I remember playing it as a child; haven’t played it since. Was feeling a bit nostalgic this morning, so I just ordered a classic version of the game from a seller on eBay. It was manufactured in 1962.
I have two versions of the game but haven’t played since my son was a kid. Actually I might have 3 versions.
I had the classic wooden piece set but it is missing some pieces. I picked up the standard plastic one cheap at some point and it is better as the pieces don’t fall over so easily. Then one year, a friend bought be the Lord of the Rings edition.
I’m literally about to bring the bookshelf version to the Salvation Army (along with Risk and some other games). The kids played it a lot, years ago, but now it’s gathering dust.
I read the rules. I have a dumb question:
Let’s say I have a #5 (Captain), and I attack one of my opponent’s pieces. The piece I attack is a #4 (Major), which means my piece is eliminated. What does my opponent do with his #4? Does he lay it down, so both of us can see it’s a #4 for the duration of the game? (That way, I don’t have to remember it’s a #4.) Or does the piece continue to face him, which means I need to remember it is a #4 for the duration of the game?
He shows it to you and then restores it to the original hidden view. So you have to remember where it is.
Typically the came comes down to wiping out the opponents Miners (8s) as most people hide there flag behind Bombs.
Trying to find the flag before you run out of 8s is very important. The dance of the Spy and the Marshall is usually fun.
Thanks.
And the #9s (Scouts) seem kinda useless. Would it be correct to say that their only utility is to go after your opponent’s Spy?
They’re literal scouts. You use them to find pieces of note. They’re basically sacrificial pieces.
Remind me not to put you in charge of recruiting for scouts.
The 9s are the pawns basically. But have the advantage of moving as many spaces as they want in a straight line. Their job is typically to die finding bombs and 3s.
It is one of the all-time great games for teaching strategy to kids, IMO, along with Connect Four. I had it in my classroom for years, and it was so fun to watch kids develop ideas about how to use pieces.
Ah, got it. And that’s because my opponent must show me the piece that eliminated my Scout?
Correct, plus as the least valuable piece, you don’t mind if they locate the bombs.
Once the Marshall 1 is eliminated, the spy becomes a scout effectively though without the extra movement.
You may find this YT tutorial helpful:
I’d forgotten I played this game as a kid, until I watched the video. I now remember I quite liked it.
I wish my kids would play board games with me, but they’re just into video games with 1000-button joysticks that you need 8 arms and a degree in mechanical engineering to play. 
I was the Stratego equivalent of a Grand Master in 5th or 6th grade. None of my classmates could ever beat me (except one who just went Kamikaze on me and got lucky one time).
I always used pretty much the same initial setup, just fine-tuning it over time. I always went with the flag in one corner surrounded by bombs and by a couple pieces which were one rank higher than miners, so your miner would be sacrificed right after clearing the bomb. I did the same setup without the flag in the other corner for a decoy. So you had a 50/50 chance of knowing where my flag was- if you chose wrong you lost a lot of moves, pieces and effort for nothing; even if you chose the correct corner you had to work for it.
Offensively, after clearing many of my opponent’s higher ranking pieces and using scouts to determine bomb locations, I’d move in little groups a high-ranking piece, a low-ranking sacrificial piece and a miner. Sometimes two groups in a flanking formation.
When my two boys were old enough I bought a new Stratego game and introduced the game to them. But the newer games reversed the numbering, which I could never get used to. I’d like to pick up a classic version like the OP for just this reason. I cannot get used to the highest rank being 10 now, not 1. And the miners were always 8, now they’re 2s or 3s I think. I guess ‘higher number means higher rank’ makes logical sense, but I do not like it!
I used to cheat. Well, not really, I don’t think I broke any written rules, but I certainly broke the spirit of the rules.
I would take non-scout pieces, act like I was going to move them very far, then pretend I was changing my mind. Or act like I was going to move a mine then “decide not to”.
That tricked an opponent into thinking a strong piece was a weak scout, or think a mine was a soldier, and strategize incorrectly about them.
I was a real jerk. I don’t think I’ve played it since elementary school.
I learned Stratego as a tween a short time after I had learned chess from my best friend Frank. Frank and my mother were my only chess opponents ever, and both having years of experience more than I, I’ve never won a chess game in my life and became frustrated. When I learned Stratego and could win games against more experienced opponents within a few days, I declared it to be the much better and interesting strategy game than chess. Played it for a few years, but that was 40 years ago and I only dimly remembered the rules, though reading this thread brought most of it back.
I was given Stratego as a gift when I was eight or nine, and took to it like a duck to water. I got to be good enough that eventually no one in my family would play me, but there were always other kids to play against. I won far more than I lost.
My typical setup was similar to solost’s. I would also always have a Sergeant (7) behind or beside any Bomb (B) to immediately kill any Miner (8).
A typical setup for my Flag along my back row, with bombs, would be
7 B 7
B F B
or, in the corner,
B 7
F B
so that my 7s could immediately pounce on any 8 who made it that far.
I would often keep my Spy near my General (2), and liked to reveal the latter relatively early in the game, to lure the enemy Marshal (one “l,” BTW) out. More than once I would allow an overaggressive enemy to take his Marshal, on a rampage, right past my Spy and then pounce. I loved to do that.
In the endgame I would take advantage of the three access corridors or chokepoints between the opposing sides, and, if I had enough by then, put pieces that I knew outranked any of the enemy there. (My mom had the bright idea of numbering the spaces in the pieces tray, so you could always tell at a glance what pieces your foe had left). That would keep the enemy from ever getting to my Flag.
I would also sometimes place a BB roadblock across one of the chokepoints (with 7s behind each, naturally), to allow me in the opening game to focus on the other two attack routes.
I like Atamasama’s clever idea of a 9 fakeout. Never thought to do that!
I was never a fan of rules-as-written Stratego because it’s too memory-intensive for me to enjoy. If a friend was insistent on playing, I’d require open-piece playing. That is, pieces would always be icon-up, so no memory was involved. That of course completely changes how the game is played, to something more similar to chess.
Really? That would bore me. The secrecy, deception and then discovery were a big part of the fun for me.
My son is the same way. Loves playing chess, really only plays his grandfather, always loses, learned stratego, figured out he’s really good, and so this is his favorite game now.