BUNNY WAR

Copyright (c) 2001 L. Lynn Smith

This game is played on a 8x8 square board with the following setup:

 

MOVE - A bunny may slide (orthogonal or diagonal) along the board, until it meets another stone (no jumping) or the board edge. CAPTURE - A bunny captures by jumping an adjacent enemy bunny, landing on the immediate opposite empty cell. Once a bunny begins jumping, its must continue to jump until there are no more legal jumps. GOAL - A player wins when it captures all but one of the opponent bunnies.

 

An example White chooses to move the marked stone into cell [1]. If Black captures e3:c5:c7, then White wins by capturing g3:g1 (only one black stone left).  Also, Black's move g2:g4 is bad, because of d4:f2.

I believe that the capture rule should be mandatory, since it's hard to reach a result when there are few stones on board. Even when one player have 5 stones against 3, it is difficult to win without a major blunder.

Lynn answered by saying: The reason I did not make initial captures mandatory is because the game would be too similar to Albuquerque. I did add a variant to the ZRF which, instead of capturing, turns the jumped opponent into a friendly one. I called it "Multiplying Bunny War". It plays fast and aggressive. In "Multiplying Bunny War", since all the pieces remain on the board there reaches a break-over point where one player begins to totally trounce the other. Unless that player makes some critical mistake. 

There are positional techniques to use in plain "Bunny War" which will help the player gain a necessary advantage in the end-game. Getting behind the opponent often helps to destroy a weak line of defense. So the player should first concentrate on avoiding being captured and working their pieces onto the far rank. Also maintaining good positions on all the outer cells helps with the overall game. Basically, start working your way up both the outer files, trying to form a solid line of defense. Once behind the opponent, lay into the the middle of the field. These same tactics can be used in "Multiplying Bunny War".

The rules were kept simple, so that a young child could learn them quickly. The names of the games were derived by the behavior of the pieces. During an explanation to a five-year-old, I first used the term "Bunny". The Bunny runs, the Bunny hops. The child quickly grasped the rules and played an aggressive game.

There is a ZRF to play Bunny War with Zillions.