Book 2 is for players who like long games. Everything in the core rules still holds; the long war adds bases with shapes, a page that fights back a little, and longer roads.
Read book 1, the core rules, first. To play it, pick long war on the cover. Anything marked to test is a lab guess nobody has felt at a real table yet.
Long war
Six bases a side, each drawn in one of five shapes, any mix you like (see 4 and 5).
Each shape does one thing to a line: a camp bends it, a prism splits it, a cushion banks it, a square rules it straight, a pentagon aims it.
The page fights back a little: old ink jolts and grooves a line (see 3).
Longer roads: sends walk for several turns (see 2).
Bigger armies than a Classic battle: about 57 men a side, depending on the shapes you pick. to test
While you aim, the pencil guide follows the line the page will draw: round a camp, off a cushion, through your prism. Your hand still misses by its own error.
Sends
In a quick battle a convoy is on the road for one enemy turn. In the long war it walks while you aim: each turn it walks a stretch of its road in real time, then waits, and goes in when it reaches the far wall. Where it stands when you let go is where it is, so lead it, and know that taking your time moves it on. It's exposed the whole way, and always for at least one enemy turn; its road is pencilled ahead of it, with the turns it has left. to testlab: 150 units in 6 seconds a turn, so a road takes two or three turns Still up to 5 at a time, and still once a turn.
fig. 1 · three turns on the road, walking each one
Ink on the page
A page that's been fought over isn't blank any more, and the pen feels it, a little.
Cross an old line steeply and your hand jolts, slightly, once a line.
Meet one at a shallow angle and the pen drops into its groove and is drawn along it, like gravity. Your own grooves carry you a little further; theirs cut you a little short. to test
That's all the ink does: it never stops a line. The page is a texture, not a wall.
fig. 2 · a groove pull and a jolt
Drawing the bases
Players take turns drawing their six bases, as in book 1, but each is drawn from a shape card: press one and drag a copy of it onto the page. Each shape is jotted with its own garrison, and that's what "full" means for its wall. camp 12, cushion 8, pentagon 8, prism 8, square 8to test
Every wall still costs a line by its garrison, as in book 1, whatever its shape.
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Shaped bases
Each shape does one thing to lines. The camp and the cushion act on everyone's; the prism, the square and the pentagon act on your own lines as they pass out through them, from any base, so you set them in front of the rest.
Circle, the camp
A gravity well. Lines passing near it, anyone's, yours too, bend round it, so you can curve a shot round a camp or through a gap. It holds the most soldiers.
Its pull is its garrison. The more soldiers inside, the harder it bends: a full camp bends lines hard, and as it's shot down the well weakens. Even an empty ring keeps a faint pull, the dent of the pen in the paper, and a send arriving strengthens it again. to test
fig. 3 · a full camp and a thinned one
Triangle, the prism
Your snipes passing out through it split in two, so place it in front of your other bases. A lunger doesn't split: he's one body. Your own prism's walls don't slow your lines at all; theirs cost what any wall costs.
fig. 4 · a prism in front of its camp
Hexagon, the cushion
Billiards. Its walls bank everyone's lines, yours too, by angle. Only a glancing line bounces lab: more than 34° off square, three banks a line at most; a straight one goes in and pays the wall. A bank costs the line nothing.
fig. 5 · a glance banks; a straight line goes in
Square, the ruler
Your lines passing out through it are ruled: dead straight from its wall on, and nothing on the page touches them, no well, no groove, no jolt. Only walls and men do. A man standing in it flicks ruled from the start.
fig. 6 · out through the square, the well can't touch it
Pentagon, the star
Your lines passing out through it turn on the nearest enemy man aheadlab: within 30°, and run at him. Snipes and lunges alike; your hand's own curve still carries on after, so it can still miss.
fig. 7 · the star finds the nearest man
Shaped soldiers
Soldiers are drawn in their base's shape: dots in a camp, little triangles in a prism, hexagons in a cushion, squares in a square, pentagons in a pentagon. Each keeps his shape for the whole war: two triangles in a camp say a prism sent them. It's only a look.
fig. 8 · every base's men in its shape
Their shape's power might wake up only in a last stand. idea
Tactics
The long war's page is a table to play off. What the shapes and the ink make possible:
Curve it round a camp. A full camp bends every line near it, so a shot can swing round it into a base you can't see straight. Your own camps bend your lines too.
Shoot the well down. A camp's pull is its garrison. Thin it and it stops bending, and your straight shots come back.
Bank off a cushion. A glancing line bounces off a hexagon, so you can reach behind a wall; come in square and you go through instead.
Put the prism in front. Your snipes passing out through a triangle split in two. One flick through it covers two targets.
Rule a lane. A square in front of your camp straightens every shot fired through it, so a lane past their well stays true.
Let the star aim. Fire through your pentagon roughly at a crowd and it turns on the nearest man. Keep your own men out of their pentagon's lanes.
Ride your own grooves. Meet your old line shallow and it carries you on; meet theirs steep and take the jolt rather than be cut short.
Walk the long road behind something. A convoy is out for several turns. Route it behind a cushion or a full camp.
Still to test
The camp's well: how hard a full camp bends a line, and how far out. round 5: it bends a third of all flicks, and moves who wins very little
The square and the pentagon: new; how often they're worth drawing, and whether one is the shape every army takes.
The square: still the weakest shape in the lab at 8 men; it may want 10.
The cushion: the strongest in the lab, with the longest wars; watch it at a real table.
Garrisons (12, 8, 8, 8, 8) and the cushion's glance angle.
Long-war sends: the pace, and how long a road should be.
Length: six bases a side runs about 48 turns in the lab. For people who like long games, is that long enough, or too long?