Aires

Big horned rams head butt for stud rights or claiming King of the Mountain.

Big horned rams head butt for stud rights or claiming King of the Mountain.

SET UP

The game requires a tabletop and chairs.
1 x 8x8 modular board. A ‘cross-hatch’ (checkered) pattern is optional.
2 sets of 16 tokens or stones in uniformed colors.
The game starts with preset positions filling opposite corners and mirroring their opposing counterparts.
The player to move first is randomly selected.
Players take alternating turns.

To completely eliminate the opposing player’s flock or reach their corner, and claim King of the mountain.

The pawns in this war game move like Chess Rooks, in any adjacent direction, one or many spaces at a time.
A charging ram can head butt an enemy piece by ramming into it and claiming its space. The hit ram is moved back one space, from that same direction.
If that hit ram is on the edge of the board, it gets shoved off the edge and is eliminated.
This head butting move can set off a chain reaction. If there are one or more enemy rams in a row with another friendly ram positioned and holding its ground on the other side, a charging ram will eliminate one ram on its turn. For example, if the rams are positioned on the board like 0→ XXX0, a charging ram will crush one of the sandwiched rams, to end up like this 0XX0.
If a pawn reaches the back corner of the opponent’s side, it is promoted to King of the mountain and is an alternate winning condition.
The Ko rule is in effect. One cannot play in such a way that would leave the board in its last previous state.

Normally played as a 2 player game, there could be some team options.
For a real mountainous ram jam velocity experience, try my original variation *3D Aires*, with new rules for head butting off jagged cliffs, (a.k.a. Wiley’s nightmare.)

This game feels like it belongs in the Ancient category of games, but surprisingly its not.
Aires is a modern marvel designed by a brilliant game designer, Chris Huntoon in 2003.
Link to his official site: Not found, but you can find his work on GameBoardGeeks.com

Aires resides all over my game room arenas. It sits on my Abstract Avalanche, The Sticks and Stones Series, the Tidal Forces Collection, the Bar Arcade Collection, the Predators Tract, and my Head Games shelves.
This game is surprisingly good for its simplicity and deep thinking.
The ram attack is easy and fun to execute. It is an attack of pure velocity from that forward charge pushing an opponent back one space, shoving it off the board, or crushing it in a sandwich if you have another ram holding its ground on the other end.
If you have an old Chess or Checkers board, (I bet yours is red and black), You can try it out for yourself with some additional pawns. All you will need 16 of each color. You can use coins, sea shells, poker chips, anything can be used as a pawn, so long as they have uniformity.
Once you are tired of playing on cheap cardboard, talk to me about investing in a real 8×8 game board that has multiple other game options.
This game can teach how and when to make sacrifices, and vector attacks.