Sword & Sail by Andrew Jaster of BigLittleGames.

com

Setup
Each player gets all units of a single color.
Shuffle the cards. Choose a starting player.
Object
Be 1st player to occupy every region of any of the
following 7 empires: Africa, Britannia, Gallia,
Hellas, Iberia, Italia, and Scandia. Germania is a
barbarian land, not an empire; a player who
controls all 4 regions of Germania does not win.
Regions
Each region contains a circle, whether on land or
sea, and may be
occupied by at most
a single unit.
Example: Iberia
contains 4 regions.
The 3 islands to
Iberias right are not
regions, and may
not contain units.
Turn Sequence
Each player gets 3 actions on each of their turns.
Actions may be performed in any order, and may
be repeated. Possible actions are:
Draw a card
Play a card
Discard a card
Move a unit
Attack a region
Draw A New Card
A player with less than 3 cards in hand may draw
a new card from the deck. Reshuffle the discards
as needed to form a new deck.
Play A Card
There are 2 types of cards.
Army: Place a new unit
onto an empty region in the
empire named on the card.

Alternate Rules by Chris Conboy, 2005

Voyage: Exchange 1 of your

existing army units on the
board with an amphibious
ship unit. A ship unit may
move over land and sea.
Discard A Card
Place any unwanted card from your hand on the
discard pile.
Move A Unit
Move any 1 of your armies on the board to an
empty adjacent land region, or move any 1 of
your navies on the board to an empty adjacent
land or sea region. To move 1 unit 3 regions
costs 3 actions. Each region may contain only a
single unit at the end of each action.
Attack A Region
As one action, move 2 adjacent units onto a
region occupied by an enemy unit. Each side
loses 1 unit. The attacker chooses which unit is
lost. The attacker now controls the region. A sea
region may only be attacked by navy units.
Changes and Notes
We made some mistakes and read the rules to
this game as written, instead of as intended. The
game as intended is fine. Turns out we like our
version better gone is the special Tuesday rule
allowing 2 units to occupy a single region as
prelude to attack. Other tweaks have worked for
us, the result of way too many plays.
I printed the game on B/Super A paper (13 x
19) the larger size is Great! I glued the units
together to make them double sided, for a final
unit count of 17 armies and 7 navies (2 armies of
each are Special, as well as 1 navy). The unit
count doesnt seem to matter much weve
never seen anyone use all their own units.
Finally, I had a printer error, and wound up
printing 2 copies of the cards; this allowed us to
experiment with the card mix. We find the new
mix works well for any number of players.

Change: Attack
As one action, move 2 adjacent units onto a
space occupied by a different color. We find our
version is more streamlined gone is the special
exception which allows 2 units to occupy a space
over several actions in order to attack.
Change: Germania
Occupying this barbarian land can never win the
game. The game no longer so often revolves
around who controls Germania, but instead
focuses on the central civilized empires.
Addition: Action Markers
We borrowed this idea from Jambo: use 3 glass
stones for actions. Each player gets 3 actions
each turn slide a stone over to the next player
each time you take an action. Not always
necessary, but the game moves so quickly that
any interruption can leave players wondering how
many actions they have used.
Revised Card List (21 Cards)
Card
Count
Africa
2
Britannia 2
Gallia
2

Card
Count
Germania 1
Hellas
2
Iberia
2

Card
Count
Italia
4
Scandia 3
Voyage
3

Variants
Just for fun, I redid the counters and included 3
special units for each color: 2 armies and 1 navy.
Each of these contain circular haloes behind the
illustrated figure. Normally these units have no
extra abilities. Weve not refined our rules for
these but sometimes experiment with them. One
variant that works for these is below.
Variant: Special Forces
Each of the 3 special units may be introduced
into the game at any time when a standard unit of
that type may be introduced. Each of these move
2 regions per Move action, instead of 1. When a
special unit dies it is out of the game.