Troy - chess variant

Hector - the mightiest Trojan in chess variant Troy

Troy is a chess variant inspired by the Trojan War. The armies of Greece and Troy wage battle on a 91-cell hexagonal gameboard. The game was developed in 1988 by the Fanaat games club (the Netherlands) as a wedding gift for two of its prominent members.

Game rules

Troy starting position. For this diagram: Pallas Athene/Ares are represented by chess kings; Heros are represented by queens; Achilles/Hector are represented by inverted queens; Spartans/Amazons are represented by knights; and Greeks/Trojans are represented by pawns.

Each player has 19 men with initial setup as shown. As in chess, a captured man is replaced on its cell by the capturing piece, and the winning objective is checkmate. The Greek king is Pallas Athene; the Trojan king is Ares.

The warriors

• Pallas Athene (Greece) / Ares (Troy)
  • One per side.
  • Move or capture one step in any direction to an adjacent cell. (Similar to a king in chess.)
• Achilles (Greece) / Hector (Troy)
  • One per side.
  • Move or capture any number of unobstructed steps in any direction. (Similar to a queen in chess.)
  • Are immune from capture by a Greek or a Trojan.
• Heros (Greece) / Heros (Troy)
  • Two per side.
  • Move or capture any number of unobstructed steps in any direction. (Similar to a queen in chess.)
• Spartans (Greece) / Amazons (Troy)
  • Three per side.
  • Move or capture two steps in any direction. (The adjacent cell is jumped whether occupied or not.)
• Greeks (Greece) / Trojans (Troy)
  • Twelve per side.
  • Move one step straight forward, or two steps diagonally forward (but without jumping).
  • Capture one step diagonally forward.
  • Promote at the opposite end of the board to any piece previously lost.