RA
Di Marco Donadoni
International Team
1981

I like games where the setting forms an organic part of the system, and RA – at least judging from its name – promised to be about the glory of the Egyptian Empire, possibly in a historical context.
I remembered being very disappointed in discovery it was an abstract game with no connection at all with ancient Egypt; I soon put it away and forgot it.
It was very much a mistake. I only opened it again when the title tickled my fancy again, and I was fascinated by its materials. A hexagonal hard plastic board with hex squares.
The pawns for the two players were in garish, multi-hued imitation mother-of-pearl plastic. The rules were only two pages….. I read them keenly and I discovered I had a great game in my hands. After a few trial games I understood all the potential of an extremely simple system.
The base concept is elementary, at least according to today’s standards. The longer a row of pawns is, the less movement it can attain on the board, but at the same time it will be more resistant to enemy attacks and more efficient when attacking. The aim of the game is to invade the board in the middle of the enemy’s area. This spot is called RA.
The game starts with three piles of three pawns each. Players can split or form new piles as long as the maximum number of pawns in each is three. As we said, ease of movement diminishes when the pile is higher: one pawn can move up to three hexes in all the six directions, a pile of two pieces will move up to two hexes and a three-piece pile can only move one hex.
When a pile enters in a spot occupied by an enemy pawn, it can eat it, and the enemy pawn is eliminated from the game. Of course, it is only possible to eat a quantity of pawns that it less or the same as the pawns in your own pile. The winner is the player who enters the RA hex first or the player who destroys all the enemy’s army.

	This picture from jeuxsoc.free.fr shows the board and the pawns but does not do justice to the excellent material.

The score of the player in the RA square depends on how many pawns he managed to occupy RA with: one pawn equals one point, two pawns mean three points and three pawns are six points.
In case of “military” victory the score is three points. Many sessions are played.
I noticed with a slight disappointment that it is terribly easy to spend an awful lot of time with this game: the games are extremely quick and follow each other frantically. Each game gives something more than the last, and players are involved in a series of increasingly complex considerations. The scores can add an unexpected twist to this game. New strategies may be cruel or reckless but they won’t necessarily increase your score. The winner is not the player who scored more points, but the player who can also lose with less points. Losing all one’s pawn but leaving the adversary with only one-pawn piles only means losing one point, and you can score up to six points in a game.
The final winner is the player who can outscore the adversary by two points (with a minimum base of six points).
The great value of the game is in its tactical complexity and in its strategic finesse, that make it a real abstract masterpiece.
Unsurprisingly, the game reaped awards and recognitions, like the special mention of German critics in the Spiel des Jahres award in 1981.
It’s a pity it went under the radar for years, buried under a heap of useless games, evidently not adequate to modern entertainment (and I was one of the culprits, as I confessed at the beginning of this review)
Thanks to Marco Donadoni (the author of so many undiscussable long-lasting masterpieces), who receives my compliments and my apologies: I had judged the book by the cover, indeed…