Javelins 2020

JAVELINS is a relative of Amazons

Overview JAVELINS is a two-player abstract strategy game descended from the classic Amazons. Each player commands a company of warriors (“Amazons”) that glide across the board like chess queens. But where Amazons blocks the board with fired arrows sitting on whole squares, JAVELINS is thrown along the seams between them — planted on the edges of squares rather than the squares themselves. That single change opens up a new wrinkle: diagonal movement is only stopped where two or more javelins cross at the same corner, so the diagonals and orthogonals of the board behave differently as the field fills in.

The game can end two ways: a player who runs completely out of legal turns loses outright, or — more commonly — the board eventually splits into separate territories, and whoever holds the larger territory wins.

Materials • A 10×10 square board (8×8 and 6×6 variants are also playable — see “Board Variants”) • 8 pawns (“Amazons”), 4 in each of two colors • A supply of sticks (“javelins”) — enough to fill roughly a third of the board's edges

Setup Players choose a color — White and Black — and set up their four Amazons at the standard start:

White a4, d1, g1, j4

Black a7, d10, g10, j7

Columns run a–j left to right; rows run 1–10 with row 1 nearest White. The board starts empty of javelins. White moves first, and turns alternate.

Turn Structure On your turn, do the following two things, in order:

1. Move one of your Amazons in a straight line — orthogonally or diagonally — across any number of empty squares. 2. From its new square, throw a javelin orthogonally in a straight line across any number of empty squares, landing it on any empty edge along the way. Both parts are mandatory and belong to the same Amazon. If a move would leave that Amazon with no legal throw from anywhere along the way, that move isn't legal — choose a different destination or a different Amazon.

1. Movement An Amazon moves any distance in a straight line, exactly like a queen in chess: horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. • Amazons cannot move through or land on a square occupied by another Amazon, friend or foe. • Moving orthogonally (horizontally or vertically), an Amazon cannot pass through a square edge that holds a javelin. • Moving diagonally, an Amazon is only stopped where two or more javelins meet at the same corner point of the grid. A single javelin at a corner does not block a diagonal crossing there — it takes two or more.

2. Throwing the Javelin After moving, the same Amazon throws one javelin from its new square, in a straight orthogonal line (never diagonal), across any number of empty squares and empty edges. • The javelin can land on any empty edge along its flight path — not only the farthest one — as long as nothing blocks the way to it. • A javelin cannot be thrown through another javelin or through an Amazon. It may still land on the edge immediately in front of a blocking Amazon; it simply cannot fly past it. • A javelin can be set down as a horizontal or vertical edge, matching the direction it was thrown. • Javelins can never be placed along the outer border of the board.

Closed-Off Amazons As javelins accumulate, an Amazon can eventually find itself with nowhere left to go — every line out is blocked by javelins, the board's edge, or other pawns. Once that happens, that Amazon is closed off: it takes no further part in the game and cannot be selected to move again. Its owner simply continues play with whichever Amazons still have options.

Winning Territory (the usual ending) Picture the board as a web of straight lines: two squares are connected if an Amazon could slide directly between them under the current javelins. As the game goes on, this web gradually splits into separate pockets.

The moment every pocket on the board contains the Amazons of only one color (or no Amazons at all), the game ends immediately. Each player then scores every empty square inside their own pocket(s). Whoever controls more empty squares wins. Squares that no Amazon of either color can reach are left unclaimed and count for neither side.

Sudden Death (the rare ending) If a player's Amazons run out of legal turns entirely — no Amazon can both move and throw — before the board has fully split into single-color territories, that player loses immediately and their opponent wins outright. This is the same “last player to move wins” principle the game inherits from Amazons; territory scoring simply gives most games a cleaner, earlier resolution once the board has clearly divided.

Board Variants JAVELINS scales down cleanly for shorter games:

Board 10×10, 4 Amazons per side

8×8, 3 Amazons per side: • White: c1, e1, g1 • Black: b8, d8, f8

6×6, 2 Amazons per side: • White: c1, e1 • Black: b6, d6

The 8×8 and 6×6 starting positions are original adaptations for this game — Amazons has no official layout at those sizes — but follow the same principle: Amazons spread evenly along each side's back row, related by a half-turn rotation of the board.