How to play Tactics in darts
Cricket on the widest board in the app. Close 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10 and the bull by hitting each of them three times, then score on the ones your opponents have not closed. You win when all twelve are closed AND your points are equal to or higher than every opponent's. Twelve targets instead of seven makes it a long game — an hour is normal.
Chuck Darts scores this game to exactly the rules on this page, and keeps the card open mid-match so anybody at the board can check one. A full leg of 501, a board of Cricket and six practice drills are playable right now with no account at all.
THE BOARD
Twelve targets: 20 down to 10, and the bull. Numbers 9 and below are dead — a triple 7 marks nothing and scores nothing. This app plays Tactics as twelve plain numbers. There are no "any double" and "any triple" rows: a double 14 is just two marks on 14. The name is not a reliable guide to the board: elsewhere Tactics is described as 20 down to 15 and the bull plus an any-double row and an any-triple row, and elsewhere again as nothing more than another word for cricket. See HOUSE RULES at the foot of this card. If you came here looking for cricket played on 10-20 and the bull rather than 15-20, this is that game — Tactics is only what this app calls it.
MARKS
A number closes at three marks. A single is 1 mark, a double 2, a triple 3 — so a triple closes a number in one dart. On the bull, the outer ring is 1 mark and the inner (double) bull is 2. There is no triple bull and the app will not let you enter one.
POINTS
Once you are on three marks, every extra mark on that number scores its face value — a triple 20 on a closed 20 is 60, a single 10 on a closed 10 is 10. The bull scores 25 a mark, so an inner bull is 50. Overflow inside one dart counts: sitting on two marks, a triple 20 gives you the third mark and two spare marks, so 40 points. The low numbers are the point of the name. Ten marks at 10 is a hundred points and half an hour; 20 and the bull decide the game. Closing the bottom of the board is defense, not offense. You only score while at least one opponent still has that number open. With three or more players, one opponent closing does not stop you. Once every player has closed a number it is dead for the rest of the game — it grays out and nobody can score on it again. With twelve targets, most of the bottom of the board is dead by the middle of the game. Playing solo, nobody has anything open, so nothing ever scores and it becomes a closing race.
WINNING
You win when both are true at the end of your own turn: all twelve closed, and your points equal to or higher than every opponent's. A tie on points goes to whoever got there first — closing out level is a win, not a draw. Close out while behind and the game does not stop: keep hitting whatever your opponents still have open until you are level. Nothing ends the game automatically. The app tells the host "Game over" and the host presses End Game.
ROUND LIMIT
The host can cap the game at a set number of rounds when creating it — a round is one turn for every player still in the game — and with the Round limit left off, nothing on this card changes. With a limit set, the app takes no turn after the last capped round. Close out inside the limit and you win exactly as above. If nobody has by then, the points decide it — the one time this game is won on points alone: the most points wins, counting only the players still at the board, and level points is a draw that records no winner. A turn that could not be read dart by dart keeps the points from deciding it, and then no winner is recorded either. It is the format the soft-tip bar machines use.
ENTERING SCORES
Tactics is scored dart by dart, because a turn total cannot say which numbers were marked. A bare total is refused. One, two or three darts a turn — enter what you threw, and use Miss for the rest. The app works out what the turn is worth from your darts and refuses the turn if the total it is sent disagrees. In a game of two or more, only the player whose turn it is can enter a score.
CORRECTIONS
Correcting a turn replays the whole board, so every mark and point after it is recomputed. Correcting a turn to zero is stored as a miss. Undo is a different door: it removes the last turn completely and replays without it, so the turn goes back to unthrown. A turn the clock forfeited is the clock's own record: neither you nor the host can undo it or correct it afterwards. Once the marks have decided a winner, a correction typed as a bare total is refused — re-enter that turn dart by dart. Before a winner exists, correct with the darts too: a bare-total correction erases that turn's marks, and once any turn has no darts the app stops naming a winner for the rest of the game.
THE CLOCK
A turn clock only auto-forfeits in ranked online games; the turn is then recorded as three misses and play moves on. Local games are honor-system and the host corrects by hand.
LEAVING THE GAME
If someone has to go, the host — or that player themselves — can take their seat out of a live game, as long as two players are left at the board: the app refuses a removal that would leave one player throwing alone, so a two-handed game has to be ended instead. Everything they already threw stands: their marks stay marked and their points stay scored. The app keeps their seat in the running order so the turn order holds for everyone else, but nothing more is added to their card, and they are placed after everyone who finished. It cannot be undone, and Rematch will not bring them back: it carries only the seats that were still in, so start the next game and add them to it yourself.
PLAYERS
Two to four is the intended game; each setup screen holds you to four, and a fifth player trying to JOIN is refused by the server — as is a fifth seat named when the game is created. Throwing order is the order players were added, host first. With four players on twelve numbers, expect a very long game. If the host ends the game before anyone has legally won, no winner is recorded — this game is never awarded on points alone. The finishing order shown is by points only and does not mean anyone won.
HOUSE RULES THIS APP DOES NOT PLAY
No governing body publishes Tactics, and here the NAME is the problem rather than the board. Chuck Darts plays twelve plain targets, 20 down to 10 and the bull, three marks each. Cricket played on 10 to 20 is a real and common house board, so if that is what you came looking for you have found it — Tactics is simply what this app calls it. What you cannot rely on is the name meaning the same thing anywhere else: it is used for at least three different games. Versions you may have met under it: 20 down to 15 and the bull with an any-double row and an any-triple row added — nine targets, and the one most often written down; the strict form of that, in which only the doubles and triples of 15 to 20 count toward those two rows, against the slop form in which any double or triple on the board does; and Tactics used as nothing more than another word for cricket itself. If your venue wants one of those, agree it out loud before the first dart — the app will still score the version above.