How to Play Ludus Latrunculorum

By Jaques of London · Est. 1795 · Updated 2026-08-17

Ludus Latrunculorum is a two-player abstract strategy game played on a rectangular grid. Each player commands a force of identical pieces and wins by immobilising or eliminating the opponent's army through a system of custodial capture, where an enemy piece is removed by sandwiching it between two of your own.

The game rewards forward planning and positional awareness over luck, making it a firm favourite among players who enjoy chess-like depth without chess-like complexity. It is well suited to tabletop play at home and is a popular choice at schools and historical gaming clubs.

A little history

Ludus Latrunculorum, meaning roughly 'game of mercenaries' or 'game of little soldiers', was played across the Roman world and is attested in Roman literary sources including references by Ovid, Varro, and Martial. Its origins are unclear and may predate Roman adoption of it, with possible roots in earlier Greek or Near Eastern race-and-capture games. The precise board dimensions and full ruleset used in antiquity are not definitively established; modern reconstructions are based on textual clues and archaeological finds of gaming boards and pieces, and scholars continue to debate the finer points of ancient play.

Setting up

1. Agree on board size. An 8x8 grid is the most common choice for beginners; larger grids such as 8x12 suit experienced players.
2. Each player takes an equal number of pieces in their own colour. For an 8x8 board, 16 pieces each is a standard count; for larger boards, scale up proportionally.
3. If using the dux variant, each player also takes one visually distinct piece to serve as their commander.
4. Players sit on opposite sides of the board. White (or the lighter colour) arranges pieces along the two rows nearest to them. Dark colour does the same on the opposite side.
5. Fill each player's two home rows completely with pieces, leaving the central rows empty. On a standard 8x8 board each player occupies rows 1 and 2, with rows 3 through 6 clear.
6. Decide who moves first, traditionally by agreement or a coin toss. The player with the lighter pieces conventionally goes first.

How to play

1. Players alternate turns. On your turn you must move exactly one of your pieces.
2. A piece moves any number of empty squares in a straight horizontal or vertical line, similar to a rook in chess. Diagonal movement is not permitted.
3. A piece may not jump over any other piece, friendly or enemy, that stands in its path.
4. Capture is custodial: if your move results in an enemy piece being surrounded on two directly opposite sides (horizontally or vertically) by two of your own pieces, the enemy piece is removed from the board immediately.
5. You may capture more than one enemy piece in a single move, provided each captured piece is independently sandwiched between two of your pieces after your move is complete.
6. A piece is safe if it moves into a gap between two enemy pieces. Placing your own piece between two enemies does not result in its capture. Capture only occurs as the result of an active move by the capturing player.
7. A piece that was already adjacent to one enemy piece is captured if your move places a second enemy piece on the directly opposite side.
8. If you are using a dux, it moves identically to other pieces but requires a different method to capture: the dux is only captured when it is completely surrounded on all four orthogonal sides (by any combination of enemy pieces and the board edge). Ordinary custodial capture does not remove the dux.
9. A player who has no legal moves on their turn loses the game immediately.
10. Pieces are never placed on the board after the game begins; only moves and removals occur.

Winning and scoring

The game ends when one player either captures all of the opponent's pieces or leaves the opponent with no legal move available on their turn. That player wins. There is no points system in the standard game; it is a decisive win or loss. If both players agree that the position is a dead draw with neither able to make progress, a draw may be declared by mutual consent, though this outcome is uncommon in practice.

The fine points

The most frequent dispute concerns a piece moving between two enemy pieces. The rule is clear: the moving piece is not captured. Capture is an act of aggression by the surrounding player, never a passive consequence for the piece that moves. If your opponent's two pieces already flank an empty square and you move into that square, your piece is safe. Only when your opponent subsequently completes a sandwich around your piece on their own turn does a capture occur.

A second common question arises at the board edge. The edge of the board does not act as a capturing piece; only actual pieces count for custodial capture. However, if you are using the dux rules, the board edge does count as a blocking side for the purpose of surrounding the dux on all four sides, so a dux driven into a corner can be captured with fewer pieces. Players should agree before the game whether they are using standard custodial capture only or the dux variant, as mixing rules informally is the most common source of argument.

How to win more often

• Control the centre early. Pieces in the middle of the board have the greatest range of movement and can threaten multiple areas at once.
• Avoid leaving isolated pieces on the flanks. A lone piece far from support is easy to sandwich once your opponent establishes a piece on one side of it.
• Think two moves ahead before each capture. Removing an enemy piece can open lines that your opponent immediately exploits to recapture with interest.
• Use your pieces in coordinated pairs. A pair working one square apart can advance together, threatening captures on both flanks and forcing your opponent to split attention.
• Do not rush to exchange pieces in equal trades early in the game. Positional advantage matters more than raw numbers in the opening; look for captures that also improve your piece placement rather than merely reducing the count.

Variations

Dux Variant

Each player designates one piece as the dux, or commander, distinguished by its appearance. The dux moves identically to other pieces but can only be captured when all four of its orthogonal neighbouring squares are occupied by enemy pieces or the board edge. Eliminating the opponent's dux wins the game outright, giving both players a high-value target to attack and defend throughout play.

Larger Board

Historically, boards larger than 8x8 were used, with an 8x12 or 9x10 grid commonly cited in reconstructions based on ancient sources. The larger board suits players who find the standard game resolves too quickly; it extends the midgame considerably and increases the importance of long-range piece coordination.

Unequal Forces

To balance a game between players of significantly different experience, the stronger player takes fewer pieces at setup, for example 14 against 16 on an 8x8 board. The rules of movement and capture remain unchanged. This handicap system keeps games competitive without altering the fundamental mechanics.

Capture Victory Only

In this stripped-back variant, the immobilisation win condition is removed. A player wins only by capturing every one of the opponent's pieces. This tends to produce longer, more attritional games and encourages players to keep their pieces mobile throughout rather than steering for a positional lock.

Ludus Latrunculorum: frequently asked questions