Each player has a choice of 4 armies:[3] the Fabulous FIDEs, which are the standard chess pieces, the Colorbound Clobberers, the Nutty Knights, and the Remarkable Rookies.
This alternate setup was already proposed by Ralph Betza and is named Colorbound Clobberers II.
The rooks, knights, bishops, and queen are replaced by the following pieces: The armies were playtested in human play among chess masters and considered balanced at the time of their release.
In 2015 Fairy-Max was extended to handle limited sliders such as the Short Rook from the Remarkable Rookies.
Statistical error in 400 games is 2%, so that means that the 3% of the Rookies-Nutters result can make us decide with >90% confidence that the Rookies indeed have the better chances here.
[6] Here the Charging Knight is weakened by removing the step directly backwards, decreasing its endgame value.
In the Clobberers, the FAD is replaced by the Prime Minister that can step in any diagonal direction once or twice in one turn.
However, later Betza abandoned the idea of using fairy pieces for king and pawns[8] and reduced the number of armies to four.
Out of the 12 eligible combinations, as the FAD from the Colorbound Clobberers is considered too strong for a Bishop equivalent and the Cardinal from the same army too weak for a Queen equivalent, Ralph Betza considers the following to be the "official" all-star team.
The rooks, knights, and queen are replaced by the following pieces:[11] There is another All-Around Allstars army by Ralph Betza.
In this setup the restriction that an eligible piece must play in one of the four official armies is lifted and the Forward FIDEs and the Meticulous Mashers are also included.
Hoppel-Poppel is originally a popular chess variant from Germany played with equal armies.