Stronghold

Stronghold is played on a board showing a network of 25 spaces. Each player has 8, 10, or 14 playing pieces, depending on if 2, 3, or 4 people are playing. Object of the game is to be the first player to have all their playing pieces on the board. When a playing piece is placed on the board, its strength is determined by the throw of a die, but the initial strength can well be increased during the game. Attacks are quite normal in this game and the chances for success depend on the strength of the 2 opponents as well as on the distance between the 2. The playing pieces that loose a fight are returned to its owner, who must enter them on the board again to win the game. Color Guard, Stronghold, Tower 6, and Where To? are 4 games designed by Ronald Corn in the 1980s that never found a publisher. They all had interesting mechanics and/or inventive victory conditions - but they had no theme! Since they were not pure abstract games (they used dice, cards, or tiles as random elements), this lack of a good theme could have been the main reason why they were never published.