Nine Men’s Morris

To Win:
To get your opponent down to only 2 remaining pieces on the board.

Setup and Objective:
Start with an empty board. Each player chooses a color and decides who goes first. The objective of the game is to create ‘mills’. A mill is any 3 in a row of your own color along the straight lines on the board. A group of 3 around a corner does not count as a mill. Every time a mill is created, you remove an opponent’s piece from the board.

To Play:
Phase 1:Players alternate turns placing their pieces in any open spot. If at any point a mill is created, immediately remove an opponent’s piece that is not currently part of a mill. That piece is now out of play for the rest of the game. Continue alternating turns until all pieces have been played on the board.

Phase 2: Once all pieces have been played, turns continue to alternate, but now instead of placing a piece, the player must move one of their pieces to an adjacent spot along the lines on the board. At any point, if a mill is created, immediately remove an opponent’s piece from the board that isn’t part of a mill.

Phase 3: When one player is down to their last 3 pieces, they now have the ability to ‘fly’. On their turn they can move any of their pieces to any other spot on the board. It does not need to be an adjacent spot. At this point, the player with only 3 pieces, is not protected by having their pieces in a mill. If their opponent creates a mill, they are allowed to remove a piece from a mill since there are no other options and thus winning the game.

Click here for a video on the rules.