This ancient Roman game has multiple rulesets and can be played on multiple board sizes. I sell 8x8 and 12x8 board size variants, but no common standard existed.
Pieces & Movesets
There are two kinds of pieces in Ludus Latrunulorum: the king and the pawns. Both move the same as modern chess rooks, that is they move as far as they would like in a straight line in any direction until impeded by another piece or the edge of the board.
Starting Arrays
Some rulesets have players freely place their pieces before play begins so there is no set starting array, others such as Military Latrunculi use a regular starting array. Pictured below are starting arrays for 8x8 and 8x12 boards with a King.
12x8 Starting Array
8x8 Starting Array
Rulesets
Ludus Latrunculorum is believed to be based on the older Greek game Pettia, as well as an influence for the later family of Tafl games played in nothern Europe in the early Middle Ages. Thus game uses custodian capture, a method of capture where 2 pieces are needed to capture an enemy piece. A piece that moves in between 2 enemy pieces is not automatically captured. See the image below for examples of custodian capture.
Examples of custodian captures that white could play.
Example of multiple capture. A player can capture at most 3 pieces in one move.
Civil Latrunculi
To start the game, each player places their pieces freely on the board, until all pieces are placed.
There is no King piece in this variation of the rules.
Once all pieces are placed players may begin to move them. Pieces move as rooks in chess and may optionally jump over one piece of either color as their move.
Pieces are captured via custodian capture.
When a piece performs a capture, it gets another turn. The player may only move the piece that made the original capture.
The goal is to capture all of the opponents pieces. In the event of a stalemate (repeating moves, no more captures possible), the player with the most captured pieces wins.
Military Latrunculi
This variation of the rules is similar to Tafl Games in its goal to escort the King to safety. However, the goal of each player in this game is symmetric as both players have Kings. In Tafl, only the Defenders have a King to look after. The Tafl Attackers goal is to capture the enemy king before it can make an escape.
Pieces are placed in a starting array as shown above. Typically the first rank of each player is filled with common pieces and the King is placed in the center (on a board with odd number of files), or just to the right of center (even number of files) of the 2nd rank.
All pieces move as rooks in chess.
Pieces may jump over other pieces (either color), landing on the adjacent empty square. A piece may jump only one other piece per turn.
Pieces are captured via custodian capture.
The goal is for the King piece to reach the opposite edge of the board.
R. C. Bell's Proposed Rules
In his book, Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations, R.C. Bell suggests a set of rules for Ludus Latrunculorum. It is similar to Civil Latrunculi above, but with a few differences.
To start the game, each player places their pieces, 2 at a time, freely on the board. Bell specifically sets the game board size at 8x7 and the number of common pieces at 16 per player.
After all common pieces are placed, each player places an additional Dux or King piece.
All pieces move as above, however, the special jumping move is reserved only for the Dux piece.
The goal of the game is to capture all enemy pieces.
If there have been no captures within the last 30 moves then a blockade or stalemate has occured and the player with the most captured pieces wins.
