Twelve Man Combat

Contributed by Jeffrey Cannon (jacannon2@hotmail.com)

Players:

2

Cards:

2 standard 52-card decks; one for each player

Object of the game:

To kill your opponent's 12 men before he kills yours.

Setup:

Take out all the Jacks, Queens and Kings and place them in a pile face up on the table. Have your opponent do the same. Place these piles to the side (make sure they are on the same side and across from each other). This pile represents all your 12 men that will be in combat. So we'll call it the 12-man pile.

Take the remaining 40 cards and shuffle them. Place them in front of you. This is called your "Attack" pile. Each player takes the first 5 cards off his 40-card pile and places them in his hand.

Play:

The first player (whoever you want it to be), starts off by taking a sixth card off his attack pile and placing it in his hand. After choosing whichever card he wants to play first, he then takes it and places it face up on the table in front of him. This starts the player's combat pile.

Depending on what card he played, his opponent picks a card from his attack pile and then chooses a card from his hand that is either the same number, or same suit as the card his opponent played. When he has it, he then places it face up on the table "ACROSS" from the card his opponent played. (Example: Player 1 plays a 7 of hearts, player 2 takes a sixth card off his attack pile and then decides to play a 7 of diamonds. Player 1 takes a sixth card off his attack pile and plays a 3 of diamonds. Player 2 takes a sixth card off his attack pile and plays a 3 of clubs. Etc...)

Aces are wild cards and give the player an extra turn. When played, the player can then have another turn and choose whichever card he wants to play instead of playing off his opponent's card. This card is best used when you have no other card to play. (Example: Player 1 just played a 5 of hearts, but player 2 only has spades and clubs. He chooses a card from his attack pile and it's an Ace of clubs. He plays the Ace and then chooses another card from his attack pile. This one is a 10 of spades and he decides to play this one. Player 1 now has to play off of the 10 of spades.)

When one player plays a card that is exactly the same as the one his opponent played, he kills off one of his opponent's men.

When a player has no card that he can play, or his opponent played the same card that he did, he has to kill one of his 12 men. Do this by taking the top card and placing it face down next to your 12-man pile.

After flipping the card face down, you take the cards in your hand and the ones in your combat pile and you put these facedown under your attack pile. Choose 5 more cards, plus 1, and then begin play again. If you have no card that you can play when you choose 6 more from your attack pile, then put these facedown under your attack pile and kill off another one of your men.

This goes on until one player has no more men alive in his 12-man pile. When all your men are dead, you lose. The other player wins.