Vaxandis 2024

Vaxandis (from Old Norse: vaxandi íss, meaning "growing ice") is a drawless stalemate game for two players: Black and White. It is played on the hexes (cells) of an initially empty hexagonal board. The recommended board size is 5 cells per side, but boards of 4 or 6 are also valid. Each player has access to a sufficient supply of stackable pieces in their own color.

Definitions: A stack is a set of pieces of the same color placed on the same cell. A single piece is also a stack. The height of a stack is the number of pieces it contains. A group is a maximal set of stacks of the same height connected to each other. A single stack is also a group. The size of a group is the number of stacks it contains. A stack is frozen, along with the others in its group, if at least one of them is adjacent to an enemy group of greater height.

Turns:Black plays first and then turns alternate. On your turn, perform one of the following actions:

Place a stack of height 1 of your color on an empty cell not adjacent to any stack. Move a stack of your color in a straight line, crossing empty cells or jumping over stacks of any color. The stack must begin unfrozen and may only become frozen at the end of its path.

During the move, in sequential order:

For each new appearance of friendly groups (not adjacent at the start) while crossing empty cells, resolve growth only on the first cell that touches those groups. Growth is resolved in order: first, the moved stack gains +1 in height, then all stacks in the newly touched friendly groups gain +1. Upon landing, the stack must be adjacent to at least one friendly stack of lower height than the lowest friendly stack it was adjacent to at the start. If it wasn’t adjacent to any friendly stack at the start, it must end adjacent to at least one friendly stack of equal or lesser height than itself.

End of the game:The game ends when a player cannot place or move stacks, in which case his opponent is the winner.

To balance the game, before starting, the first player places a black stack on an empty point, and the second player chooses a side. This balancing method is called the pie rule.

—description from the designer