MagWeb (Coalition Web, Inc.)
August 1998
Russ Lockwood
USA

Bosworth, the game by Out of the Box Publishing, has little to do with Bosworth, the historical battle during the War of the Roses, 1485. Bosworth, the game, does have a lot to do with chess, and is a clever variant that uses cards as pieces and limited board to engage your analytical mind.

The 22 x 16.5-inch board consists of a six square by six square playing grid. The corner squares (trees) are out of play. The field camps, each of four squares wide, are located one per side in between the trees. Battle debris on alternating squares allows you to visualize diagonals.

Bosworth takes all of 15 seconds to learn if you already know how to play chess-and only a few minutes if you don't. Each side receives 16 cards corresponding to the 16 pieces you would command in chess: one king, one queen, two bishops, two knights, two rooks, and eight pawns. You start with four "pawn" cards in a "field camp" and the rest are drawn as needed during the game. In effect, the card deck becomes a random piece generator.

This leaves the middle of the board between all camps with a four square by four square main playing field. You draw from the deck to bring in new pieces when you have an empty square in your field camp-either because you previously moved a card into the main playing area or because an opponent has been rampaging in your field camp and eliminating cards. The twist here is that you must play a card if a space is open-no hoarding. And yes, a clever opponent can force you to play a card even though the square is under direct threat.

Your pieces (the cards) move and capture as chess pieces, i.e. Bishops move along diagonals, Queens any way, etc. There are no checks in this game-if you place the king under attack and your opponent fails to notice, then you eliminate the king and vanquish the player.

In essence, it is a giant chess variant with cards in place of pieces. Other twist include the capture of the opposing queen if you defeat a player, and that pawns may not move back into the field camp once moved out.

But How Does it Play?

In essence, if you like chess, you'll like Bosworth. If you never played chess or don't like chess, you probably will not like Bosworth. Having stated that let me say that I used to enjoy chess many, many years ago.

After the first five minutes, I thought this was going to be a dopey game. At 10 minutes, however, it started to pique my interest. At 15, I was hooked into the subtleties of chess again. The four-player nature and confines of a 6 x 6 board quickly strike terror into your powers of analysis as you postulate all the different moves by all the different players.

At times, there was jockeying for position. Mostly, it was a rapid fire exchange of pieces as card took card as you calculated the effects and potential moves of your opponents as much as your own pieces. Incidentally, by 30 minutes, it was all over.

Which is OK, since you can set the game up in five minutes for another round. Beer and pretzels? Mechanically, yes, since you can learn the game in all of 15 seconds. But as chess players well know, the subtleties work their magic with every move, so you do have to pay attention.

In the playtest game, I held my own, although there are some devastating moves to really wrack your opponents-bishops in the corners are particularly nasty. There is also a little bit of diplomacy as players can certainly team up-as I did with another to rid of that bishop.

In the end, I knocked out one of the other players, another selected me to capture his king instead of the company sales rep (this player was dead either way), and then I fell victim to the no-check rule. I set up for the kill, but alas, a last ditch move put my king in check. Since the opponent does not have to declare a check, I moved to place the other king in check without realizing my own king was in peril. Alas, he took my king and won the field.

Bosworth is quite intriguing, the illustrations of John Kovalic of Dork Tower (Shadis magazine comic) fame enjoyable, and the production quality high.

Got chess? Get Bosworth . . . And you might even convince some non-chess players to give it a go as well.

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