How to play
Twelve Men's Morris
Also known as Twelve Man Morris, 12 Men's Morris, Twelve Men's Merels, Morabaraba (closely related), Nerenchi
- 100K+ downloads
- On Google Play since 2015
- Free to play
What is Twelve Men's Morris?
Twelve Men's Morris is a two-player abstract strategy game played on the 24-point Morris board with four diagonal lines added. Each side has twelve pieces, placed one at a time and then slid along the lines from point to point. Getting three of your pieces onto all three points of a marked line makes a mill, which lets you remove one of your opponent's pieces.
How to play Twelve Men's Morris
Setting up the board
The board is three concentric squares with the midpoints of their sides joined by four cross-lines, plus four diagonals running from each corner of the outer square through the corner of the middle square to the corner of the inner square. That gives 24 points where pieces can sit. Each player takes twelve pieces of one colour, all held off the board at the start.
The rules, step by step
- Placing: starting from an empty board, players take turns putting one piece on any vacant point, until all twenty-four pieces are on the board.
- Mills: three of your pieces filling all three points of one marked line form a mill. Lines include the sides of each square, each arm of the four cross-lines, and each of the four diagonals.
- Capturing: every time you complete a mill, in either phase, remove one enemy piece. A piece inside an enemy mill cannot be taken unless every enemy piece is in a mill.
- Moving: once all pieces are placed, a turn means sliding one of your pieces along a line to an adjacent empty point. Because 24 pieces exactly fill 24 points, this phase only exists if at least one piece was captured during placing.
- Reopening mills: you may move a piece out of a mill and back in later to close it again and capture again. Some rule sets, including the Morabaraba tournament rules, forbid remaking the same mill on the very next move.
- Flying: a player reduced to three pieces may move to any vacant point instead of only adjacent ones. This is the most common rule, but some rule sets start flying at four pieces and some omit it entirely.
How to win
You win by reducing your opponent to two pieces, or by blocking their position so that they have no legal move on their turn. If no mill is ever formed during placing, all 24 points end up occupied and the game is a draw; draws by repetition or by agreement are also possible.
Strategy tips
- Fight for corners. Each corner point lies on three mill lines while the side midpoints lie on only two, and the four corners of the middle square are the strongest points on the board.
- Treat placement as the entire opening. Twelve pieces a side fill all 24 points exactly, so if nobody captures anything there is no movement phase at all - one capture during placing is what creates the empty space the rest of the game needs.
- Block at least as readily as you build. The diagonals add four extra mill lines (20 in total, against 16 on the nine men's morris board), so threats appear faster.
- Play for double threats. A placement or move that opens two mills at once cannot be answered by a single block, and a running mill captures a piece every turn.
- Watch your own mobility. The board is far more congested than in Nine Men's Morris, blocked and drawn positions are common, and a player with no legal move loses.
Origin and history
Morris games are ancient: boards and references go back at least to the Roman Empire, and diagrams have been found across the Old World, although many of the oldest examples cannot be securely dated.
The often-repeated claim that boards cut into the temple at Kurna in Egypt date to around 1400 BCE comes from R.
C.
Bell and is disputed by Friedrich Berger, who argues such carvings cannot be dated at all.
Twelve Men's Morris is the enlarged member of the family: the nine men's morris board with four diagonals joining the concentric squares at their corners, and twelve pieces per player instead of nine.
The same diagonal board and twelve pieces are used in Morabaraba, played in South Africa, Botswana and Lesotho, where it is run as a competitive mind sport with world championships held since 1997.
Frequently asked questions
The board and the piece count. Twelve Men's Morris adds four diagonal lines joining the corners of the three squares, and each player has twelve pieces instead of nine. Both games use the same 24 points, so the twelve-piece version fills the board completely during placement, offers four extra mill lines, and makes the corner points far more valuable. Nine Men's Morris leaves six points empty after placement, which gives it a much more open movement phase.
They are very close, but not usually treated as identical. Morabaraba, played in South Africa, Botswana and Lesotho, uses the same diagonal 24-point board and twelve pieces a side, which are called cows. Reference sources describe it as Twelve Men's Morris with minor differences - for example a mill broken in order to form another may not be remade on the next move.
In modern rules, yes: each diagonal is a line like any other and carries one mill, made up of the outer, middle and inner square corners. Some older descriptions and house rules treat the diagonals as movement lines only, so they connect points for sliding but do not count as mills. Agree which version you are playing before the first move.
The most common rule is that a player reduced to exactly three pieces may move to any vacant point instead of only adjacent ones, which gives the losing side a chance to fight back. Rule sets vary more than most people expect: some sources trigger flying at four pieces, and some leave it out completely.
Yes, and draws are more common than in Nine Men's Morris. If neither player forms a mill while placing, the twenty-four pieces occupy all twenty-four points, nobody has a move, and the game is drawn. Positions can also be drawn by repetition or by agreement, which is why creating a capture during the placing phase matters so much.
