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,
Shatra (game) Shatra (game) Shatra is a chess-like game which was played in the Altai region. It can be seen as a mixture between chess and draughts. Shatra is played on board of 62 tiles which are divided into 3 areas: The central area of 7x6 tiles and two 3x3 tiles (fortresses), which are connected via 1 tile (temdek) to the central board.The central area is divided horizontally by a ditch. Each player has 1 king, 1 queen, 2 rooks, 2 bishops and 11 pawns (shatras). The pieces move as in chess. The pieces placed in the fortress are called reserves and