How to Play Maths Warriors

Maths Warriors is a two-player dice battle game where mental arithmetic wins fights. Each player commands six polyhedral dice and must capture all of the opponent's dice to win — using raw strength or clever arithmetic expressions.

The Dice

Each player starts with one complete set of six dice:

Each die shows a random value within its range. Values re-roll after attacks, so the board state changes every turn.

Objective

Capture all 6 of your opponent's dice to win. When you capture a die it leaves their side of the board permanently. Whoever loses all 6 dice first loses the match.

Who Goes First?

At the start of each game, both players' dice are sorted smallest to largest and compared index-by-index. The first player whose corresponding die is smaller goes first. If all six pairs are equal, a tiebreaker roll decides.

Going first comes with the First Player Penalty on the final move — see below.

Attack Types

Strength Attack

Select one of your dice and target one of your opponent's dice. Your die's current value must be greater than or equal to (≥) the target's value. If successful, you capture their die and your attacking die re-rolls.

Mind Attack

Select two or more of your own dice and combine them using arithmetic operators (+, −, ×, ÷ and parentheses) to form an expression that exactly equals the value of the target opponent die. All dice used in the expression re-roll on success.

First Player Penalty

The player who goes first has one handicap: their final capture (the move that would win the game) must use a value strictly greater than (>) the target, not just ≥. This applies to both Strength and Mind Attacks on the last remaining opponent die.

This rule prevents the first player from having too large a structural advantage.

Winning

The first player to capture all 6 opponent dice wins. If the game timer expires first, the player with fewer remaining opponent dice wins. A tie in dice count goes to the non-starting player.

Strategy Tips

• Protect your D20. It's the hardest die for your opponent to capture. They need an equally high Strength die or a precise arithmetic expression to take it.
• Use Mind Attacks to reach high targets. A D20 showing 17 might be impossible to Strength-capture, but D8 × D6 / D4 could reach it exactly.
• Think ahead after Strength Attacks. Your attacking die re-rolls randomly — consider how a low or high re-roll affects your next turn before committing.
• Use more dice for flexibility. Three or more dice in a Mind Attack exponentially multiply the possible expressions you can form, making tricky targets reachable.
• Order of operations matters. The expression evaluator uses standard PEMDAS/BODMAS. Use parentheses to control calculation order.
• Watch the first-player penalty. If you went first and are about to capture the last die, your expression must exceed the target — plan one turn ahead.

Timer

Games have a configurable overall timer (default: 12 minutes). When it runs out, the player with fewer opponent dice remaining wins. You can also set an optional per-move timer to keep turns snappy in competitive play (default: off).

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