Ares

*This article is about the board game. For the planet sometimes called Ares scientifically, see Mars*

**Ares** is a two-player grid-based board game, descended from the ancient Yunano game of Chess. It started off as Martian Chess, a simplified variant of chess played by early Martian colonists, without many of the more complex rules of Chess. This version of the game evolved to be more unique from Chess, eventually becoming Ares.

Ares is played on an eight by eight board, often checkered black and red. Each player has 16 pieces: 8 lancers, 2 phoenixes, 2 rovers, 2 towers, a rocket, and a king. The lancers are set up in a line on the second row from the player, and the king on the left-hand middle square on the back row. All other pieces are placed on the back row randomly, with each side being rotationally symmetric around the center.

Players take turns making moves. Play starts with the red player, and alternates between red and black, though black moves twice for their first turn. Players win either by making their opponent's king unable to stay safe (checkmate,) have no legal moves (stalemate,) or by invasion, moving their king across the midline of the board (on many boards this is shown as a golden line.)

### Pieces

Each piece has unique movement which must be respected. Most pieces capture as they move (replacing the opponent piece captured and removing it from the game.)

* Lancers (L) may move straight forward as far as desired until obstructed, or capture a piece directly in front of itself, replacing it. Upon capturing any piece, it may be replaced with a piece you have lost before if possible, but this is optional. When it reaches the end of the board, it is removed permanently.
* The Phoenixes (P) may move 1 orthogonally or jump 2 diagonally. It is thought that this movement pattern was created by accident from a misunderstanding of how the Chess knight piece moves.
* The Rovers (R) slide a certain number of spaces along one orthogonal, and then slide the same amount perpendicularly. None of the intervening spaces may be blocked. This makes it so that it has 2 options for getting to each square it can reach. This piece's movement is also thought to be the result of a miscommunication.
* The Towers (T) moves as rooks do in the original game of Chess, sliding along orthogonal lines until blocked, with capturing ending its move.
* The Rocket (C, from Spanish Cohete) may jump to any space in a 5×5 square cenetered on it. There may be intervening pieces.
* The King (K) may move to any square adjacent, orthogonally or diagonally. It may not move to any square where it may be captured by the opponent. When you put the opponent's king in danger of check or stalemate, you must alert them, often done by claiming "check."

### Notation

Like Chess, Ares has its own notation for moves. It marks the grid the same as Chess, a-h columns and 1-8 rows, placed in this order, starting from the bottom-left square on the red player's side.

All Lancer moves are notated by only marking the square that was moved to. If any other piece is moved, its symbol is placed before the square moved to, always captialized. If there are two of the same type of piece that can move to that square, the column/row the piece is in is prepended (favoring columns first, but if they share a column using the row instead.) Capturing moves are marked with an x before, and + after for check or # for the winning move (be it through checkmate, check-lite, or invasion).

The initial double move by black is notated with a slash (e.g. a4 c5/Cc7)

## Popularity

The game is very popular among the Yunano, and many neighboring species. Competitions are held annually and attended by many.

A version of the game called Unity Chess exists as well, pitting the Arian army against the standard Chess army, though it is more based on Ares than Chess itself. While not as popular, it is still well known.