Jarmo
2 players
0 min
Medium weight: Teach it in one sitting
From BoardGameGeek
An old Tatarian legend says that Batu Khan, Mongol leader and a grandson of Genghis Khan, always took an extraordinary board game along when he had gone to a war, and carefully hid this game from all trespassers. Batu Khan usually played one game before a battle, just to get into a right warrior mood. The legend does not specify any particular game but it was most likely Jarmo, an old battle-and-race Tatarian game where players are expected to have concentration, observation and imagination. The goal of this game is to reach opponent's first row with as many own archers as possible. However, the winning strategy is more complicated than simple moving pieces towards opponent's base, it will be described in the next sections. Likewise at Tank Battle, the player who gets more points at the end of a game, wins. How to capture opponent's pieces If an archer moves to a circle occupied by an opponent's archer, this enemy piece is captured and immediately removed from the board. An archer that captures at least one enemy is marked by a small black (white) line. It is important to know which archers have captured enemies when the "loop" rule is used. How to finish the game The game is finished if one player moves all their non-captured archers to the opponent's first row. At this moment, the final score is calculated and the player with more points wins. In case of a tie, the game is a draw.
Watch first
Which Jarmo video should I watch?
Jarmo has 4 videos from 2 creators: 3 how-to-play guides and 1 playthrough. They date from 2022 to June 2026.
To learn the rules, start with "How to play Jarmo - the Mongolian/Polish board game. (No really!)" by NewVenture Games, which runs 2 min.
To see it played, watch "Playing a game of Jarmo, Random Play #1" by rvcloud.
If you like it, try Halo: Flashpoint, Juicy Fruits, World War I: 1914-1918 or Anzio: The Struggle for Italy – 1943-1945, which share several of its mechanics.
All videos
Creators who cover this
NewVenture Games
2 videos of this game
rvcloud
2 videos of this game
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About Jarmo
From BoardGameGeek:
An old Tatarian legend says that Batu Khan, Mongol leader and a grandson of Genghis Khan, always took an extraordinary board game along when he had gone to a war, and carefully hid this game from all trespassers. Batu Khan usually played one game before a battle, just to get into a right warrior mood. The legend does not specify any particular game but it was most likely Jarmo, an old battle-and-race Tatarian game where players are expected to have concentration, observation and imagination. The goal of this game is to reach opponent's first row with as many own archers as possible. However, the winning strategy is more complicated than simple moving pieces towards opponent's base, it will be described in the next sections. Likewise at Tank Battle, the player who gets more points at the end of a game, wins. How to capture opponent's pieces If an archer moves to a circle occupied by an opponent's archer, this enemy piece is captured and immediately removed from the board. An archer that captures at least one enemy is marked by a small black (white) line. It is important to know which archers have captured enemies when the "loop" rule is used. How to finish the game The game is finished if one player moves all their non-captured archers to the opponent's first row. At this moment, the final score is calculated and the player with more points wins. In case of a tie, the game is a draw.