In Mentis, your goal is to capture the opponent's king. Each player's king is fragile, unable to move from his hill on the side of the 7x7 board, but he defends that hill by sending out forces of Spears, Trenchmen and Nobles to fight across the board. Each turn, you either deploy, move or capture:
Deploy — Place 1-3 pieces in a stack orthogonally adjacent to your king's hill in a square not adjacent to an opponent's piece. You can place on an empty square or one holding your pieces, but you can't create a stack more than three pieces high.
Move — Move pieces orthogonally 1-3 spaces depending on the type of piece on top of the stack. You can drop off and pick up pieces as you move as long as you obey the three piece limit.
Capture — Use the top piece of your stack to capture an opponent's piece, but only if that piece is exactly the right distance (1-3 spaces) from the capturing piece and isn't of a type immune to attack from the capturing piece.