The Players' Handbook

[Jubal]

I'll do a PDF of this with pretty pictures at some point, but I'll keep an interim version updated here.

The handbook is a basic strategy guide that also introduces further terminology not found in the core rulebook.

1. Strategies
In ES, a strategy is the player's choice or allocation of pieces. There are six possible strategies, therefore, and each comes with a partner strategy, giving three subdivisions of the game as follows.

Strategy name	Opposed by	Pieces	Focus
Dragon	Labyrinth	Fire and Air	Fast Attack
Labyrinth	Dragon	Earth and Water	Counter-punching
Eagle	Fortress	Air and Water	Movement & Speed
Fortress	Eagle	Earth and Fire	Heavy Defence
Steel	Steam	Earth and Air	Board control
Steam	Steel	Fire and Water	Mobile attack

1. Labyrinth and Dragon
In the Labyrinth/Dragon game, the player who takes Labyrinth has Earth, the most defensive piece, and water, the "support" piece in the game that allows for rapid redeployments. Dragon, conversely, has no support available and lacks Earth's ability to form blocks; instead, that player has the attacking power of fire and the rapid movement of air, making Dragon the most aggressively balanced strategy.

2. Fortress and Eagle
Where labyrinth/dragon is a game of attack and counterpunch, fortress/eagle is a game of speed against power. Fortress contains both the more powerful attacking pieces, but lacks any movement or redeployment ability. Eagle, on the other hand, can generally move and redeploy at speed, but each of its pieces can only capture one of the opponent's types.

3. Steel and Steam
Steel is probably the most difficult strategy to play; air is unable to attack Fire or Water, but is nevertheless vital for victory. A steel player must expand fast and gain maximum board coverage, using air to open up more placement points to build better earth blocks. Steam is conversely probably the most powerful strategy, able to use water to move the aggressive fire pieces long distances and redeploy them where needed.

2. Starting positions

Deployment can be hugely important in determining the outcome of a game. It is usual for the first player to place their pieces in an "L" formation, though there are exceptions to this. The key reason for this is simple; it prevents an early transmutation destroying pieces that start in too spread a formation. The starting placements are considered "pure" if they contain just one piece, and "impure" if they do not.

The second player then has two options. Either they can form another pure or impure starting setup elsewhere on the board (which is the more usual way to play), or they can gamble on using a counterplacement. This is where the second player puts their pieces surrounding and adjacent to the first player's setup. Games where a counterplacement is played tend to be shorter and more aggressive, and such a strategy is usually predicated on the chance of a transmutation destroying the opponent's starting position.

Starting placements - Pure


Air - Dove
The dove placement is where air pieces are placed in the standard "L". It is relatively vulnerable to counterplacements and offers less opportunity for rapid expansion than Spear, and so is not a common placement even where starting with pure air is desirable.

Air - Spear
Whilst air can be placed in the L formation common for other pieces, its more common form as a pure placement is spear - a straight line. This opens up two placement points rather than one to begin with, each of which create a further one when filled in.

Earth - Boulder
Rarely seen, a pure earth strategy is most commonly played near a board edge, with the aim being to build up a large block over time. In general, Fortress is the most likely strategy to see this in, particularly if placed by the second player; with Steel or Labyrinth, air and water are usually used in the initial placement to allow more mobility and faster growth.

Fire - Forge
Forge has one large advantage - it is a nightmare to counterplace against, as all the pieces in it are aggressive. However, it is also a slow placement to develop as it has limited movement options.

Water - Lake
Lake's advantage is rapid redeployment and mobility; it can be opened out to create more placement points with ease

Starting placements - Impure


Labyrinth - Island
Island places an earth at the centre of the L and water at the tips. It is a poorer version of the marsh placement played by Steam players, designed to permit rapid redeployment in case a counterplacement is played.

Steam - Marsh
Marsh places a fire at the centre of the L and water at the tips. It is commonly played to discourage counterplacements, as despite having only one fire piece it provides attacking options to any square adjacent to any of the starting pieces.

Steel - Mountain
Mountain places an earth piece in the centre of a straight line between two air pieces. This is an optimal strategy if placed far from opponents, as it can be used very effectively to rapidly build up a large earth block in one area of the board. It bears similarities to Spear in this regard, but as the central square is an earth in this case it is protected from the likelihood in Spear that the middle block will be lost to transmutation as the pieces around it build up.

Counterplacements

Firestorm - Fortress or Steam, opposing Spear
This essentially involves surrounding the spear with fire pieces - usually sandwiching one end in two and putting another one along one side. An early transmutation will thus destroy two of the air pieces, leaving the remaining one to be destroyed by a fire piece.

[comrade_general]

My head hurts.

[Jubal]

I wonder if it was like this when the guy who invented chess first tried pitching the idea

In all seriousness you can ignore most of the above and focus on the main rulebook, it's partly just there to help me think about the game.