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,
Apocalypse (chess variant) Apocalypse (chess variant) Apocalypse is a chess variant invented by C. S. Elliott in 1976. The players each start with two "horsemen" and five "footmen" on a 5×5 board. The two sides make their moves simultaneously. The game was featured in Issue 53 of "Games & Puzzles" magazine. The starting setup is as shown. Horsemen and footmen move and capture the same as knights and pawns in chess, except footmen do not have a double-step option on their first move. For each turn, each player secretly writes down his move, then the players simultaneously declare them. The following rules apply: