fighting

Stratego

From the box:

The gameboard is your battlefield. You have an army of men at your disposal and six bombs. Your mission--protect your flag and capture your opponent's flag.

Secretly place your men, bombs, and flag on the gameboard with these objectives in mind. But remember your opponent is doing the same thing, so you must plan a defense as well as an offense.

Once the armies are in place, advance your men. When you're one space away from an enemy, attack. You and your opponent declare ranks. The lower-ranking man is captured and out of play.

You control your pieces and risk your men in battles where the strength of your enemy is unknown. The suspense builds as your men move deeper into enemy territory. Move with caution and courage. The next piece you attack could be a bomb. And when attacked, it could "blast" your man off the board and out of play.

The first to capture an enemy flag is the winner!

This game is similar to, and almost certainly derived directly from, the H.P. Gibsons (UK) game L'Attaque (1909). It is not exactly the same, but not far from it (numbered pieces, spy (same name) can kill the strongest piece but only when attacking, flag, bombs, etc.) These game in turn almost certainly draw on the classic Chinese children's game Dou Shou Qi.

Re-implemented by:

Stratego (Revised Edition) (aka Stratego Fire & Ice)
The Generals
Stratego: Legends
Stratego: Star Wars
Stratego: The Lord of the Rings
Ultimate Stratego
Electronic Stratego
Stratego: Marvel Heroes
Stratego: Star Wars Saga Edition
Stratego: The Chronicles of Narnia

and numerous others.

Similar to:

Admirals
Lu Zhan Jun Qi
L'Attaque
Batalj
Sharpe's Attack

Different Edition Complications
When first produced in Europe, the most powerful pieces had higher numbers. I.e. the Marshall (most powerful piece) was a 10, the General was a 9, and so on. The higher the rank, the higher the number.
When they introduced Stratego in the USA, the numbering was reversed, so the Marshall was a 1, the General 2, and so on. The 1st rank (most powerful) was 1, the second most powerful was 2, 3rd most powerful was 3....
Then, in 2000s Hasbro re-imagined Stratego in the USA and made a few changes. They reduced the number of pieces per side (from 40 to 30), added additional powers, and changed the numbering to reflect the European system.
This caused extreme consternation with many faithful American Stratego fans who preferred the 'old way'. (Actually the second oldest way, but whatever.) Many of these insist on playing Stratego with the 'Marshall 1 system'.
This wouldn't be a problem, except any and all discussions of Stratego are fraught with misunderstandings by those who are unaware of dual numbering systems! Keep this in mind when reading information about Stratego.

Conquest of the Empire

This game is a remake of the 1984 classic that was part of Milton Bradley's Gamemaster Series. In this game you are one of many Roman generals vying for power in Imperial Rome, employing legions, cavalry, and catapults to reach your objectives.

This version of the game has two sets of rules, one set similar to the original version (except that it has fixed the broken catapult rules) and a new set of rules based on Martin Wallace's Struggle of Empires.

Re-implements:

Milton Bradley's Conquest of the Empire (1984)

Dungeonville

From the designers:

Dungeonville is a dungeoneering card game for 2 to 5 players. The players take the roles of mad wizards who own the five dungeons surrounding Dungeonville. You recruit parties of adventurers and send them into the dungeons, earning points by defeating other parties in combat and by killing other players' characters in your own dungeon. The life expectancy of the adventurers is measured in minutes, and gold only gets used for hiring more saps to die on your behalf.

Forever Young: A Vampire Game

From the back of the box:

Forever Young brings the excitement of life as a vampire to your gaming table. Each player plays the head of a vampire family struggling to maintain control among his minions and human protectors. Beware, your opponents are aiming to convert your servants and... Well, let’s just say they have something a little more 'unkind' in mind for your humans.

Forever Young is a light strategy game that involves secretly placing your vampires and humans, hiding weapons and items and trying to discover where your opponents have hidden theirs. Each beautifully produced and illustrated game has everything needed to play for 2 to 6 players.

Armada

A board game with a nicely realized island group, which offers protection for either four nations or four pirate bands (depending on the edition) and indigenous people. Components: 300 plastic markers, 150 tokens, 8 ships made of metal with 2 masts, 55 cards (3rd edition only), 3 six-sided special dice, 1 rules booklet.

Between the second and third edition, the theme of the game changed. The first and second have a theme of four nations exploring and colonizing new land, while the third edition has a pirate theme. The third edition also adds 55 action cards, resulting in more chaos and - possibly - less strategy (at least that's what is suggested in the rules).

The board shows an island group composed of five smaller island groups separated by ocean. There is a large island group in the middle and four smaller ones in the corners. The four smaller island groups are the homelands of the four nations in editions 1 and 2 and the pirate bases in edition 3. Nations / pirates set out to explore and conquer the big island group in the middle (or each others' homelands).

Every round, each nation / pirate group has 10 action points. With these you can accomplish various actions: move, load ships, explore unknown areas, attack your opponents, etc. Most important action is probably exploration, in which you roll two special dice which determine how many natives and how much gold there is in a neighboring, unexplored land. You'll have to fight the natives to conquer that land and get the gold. The gold itself you use to muster new armies / pirates. Conquest ultimately decides the winner.

In the 3rd edition, you can use special cards to optimize your course or counter the actions of opponents. Thus you have a large freedom of movement, unfortunately your opponents do also.

A winner of the 1986 Concours International de Créateurs de Jeux de Société.