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What is Gungi?

Gungi is a two-player strategy board game created by Yoshihiro Togashi and is featured in the in the popular manga Hunter x Hunter.

It is played on a non-checkered gameboard with 81 squares arranged in a 9x9 grid. At the beginning of the game, players can choose how their pieces will be arranged on their side of the board.

Additionally, unlike its spiritual brethren, chess, shogi, and go, in Gungi pieces can be stacked on top of each other, adding a third dimension to the game leading to billions and billions of possibilities. As in chess and shogi, the goal is to trap the king.

Pieces and Mobility

There are 13 unique pieces with different ranges of mobility at different tiers.
Note: Blue means the piece can move into that square. Green symbolizes the ability of that piece to move in a continuous line along the path of that square.

Marshal (King) x1

Note: The Marshal moves the same for all tiers. Pieces cannot be stacked on the Marshal.
marshal(king)1

Major General x4

majorgeneral1majorgeneral2majorgeneral3

Lieutenant General x4

lieutenantgeneral1lieutenantgeneral2lieutenantgeneral3

General x6

general1general2general3

Archer x2

archer1archer2archer3

Knight x2

knight1knight2knight3

Musketeer x1

musketeer1musketeer2musketeer3

Captain x1

Note: The captain takes on the movement ability of the piece (friendly or opponent) that is directly below it.
captain1

Samurai x2

samurai1samurai2samurai3

Fortress x2

Note: Fortresses can't stack on other pieces; they can only be stacked upon.
fortress1

Cannon x2

cannon1cannon2cannon3

Spy x2

spy1spy2spy3

Pawn x9

pawn1pawn2pawn3

Rules of Gameplay

Visit the link to the original reddit post which details the ruleset for Gungi and was the main inspiration for this website.
  1. Each player is provided a total of 38 pieces as enumerated above.
  2. In the draft phase, pieces are put on the board in the first three rows, trading off one-by-one. Black places first. The Marshal must always be put first.
  3. The minimum pieces that must be placed in the beginning is one. This piece must be the Marshal. The maximum number of pieces you can have on the board at any time is 26.
  4. White takes the first turn after all pieces have been set up and the game phase begins.
  5. A turn can be used for one of four things:
    a. Move - choose one piece to move (see section above on how pieces move); remember that towers themselves do not move, they only increase range of mobility of the top piece

    b. Attack - if an enemy piece occupies a square within your range of movement, you can attack; if there is only one piece, your piece must then move into and occupy that square but if you’re attacking a tower, the result is that the tower loses the top and your piece now controls it

    c. Stack - if either a friendly piece or an enemy piece is within your range of movement, you can stack on top of that piece to form a tower (the top piece of the tower controls the tower regardless of pieces of a different team below it)

    d. Place - if you have less than the maximum pieces on the board, you may take a piece from your remaining pieces (captured pieces cannot be used) and place it anywhere on the board with following exceptions:
    1. Multiple pawns cannot be placed in the same file
    2. Pawns cannot place the opposing Marshal into check mate (although check is allowed)
    3. Pieces cannot be placed within the first three ranks of the opposing team's side of the board
  6. The game concludes when the Marshal is mated. The player who checkmates their opponent wins. If a player at any given point has no legal moves to make and is not currently in check then a stalemate occurs and the game is a tie. Alternatively, the game may end if one side forfeits during the game.