Touché

Full rules

1. Overview
2. The cards
3. Setup of a round
4. Playing a turn
5. End of a round
6. Winning the game
7. Advanced game: the lunge
8. Tips for beginners
9. Variants

Overview

Touché is a fencing duel for two. Your fencer and your opponent's stand at the two ends of a piste – a row of 23 face-down cards. With cards from 1 to 5 you step forwards and backwards. When you hold a card that exactly matches the distance to your opponent, you can attack – and your opponent must parry with exactly the same cards or take a hit. Each hit wins a round; the first to win five rounds wins the game.

• Players: exactly 2.
• You need: one standard 52-card deck, two coins (or other small tokens) as the fencers, and paper and pencil or a few more coins for the score.

Touché is our own adaptation for an ordinary deck, inspired by En Garde (Reiner Knizia, Abacusspiele, 1993). It has not been playtested yet.

The cards

You play with 25 fencing cards, five of each value from 1 to 5:

So the Aces and 2 to 5 count their value, and the hearts 6 to 10 count 5 less (6♥ = 1 … 10♥ = 5). Suits don't matter otherwise.

The piste: take 23 of the other 27 cards and lay them face down in a straight line between the players. Let them overlap a little, so the line doesn't get too long, but make sure each card can be seen. Each card is one space. The jokers and the last 4 cards are not needed.

Setup of a round

1. Put your coin – your fencer – on the end space of the piste nearest to you; your opponent does the same at the other end. There are 21 empty spaces between you.
2. Shuffle the 25 fencing cards and deal 5 to each player. The rest go face down as the draw pile (15 cards).
3. Decide who starts the first round. In later rounds the start player alternates.

Distance means how many spaces your fencer would have to move to land on your opponent's space. At the start it is 22. If your fencer is on the 6th space and your opponent's is on the 10th, the distance is 4.

Playing a turn

On your turn you do one of these:

Move. Play one card and move your fencer exactly that many spaces forwards or backwards. You may not leave the piste, and you may not move onto or past your opponent's space.

Attack. If you have a card whose value equals the distance, you may play it as an attack instead of moving – your fencer lunges onto your opponent's space. You may add more cards of the same value to make the attack stronger. Fencers don't move in an attack.

After your turn, draw from the draw pile until you have 5 cards again. Played cards go face up on a discard pile; it is never used again during the round.

Parry. When you are attacked, you must parry: play the same number of cards of the same value. An attack with two 4s needs two 4s to parry – a 3 and a 5 won't do. If you can't parry, you are hit and lose the round.

After a successful parry you immediately take your own turn – move, or attack at once if you have another card of the right value (a riposte) – and only then draw back up to 5 cards.

No legal move: if on your turn you can neither move nor attack (for example, because you are at your end of the piste and every card is too big to move forwards), you lose the round.

Example: Anna stands on the 9th space, Ben on the 12th – distance 3. Anna attacks with a 3 and draws a card. Ben parries with a 3 and immediately ripostes with another 3. Anna has no 3 left and can't parry: Ben scores the hit and wins the round.

End of a round

A round ends at once when a fencer is hit or can't make a legal move. The other player wins the round.

The last card: when a player draws the last card of the draw pile, nobody may move any more:

1. If that player's turn was an attack, the opponent must parry it as usual, or is hit.
2. Then the opponent has one last chance to attack from where they stand. It must be parried as usual.
3. If nobody is hit, both players show their hands. Whoever holds more cards of the value of the current distance wins the round. If that's a tie, the player whose fencer has moved further forwards from their own end wins. If that's equal too, nobody wins the round.

Winning the game

The winner of each round scores 1 point. The first player to win 5 rounds wins the game.

Advanced game: the lunge

Once you know the game, add a fourth possibility on your turn:

Advance and attack. Play one card to move forwards, then attack from the new position with one or more cards of the new distance. The defender now has a choice:

• parry the attack as usual (matching only the attack cards, not the movement card) and then take their own turn, or
• retreat: play one card and move backwards that far. This is the defender's whole turn; they draw up to 5 and the attacker plays next.

A normal attack from where you stand can still only be parried, never escaped by retreating.

The last card in the advanced game: if the last card was drawn in a turn with an advance and attack, the defender may parry or retreat as usual, and then the round is decided at once by the cards in hand – there is no last attack.

Example: The distance is 8. Ben plays a 5 to advance (distance now 3) and attacks with a 3. Anna has no 3, so she retreats with a 2: the distance grows to 5, and it's Ben's turn again.

Tips for beginners

• Count the cards. There are only five of each value. An attack with three cards of one value can never be parried; neither can one with two cards if you know that two of that value are already gone.
• Mind the distance you leave. After your move, your opponent may attack at the new distance. Stop where you hold the matching cards yourself – you can then parry and riposte.
• Distance 6 is safe: no single card can attack from there (unless you play with the lunge).
• Ground counts. If the draw pile runs out, holding more cards of the distance or having moved further forwards wins the round.

Variants

All optional – agree before you start.

• Basic game for children: every attack is a hit – there is no parrying.
• Short game: play to 3 points.

Deviations from En Garde: the original has 25 cards numbered 1 to 5, a board with 23 spaces and two fencer figures; here the cards come from a standard deck, the board is a row of face-down cards and the fencers are coins. The rules are those of the original's basic, standard and advanced game.