Learn the rules as you follow a game!
Judtho is best played as a four player game but the easiest way to learn the rules is with the two player game, which is most similar to chess. A Judtho set contains pieces of four colours: White, Yellow, Red and Black. The White and Yellow pieces are called the Light pieces and the Red and Black pieces are called the Dark pieces.
Our sample game will be between two imaginary players: Pam with the Light pieces and Rick with the Dark pieces.
For clarity, all the Light pieces will be shown as White and all the Dark pieces as Black.
The game begins with an empty 12 x 6 board.
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Pam plays first as she has the Light pieces. She must place one piece in the area of the board between a1, a4, f4 and f1. Rick will place his pieces in the area between a9, a12, f12 and f9.
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There are eight different types of pieces in Judtho, so we'll learn about each as we go along.
A photograph of the different pieces is shown below. The pieces are, from left to right:
The King, Queen, Prince, Princess, Bishop, Knight, Rook and Pawn.
Each player starts with 1 King, 1 Queen, 1 Princess, 1 Prince, 2 Bishops, 2 Knights, 2 Rooks and 6 Pawns.
Pam places a Pawn, on a4...
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Rick responds by placing a pawn on a11.
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Pam and Rick will now take turns to place one piece at a time. This process of placing pieces is called the Assembly. Let's rejoin the game after the Assembly is complete. Note that no piece can be moved until all the pieces have been placed.
Before making the first move, Pam notices that her Prince on f4 is attacked by Rick's Bishop on a9...
This is because Bishops move along diagonals...
So Pam moves her Prince to the safe square c5.
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The Prince either moves one, two or three squares along a rank (left or right) or file (up or down)...
...or the Prince moves one square diagonally only or one square diagonally and one or two squares along a rank or file, moving away from the original square:
