Nine Man Morris

Nine Man Morris is a game that was designed in Colonial America. 5-4 made Nine Man Morris game boards and learned how to play the game. It is like a combination of checkers and Tic-Tac Toe. This is how you play:

[edit] Rules of play
Each player has nine pieces, or "men", which move among the board's twenty-four intersections. The object of the game is to leave the opposing player with fewer than three pieces or, as in checkers, no legal moves.

[edit] Placing the pieces

The board at the beginning of the game, before any pieces have been placed.The game begins with an empty board. Players take turns placing their pieces on empty intersections. If a player is able to form a row of three pieces along one of the board's lines, he has a "mill" and may remove one of his opponent's pieces from the board; removed pieces may not be placed again. Players must remove any other pieces first before removing a piece from a formed mill. Once all eighteen pieces have been placed, players take turns moving.

[edit] Moving the pieces
To move, a player slides one of his pieces along a board line to an empty adjacent intersection. If he cannot do so, he has lost the game.

As in the placement stage, a player who aligns three of his pieces on a board line has a mill and may remove one of his opponent's pieces, avoiding the removal of pieces in mills if at all possible.

Any player reduced to two pieces is unable to remove any more opposing pieces and thus loses the game.