Watch “Hall of Fame: Stratego, L'Attaque & the Big Four,” a board game video for Stratego from Adam in Wales - Board Game Design on BoardGameVideo.
Description provided by Adam in Wales - Board Game Design on YouTube:
Two players secretly line up their pieces on opposite sides of a grid. You can see the values of your own force but you don’t know the values of your opponent’s pieces which face away from you. When two pieces meet back to back, you can declare an attack. And the values are revealed, with the lowest scoring piece eliminated from the game. The goal is to progress through the enemy ranks and capture their flag.
The origins of this iconic game system are unclear. A German literary journal, Monatshefte, described a Japanese War Game, known as Gunjin Shogi (or Military Chess) in 1905. The game was subsequently published in Finland in 1906, and described as having been invented during the recent Japanese War, most likely the Sino-Japanese war of 1894, and enjoyed by soldiers and officers alike.
Gunjin Shogi is remarkably similar to later titles L’Attaque and Stratego, with the most notable difference being the requirement for a third player to act as arbiter declaring the outcome of any conflict without revealing the identity of the pieces. Patents were filed in 1907 in London by Julie Berg, and 1909 in France by Hermance Edan. It was Edan’s version which achieved commercial success in Europe, under the title L’Attaque. However, the origins of L’Attaque are disputed, because Edan’s estate asserts that she invented the game in the 1880s, which, if accurate, may predate the Japanese wargame.
Edan’s L’Attaque was brought to the United Kingdom by Gibson’s Games in the 1920s, and attracted 3 direct sequels: Dover Patrol, Aviation, and Tri-Tactics, all apparently developed by Harry Gibson. These games were marketed as Gibsons’ Big Four or War without Tears.
Stratego first appeared in 1946, late to the party by half a century, and almost identical to Hermance Edan’s L’Attaque, though a Dutchman, Jacques Johan Mogendorff, claimed to be the creator. Stratego was licensed to some heavy hitters in the industry, Milton Bradley, Hasbro, and Jumbo, which still retains ownership of the brand in 2023.
The Stratego-branded version dominated the market in the West, pushing through to become one of the most recognisable, iconic board games of the last century.
0:00 Introduction
1:43 The basics
2:23 Origins of the system
7:14 L'Attaque vs Stratego
8:56 Sharpe's Attack
10:12 Dover Patrol
11:52 Aviation
13:38 Tri-Tactics
15:04 Swords and Wizardry
17:27 The Generals
19:14 Luzhanqi
21:24 Conquest Stratego
23:09 Shadows in Kyoto
24:19 Lord of the Rings The Confrontation
24:49 Thunder and Lightning
25:02 Volto
25:20 TacTiki
25:35 Confusion
0:31
0:31
0:30
3:57
