The countryside is being plagued by a horde of vampires, led by their dreadful lord, Nosferatu. A band of villagers has risen up, grabbed their torches and pitchforks and sharpened their wooden stakes to confront this menace. Unfortunately, any villager attacked by Nosferatu does not truly die but rather becomes a vampire under his control. The only hope the villagers have of stopping this ever growing army of the undead is to slay the head vampire, Nosferatu.
 
OBJECTIVE: For the Vampires, it is to eliminate all the Villagers. For the Villagers, it is to capture Nosferatu.
 
ACTIONS: A 'move' consists of one of three types of actions: Entering, Attacking, or Moving. An attacking move must be made whenever possible; when no attack is available, entering takes precedence over moving.
 
ENTERING: The board starts off empty. The Vampires have six pieces, consisting of Nosferatu plus 5 Vampires. The Villagers have 12 Men. The Vampire player begins and places one of his pieces on any space on the board, except for the central hex. (Note: there is no particular order that the Nosferatu piece needs to be entered. It can be the player's first piece or his last, or anywhere in-between.) The players then alternate turns, placing their pieces on any open space on the board, with the restriction that a piece may not placed in any space that can come under immediate attack by an opponent's piece. The players must enter all their pieces on the board before they are allowed to move any of them. Thus the Vampires, who have half as many pieces as the Villagers, will usually begin moving first.
 
ATTACKING: Both Villagers and Vampires make captures as in Checkers, jumping over an opponent's piece to the empty space just beyond and continuing to jump and capture as long as it is possible. Jumps may be done in any of the six directions defined by a row of hexes.
 
Nosferatu, with his ability to change into a bat and fly, has far greater maneuverability than any other piece in the game. He may travel over any number of empty hexes on either side of a jump. Like the rest of the pieces, if he can continue jumping he must do so. When Nosferatu attacks a Villager, he has the choice of removing them from the board or having them remain in their position and be converted into Vampires.
 
Since we are dealing here with a bunch of bloodthirsty vampires and riotous villagers, all attacks are compulsory. Attacking takes precedence over any other action, including entering a piece. When given a choice of attacks, a player need not choose the move that results in the greatest possible number of attacks.
 
MOVING: A player may move a piece only when he has no more pieces to enter onto the board and when he has no attacks to make. Moving for both Vampires and Villagers consist simply of stepping onto an adjacent, empty cell.
 
Again, Nosferatu can fly as a bat, and so travel farther then the rest of the pieces. He may move any number of spaces along an open row.