What the Stratego game is
Stratego is a board game of hidden information. Two armies of forty pieces face each other across a 10×10 grid, and every piece carries a rank that only its owner can see. You push a piece forward, your opponent pushes one back, and neither of you knows whether the next attack will remove a scout or walk straight into a bomb. That is the whole game: you are not just moving pieces, you are collecting information and gambling on what the other player is hiding.
The board has two lakes in the middle, and no piece may enter them. Everything else is open ground: four rows of ten squares for each side, plus the water in between.
Stratego has been sold around the world for decades under several names, and the version most people meet today is the modern 10×10 game with a spy, bombs, miners and scouts. It is a two-player game, it takes about half an hour, and the rules fit on a single page — which is exactly why the tactics take much longer to learn.
How to play Stratego
Setup. Each player fills their own side with forty pieces, face down, four rows of ten. Your opponent sees the backs of your pieces and nothing else. Before the first move, you decide where the flag goes, where the bombs go, and which piece is the marshal.
Movement. On your turn, one piece moves one square: forward, backward or sideways. Never diagonally, never onto a lake, never over another piece. Scouts are the exception and can travel any number of empty squares in a straight line.
Battles. When you move onto a square occupied by an enemy piece, both pieces are revealed and compared. The higher rank survives and takes the square; the lower rank is removed from the board. If the ranks are equal, both pieces are removed and the square stays empty. An attack that loses does not move you forward — you have just spent a piece to learn what was sitting there.
Special pieces. Four pieces break the simple rule of higher rank wins:
- The Spy has no rank against anything except the Marshal. If the Spy attacks the Marshal, the Spy wins. If the Marshal attacks the Spy, the Spy dies. Against every other piece the Spy loses.
- The Bomb cannot move. Anything that attacks a bomb is destroyed — except a Miner.
- The Miner is the only piece that can defuse a bomb. It survives and takes the bomb's square.
- The Flag cannot move and cannot attack. When it is captured, the game is over.
The twelve piece ranks
| Piece | Rank | How many | Loses to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marshal | 10 | 1 | Spy (attacking), Bomb |
| General | 9 | 1 | Marshal, Bomb |
| Colonel | 8 | 2 | General, Marshal, Bomb |
| Major | 7 | 3 | Colonel and above, Bomb |
| Captain | 6 | 4 | Major and above, Bomb |
| Lieutenant | 5 | 4 | Captain and above, Bomb |
| Sergeant | 4 | 4 | Lieutenant and above, Bomb |
| Miner | 3 | 5 | Sergeant and above |
| Scout | 2 | 8 | Everything except the Spy |
| Spy | S | 1 | Everything except the Marshal it attacks |
| Bomb | — | 6 | Miner only |
| Flag | — | 1 | Anything that reaches it |
Forty pieces, twelve types. Knowing how many of each piece your opponent still has is half of the game: when three Majors are dead, your Colonels can walk forward with much less fear.
Tactics that actually work
Do not lead with your best pieces. Every piece you reveal teaches your opponent something. Scouts are cheap and fast: send them down empty lanes to find the front line, and expect to lose them.
Put the flag where nobody counts. A flag in a corner behind three bombs is the first place an experienced player looks. A flag in the middle of a busy row, protected by movement rather than by bombs, survives longer.
Bombs are a wall, not a weapon. They cannot move, so every bomb you place is a permanent hole in your defence. Six bombs can seal a corridor; they can also leave you unable to shift a piece when you need to.
Save the Spy for one job. The Spy exists to kill the Marshal. Revealing it early against a Captain throws away your only answer to their strongest piece.
Count what is gone. Ranks are limited and visible once revealed. If both Colonels of your opponent have died, your Major becomes a Colonel for practical purposes.
Playing on this page
The board at the top of this page is Stratego® Online, the official browser version of the game, shown here in an embed so you can start a match without leaving the page. It is free to play and no account is needed: tap or click the Play button, the board loads in place, and the full screen button gives you a bigger board on a phone.
This site is an independent page about the game. It is not affiliated with the publisher, and the credit for the game itself belongs to its owner — the about page says where the rules come from, and the contact page handles corrections.