Chess with different armies This army includes a lot of leapers, but most of them have asymmetrical move patterns, with backward moves being restricted. The rooks, knights, bishops, and queen are replaced by the following pieces: The four armies described above were playtested by Ralph Betza and selected as the most balanced ones. There are other armies, invented by Betza and other people, some of which are presented here. In the initial version of the game there were 8 armies and in these armies the king moved differently from the king in the standard chess. Instead of normal pawns, fairy pawns could be selected,
Dragonfly (chess variant) Dragonfly (chess variant) Dragonfly (also known as Shuttle Chess or Bird Chess) is a chess variant invented by Christian Freeling in 1983. There are no queens, and a captured bishop, knight, or rook becomes the property of the capturer, who may play it as his own on a turn to any open square. The board is 7×7 squares, or alternatively a 61-cell hexagon with two additional pawns per side. The game is an offshoot and simplification of a Freeling game named "Loonybird" (or "Dragon Chess"). Still, "Play is complex and interesting. Draws are rare too." The standard rules of chess