Ironmask

Forty companies a side, every rank turned away from the enemy. You win by walking onto the other house's standard — and you find it by reading the field.

Your papers keep themselves. Every step a Corvel company takes, every strike it survives, narrows what it can possibly be, and the Dossier prints that band on the counter itself.

RecruitReads only what it has been shown. Moves loosely. OfficerCounts the ranks still unaccounted for, and guards its standard. SpymasterCounts, and pulls a company out of danger rather than trade it away.

How it plays

The field

Ten by ten. The two slate patches in the middle band are impassable and block sight down a rank.
You deploy forty companies in your four home rows; Corvel does the same opposite.

Moving

One square up, down, left or right. Never diagonally, never onto your own company.
An Outrider runs any distance down an open rank or file and may strike at the end of the run.
Charges and the Standard never move.
No company may shuttle between the same two squares more than three times running.

Striking

Move onto an enemy company to strike it. Both ranks are shown; the lower is removed, equals remove each other.
A Charge destroys anything that strikes it except a Sapper, who lifts it.
The Assassin loses to everything, but takes the Marshal if it strikes first.
Walk onto the enemy Standard and the action is over.

The Dossier

Every enemy counter carries the band your papers have narrowed it to. "5–10" means it has beaten enough to rule out the small ranks; "X?" means it has never moved and sits where a Charge would.
Click any enemy counter to open its card: the full spread of ranks it could still be, what your selected company would do against it, and a space for your own pencil mark.
The machine reads the field with the same papers. It cannot see a rank you have not shown it.

Keys

Arrow keys move the cursor, Enter picks up and puts down, Escape lets go.
D opens the Dossier, L the Ledger, J the Journal.