Stratego Board Game Review

Review: 5/5 Some Challenge and Faster, Easier, & More Fun than Chess. I had loved this game as a child and still find it fun now. It is a fun strategy game that has some challenge, makes you think a little bit, but is simpler & loads more fun than chess. It builds & uses more skill than checkers, has more strategy than pure luck based games, but plays faster and requires less than chess. It is a perfect balance for me to be mentally stimulating and yet not be entirely based on skill of the player. Basically, you have 3 rows of pieces that you place with values 1 to 10, a flag, and a few bombs. Higher number beats lower number. You move only one space forward, back, left, or right. And you want to capture the opponent's flag. To save 10 from just running around the board, you the lowest numbers, there is a special near-zero piece called a spy that beats 10, otherwise is effectively a 0 in battle, and 1-3 have special moves -- 1 can move & guess an opponent's number to capture it in the same turn, 2 can move more than one space & attack (although usually lose), and 3 can defeat bombs. So there is some balance and how you play matters. This version seems great to me. I don't recall it being any different when I was a child, and I don't know if we even knew all the rules as a child for pieces 1-3. The build quality seems pretty good. But you will have to affix stickers for all the pieces, so be ready to apply some stickers when you first open it rather than just starting to play. The instructions are nicely done, easy to read & follow, in color, and offer some tips. The only thing I miss from the old box of 30 years ago is that the new box shape is smaller than the width of the board once unfolded. So during setup, you can't just hold the box as a veil between the two sides while setting up. So you have to take some care in how you set up to not give away your setup by placing your flag first while the other person doesn't see the values but can guess based on how you setup. Product Title: Stratego Board Game, by Spin Master Games Model: 20040172