Latest Developments

After some brief playtesting and experimentation with "Rules v1.2", and taking into account the already obvious problems with the mechanics I decided to make a few notations to suggest changes to be made in "Rules v1.3". They are as follows:
Rules v1.3 Notations

• Must move the number of spaces assigned to each class with two exception; when a unit can take a unit within it's speed range, in which case it must stop on the square that the defeated unit occupied and when a unit reaches to edge of the board, where it must stop at the square closest to the edge within it's speed range.
• The units can move in any direction. Both diagonally and adjacently. The unit must, however move only in one direction on it's turn. 
• The unit's cannot move over or land on enemy units units they cannot take. If the unit can take an enemy unit and the player chooses to do so, the unit must stop on the tile the taken enemy unit once occupied. The unit can, however, move over units own by the same player. Although the unit cannot occupy the same square as the allied unit, only move over it.

I found these rules to be fluid when playtesting by myself with 4 units vs 4 units on an 8x8 board. They allow for much less frustrating gameplay. The frustration in the last ruleset came from trying to manuveur the units to a space where it was exactly the right number of spaces away from an enemy unit that can by taken. It also lacked the strategy of being able to block and trap enemies. Thus thus the addition of the third rule.

I decided not to write these rules out officially onto the blog until further consultation and playtesting with the group (thus the title "Rules v1.3 Notations"), which was done yesterday.
When playtesting the above ruleset with our board designer, Liam, he described the experience as being "...just like playing chess". Needless to say, I was happy with this response. It showed that the gameplay allowed for a similar amount of forethought and strategy as a very old and popular game.
However, a suggestion was put forward by one of our two team leaders, and creator of "Rules v1.1" (see http://juliettesgad.blogspot.com/), that we should go back to the original rules and play through them and continue playing, adding on rules from the newer rulesets each time. This way we could figure out which rules work, and which rules don't.

Although the "Rules v1.3 indev" seemed to work OK, the scenarios it allowed for, were not. Such as the ability to simply stay in the setup position and defend whilst occasionally picking off enemy units. The consensus that was eventually reached was that the original "v1.1" rules were the most stable and allowed for less strategies that gives one player an unfair advantage to the point were the other player(s) get frustrated, or causing long stalemate-esque situations that can potentially last hours.
Some more changes have been recently suggested by the group to the "v1.1" rules we are now taking up. I shall use these to playtest and create "Rules v1.1.2".
Other members of the team are also looking at both "Domination" and "Tower Siege" based modes of play to make the game more varied and interesting.
Although I am currently using military based names for the board mechanics, these are likely to change due to the, as yet, undetermined theme of the game.