Designed by Reiner Knizia
Translation by Julian Simpson
Distributed from The Rules Bank by Mike Siggins
2 players
aged 12 and older
about 20 minutes
In the Sudanese highlands live the Nuba, one of the last primitive races on Earth. After the annual harvest all the villagers celebrate with the 'SANDAI. The highpoint of this festival is a wrestling match followed by a music competition. In this game a player wins by making the best use of the wrestling and musical talents of his team.
The aim of the game is to be the player to get the best musician possible to his opponent's base. In order to achieve this a player must move his stronger, less musical, team members so that the better musicians have a clear route to their objective.
One player is red, the other green. Each has a team of nine wrestlers of values 1 to 9, and a Champion, which is marked with an 'XI. The lower the number the better the wrestling ability; the higher the number the better the musical skill. The Champion is musically perfect and is a fearless wrestler.
In the wrestling competition a piece with a low value beats a piece with a higher value. The Champion beats each of an opponent's pieces but in turn can be beaten by any of an opponents pieces.
Starting with the green player, each player alternately places one piece at a time on the 10 squares (2 rows of 5) nearest to him. This continues until all the pieces are on the board. The placing of pieces is important since the stronger wrestlers (i.e the pieces with the lowest numbers) should be placed so that they are in the best positions to engage the opposition.
Once all the pieces are on the board they can be moved. Players take it in turns to move one of their pieces. A piece can move one square directly forwards or one square diagonally forwards. A piece cannot move backwards or sideways. A piece can move into an empty square or one occupied by an opponent's piece of the same or higher value (lower strength). In this event the higher value piece is beaten and removed from the board.
A square occupied by an opponent's piece of lower value (higher strength) cannot be entered. A player must move one of his pieces if he can. He may only pass if none of his pieces can move.
If a player gets one of his pieces to his opponent's base (the row of 5 squares nearest to his opponent) then the piece is placed in the special section to the side of the board. This piece represents a performing musician. If subsequently a piece of higher value (i.e. a better musician) reaches his opponent's base, this piece becomes the musician, replacing the one currently occupying the music square. If a piece with a lower, or the same value arrives at the base then it has no influence as a musician and is removed from the board. There can be only one musician performing at any time.
The game ends when one of the players no longer has the opportunity to become the musician. The player who owns the musician is therefore the winner. If a player gets his Champion (X) to his opponent's base then he immediately wins the game.
In this variant each player attempts to collect together a band of musicians. In this case all the pieces that reach the base are placed in the music square. The game ends once all the pieces have been removed from the board either by being eliminated or by joining the group of musicians. Each player totals up the value of all pieces that have become musicians. The player with the higher score wins. As previously if a player succeeds in getting his Champion to his opponent's base he wins immediately.