In other editions, there are 3 river obstacles in the centre rows. This is a rarer version where these are replaced by 5 bridge sections crossing a river flowing right across the board. Game play is more interesting as progress depends on commanding these bridges.

Each player has an army of 36 pieces. These pieces have to be placed in strategic formations to give the best possible chances of attack and defence. This game has strategic elements like chess but also a larger number and range of playing pieces.  The combinations of game play from the start are endless as players decide the starting formation of their own armies in readiness to defend their own flag and attack the opponent. The opponent is unaware of the starting formation of the other player, the soldiers and their ranks are only revealed when in 1 to 1 combat.

A war game of Army tactics which is one of a series of four representing the Services; Dover Patrol for the Navy, Aviation (Battle of Britain) for the Air Force and Tri-Tactics for all three Services combined. View a list of Armed Forces strategy games by HP Gibson.

In the 1970s, all four games in the series were repackaged and modernised with vibrant colour illustrations of battle scenes on the box lids. Tri-Tactics showed a montage of colour photographs. In later years the game was also known as Stratego.