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York versus Lancaster |
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This is a game of Patience, in which fellow Ricardians might be interested.
First you extract from the pack, one red King (Lancaster) and one black King (York), and place them face up on the table about 18 inches apart.
The next step is to turn up the top card of the pack: if it’s red, it goes next to the Lancastrian King, and if black, to the Yorkist King. You continue in this manner until each King has eight cards of his own colour, one above him, one below and three on either side.
If the Lancastrian army is completed first, any subsequent red cards turned up while the Yorkist army is still being completed become the Yorkist’s prisoners-of-war, conversely, if the Yorkist army is completed first, superfluous cards become Lancastrian prisoners.
When both armies are complete, battle commences. The top card of those remaining in the pack is turned up; if it is a red card, Lancaster is the aggressor, if black, York is the aggressor. With this card can be taken any one of the opponent’s men which is either the same denomination as the card turned up, or the card one point lower than it. The attacking card and the captured card then go to the pile of cards which are the prisoners of the aggressor, or if the aggressor hasn’t already got any prisoners, captor and captive become the prisoners-of-war pile.
After the initial card has been taken, the aggressors can take any card of its opponents, except the King, under the same procedure as the first card, until the opponent only has two Knights of the Body left. When this happens, you fill up the army again with reserves from the cards remaining in the pack, and start again. When there are no cards left in the pack the game is at an end and you have to count up points: 4 for Kings, 3 for Queens, 2 for Jacks, and 1 for all the rest. The side with the most points wins.
Courtesy of Adrienne Chalmers