orange-red with an exclamation mark, and clicking one explains the danger instead of moving there. If the Duke is already attacked, the panel says "Guard: your Duke is attacked — save it".
You may still levy while your Duke is attacked, but placing a tile does not cancel the threat. If the attacking line is still open after you place it, your opponent simply takes the Duke.
Nineteen tiles make up each army, namely the Duke, three each of Footmen and Pikemen, and a single copy of the remaining twelve troops. Directions are from the owner's side, and "2 forward, 1 aside" means the square a chess knight's move ahead. Move marks two squares away need the square between them to be empty, whereas Jump marks ignore it.
| Troop | Tiles | Starting side | Other side |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duke | 1 | Slide left or right | Slide forward or back |
| Footman | 3 (two begin on the board) | Move 1 forward, back, left or right | Move 2 forward, or 1 diagonally in any direction |
| Pikeman | 3 | Move 1 or 2 diagonally forward | Strike the two squares 2 forward, 1 aside; Move 1 forward, 1 back or 2 back |
| Knight | 1 | Jump 2 forward, 1 aside; Move 1 left or right, 1 or 2 back | Slide forward; Move 1 or 2 diagonally back |
| Wizard | 1 | Move 1 in any of the eight directions | Jump exactly 2 in any of the eight directions |
| Ranger | 1 | Jump 2 forward, 1 aside or 1 forward, 2 aside; Slide forward or back | Slide diagonally forward; Jump 2 back, 1 aside |
| Seer | 1 | Jump 2 forward, back, left or right; Move 1 diagonally | Jump 2 diagonally; Move 1 forward, back, left or right |
| General | 1 | Jump 2 forward, 1 aside; Move 1 forward, 1 back, or 2 left or right | Jump 2 forward, 1 aside; Move 1 forward, or 1 or 2 left or right; Command the squares to its left and right and the three behind it |
| Priest | 1 | Slide diagonally in all four directions | Jump 2 diagonally; Move 1 diagonally |
| Champion | 1 | Jump 2 forward, back, left or right; Move 1 in the same four directions | Jump 2 forward, back, left or right; Strike the four squares touching its sides |
| Marshall | 1 | Jump 2 diagonally forward or 2 straight back; Slide left or right | Move 1 forward or diagonally forward, 1 or 2 left or right, or 1 diagonally back; Command the three squares in front |
| Bowman | 1 | Move 1 forward, left or right; Jump 2 left, right or back | Strike 2 forward and both forward diagonals; Move 1 forward or 1 diagonally back |
| Dragoon | 1 | Strike 2 forward and the two squares 2 forward, 2 aside; Move 1 left or right | Jump 2 forward, 1 aside; Move 1 or 2 forward; Slide diagonally back |
| Assassin | 1 | Jump Slide forward and diagonally back | Jump Slide diagonally forward and straight back |
| Longbowman | 1 | Move 1 forward, back, left or right | Strike 1 and 2 forward; Move 1 diagonally back |
A Duke on the back row touches only three squares, and two of them get Footmen. Whatever setup you pick, then, one square is open for a levy at the start, and once a new tile fills it you cannot levy again until something next to the Duke moves away.
The two possible shapes play quite differently. With a Footman on each side (Duke on C1, Footmen on B1 and D1, the computer's setup), C2 is the levy square and the Duke cannot move at all, since its starting side only slides sideways and both sideways squares are taken. Put one Footman in front instead, on C2 with the other on B1, and the Duke can already slide to D1, E1 or F1 on the first turn, with D1 left open for a levy.
Before you commit, check the "Flips to" chart and ask what the tile will threaten from its new square. A Footman that steps from B1 to B2 turns to the side that moves 2 forward or 1 diagonally, so from B2 its next options are B4 (while B3 is empty), A3, C3, or a diagonal step back.
The Duke swings the same way. Its starting side only slides left and right, the other side only forward and back, so a Duke that has just slid along the back row must go up its file next, or stay where it is. Slide it from C1 into the corner at F1 and on its next move it can only climb the F file, so with your own tile on F2 it has no move at all, and a corner Duke has only two squares to levy into.
A Strike captures without stepping onto the square, so an enemy tile that guards the struck square has nothing to recapture. The Champion's second side strikes all four squares touching it, while the Bowman, Longbowman, Dragoon and Pikeman each strike squares ahead on one of their sides. None of these five has Strike on both of its sides, so a tile that strikes this turn turns to a side that cannot strike on the next.
Command appears on just two tiles, both on their second side, as the General commands the squares to its left and right and the three behind it, and the Marshall commands the three in front. Using it flips either tile to a side that has no Command. The tile being commanded does not flip, and that includes your own Duke, so a Command can move it out of danger without turning it to its other side.
A levy costs the whole turn and you do not choose what comes out, so it pays best when most of the possible draws help. Early in the game three-quarters of the bag is single specialist troops. Later on, glance at the bag grid first, because a bag that is mostly Pikemen will most likely give you a Pikeman.
The squares around the opposing Duke are its only levy squares. Standing on one takes it away from your opponent, and covering one means whatever they place there can be captured.
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