Warmaster Chess 2000 (1998)

Overview

Very controversial insert game in Command Magazine Issue #49. Considered by many to be the issue where Command "jumped the shark." Outraged subscribers were appalled when their complaints were dismissed as a bunch of whining by XTR head Ty Bomba.

Apparently intended merely as a small bonus game it ended up carrying the whole load when the planned issue game fell through, it was marred by unusually poor quality control (discolored countersheets.) It is a chess variant with the board expanded to 12 x 12 squares. Follow-up variants in the next two issues of Command added a some interesting variant pieces with new moves and powers and a whole different chess-like game based on 20th Century military units, none of which got the attention it deserved because of the outrage and bad feeling left over from the initial impression. For chess players some interesting ideas, many of which have been seen before in one form or another. For historical board wargamers, it was simply not enough there, and it seemed like a rather pathetic and transparent attempt to cover up XTR's failure to have a suitable alternative to the planned issue game.

EDIT REQUEST: Does anyone have any information about the game itself? How it plays, how it differs in strategy and "feel" from regular chess? Any information other than how it came to be published?

And from the images, it appears the board is 16x16, rather than 12x12.

Expansions

Warmaster Chess 2000. vol. 3