Gridlock Chapter 3
Gridlock’s Stables
Meet the Knights in the kingdom of Grid. You are going to only need the two smallest ones for the Ruins. That being the Colt and Pegasus. The other three are Power Pieces that are slated for later rounds. With that in mind I will introduce them to you. The Knight called the Trojan can carry up to nine men into battle. The mini Trojan can carry three, and so can Babe. The two smaller Knights are where we will start. These are my pride and joy they are the pieces that led to the series being so extreme. The Colt and Pegasus each carry a single rider or not. They can move quite nicely empty. The two Knights we will be using can perform several operations. They can carry or project the men riding them. The men that want to ride Pegasus can whistle for him and he comes to that man, they are now paired as horse and rider. Can’t whistle for a Colt. Colts only load riders through the Knights Footprints. Only the Divisional Pawns ride the Colts. Any man may mount Pegasus though its own move or the footprints.
Colts Footprints
My heroes where would I be today if never saw that U.S.A. Marine commercial where the armored Marine is on a chess like battle field and he jumps off his mount to defend himself. One day it hit me what if a chess piece could do battle from off the top of the Knight. The scene above shows where a Divisional Pawn can land when it projects at ground level off from a colt. The white x is for the horses Footprints. That little group in the upper left are the Divisional Pawns that qualify for this mission. The Colts can also be used to project the Divisional Pawns Fields of Influence into its Footprints. Beware of stopping on the Knights footprint, when your opponents in possession of the Crystal. Knights have always traditionally been able to jump over pieces and this is even truer when you cast a field of influence. Knights come in handy for jumping over the pieces called Ruins and Gridlocks. They can jump over armor; take out certain fields with no problem.
The leisurely way to mount
Knights just keep getting better and better in Gridlock Chess. With the Pegasus mounting is a breeze. You can get on by the Footprints or use the nature of the piece wanting to ride. You see the King above can step onto Pegasus from any place one step away, or he could have done it from one of the Footprints. It’s the same for dismounting. As you can note from the top of this board Peg carries everyone and they can whistle for Peg. This could help a King or two out of a jam. Pegasus can be armored or project Fields of Influence. He can be used as a Footstool just like the Colts. To sum up the difference between the Colts and Pegasus I would say there is three main differences. One is the way the two Knights allow their men to mount. Pegasus uses the options of movement from either piece. The Colt only mounts through the Knights Footprints. The second difference is you can whistle for Peg but not the Colts. The third is the fact that the Colts only carry Divisional Pawns.
The Hollow Horse
The Trojan Horse was designed to be a war machine that could transport military personnel I’ll set this piece free in the round called Gridlock’s Revenge, but I’ll clue you in on it now. It moves like a Knight but it takes up four squares at a time. Any piece can drive the Trojan and it does need a driver in order to be moved. You need a Footstool .to get on it. Inside the Trojan you can stash up to eight Divisional Pawns and they unload in a number of preset formations called Trojan Shield Grids. The Mini Trojans deserve mention here because they work on similar principles but do not take up four squares at a time. Babe is one of the Taurus class Knights. The Taurus Class Knight is one of those mystery pieces that I’m not ready to divulge like the Earth Star, Shock and Awe. A certain sequence of events has to occur before the introduction of certain Power Pieces, like Basic Training. Before I can let you have it all, I have to show you the mechanics of this simple kind of multi level chess one piece at a time.
The Trojan Four Step
One, Two and over One in sets of four, that’s how the Trojan moves. He even has a few diagonal moves up his sleeve on a playing field called the GridIron. Inside the Trojan are the two main holds. Men can be secretly stashed in the Trojan during Cold War or put into him during the game. On the GridIron Trojans can be used as the Quarter back. It’s my intention to give the Trojan the potential as a smuggler. You never quite know for sure what’s in him or in the case of the Gridiron who’s got the ball? However on the battle field of the ruins the Trojan will set the stage to bring in the Titans and let people get a taste of some more multi level moves from the mind of Gridlock.
Footstools
Unfortunately the drivers seat to the Trojan is on the third sublevel. We need a step up to get there. The board indicates several available stepping stones. First we start with the easiest of all the Footstools the Forrest Rook, keep the Forrest Rook on the perimeter of the Trojan where you see the Xs. Next the Pugal Bishops could leapfrog to the position using each other (this move is a property of Bishops Work which gives the Bishops certain privileges. The three pieces at the top are other Footstools you may use to climb. Any piece that has a second sublevel like the Colony Rook or Center Serve Bishop can get you onto the third sublevel. It’s just like climbing through the main levels in a 3 level game . I threw in a few extra tools. I allow you to use the post off the JumpGates and Doors as well as the Knights (from the first sublevel)
Three out of four
I Bet by now you didn’t think I had a sense of humor, I sure hope you do because the Class A Colony Rook is yet another one of those pieces I’m not letting go of yet. You get the other three; they all carry personnel and move as Rooks. You can use the Rooks to cast Fields such as the Medusa’s. Each Rook has its own circumstances in which to inter act with the fields and it’s easy to remember. By concentrating on the three chosen ones we will be able to further understand climbing and armoring up. We will take each in his turn and discuss all these subjects. Armoring the Colony Rooks can be done by placing Armored Personnel on board the Rook and then activating the armor.
More Top Cuts
Here’s where the view from the top starts to get interesting. The Double Decker at the bottom of the Briefing Board has a top view of the forth sublevel, we won’t need that right away. With the top views used in the next few boards, I’ll be discussing the Pivot (a key Castle Function), I’ll show you the pieces that ride the Rooks. I’ll show you the Footstools for the Castle Rook. We will also be discussing capturing pieces. Transferring Fields and the tools to shut them down.
Let The Games Begin
The goal of the Forrest Rook is to mobilize a man and transfer that mans Field of Influence. The Forrest Rook is also the best Footstool next to the Knight of course. In the board above we see Pugal Bishops and Armored Pawns deciding on how to man the Forrest Rook. The Bishops can move diagonally and mount the Rook. The Pawns have to take pieces not of their team color with a diagonal move or cast by the Knights. So once a man is on a Forrest Rook it can use the Rook for a ride or to project his Field of Influence through the Rook. Imagine the combinations, there is a series here and I hope everyone is ready for one more sport to go extreme We are talking sublevels and main levels plus fields that go multilevel. The top of the Forrest Rook and the Leaves of the Class B Colony Rook are second sublevel positions. The Colony Rook is an Elimination Piece.
Jungle Warfare
Rules, Regulations and Restraining Orders are the Order of the day when it comes to driving one of these babies. Just like a King can’t move within one space of another king, a Colony Rook can only move to within three spaces of another Colony Rook unless for the clean kill. The Colony Rook can only move to within two spaces of the Castle Rook unless for the clean kill. You see I don’t want you banging up the rides just yet. Also the pieces called the Ruins are definite roadblocks to the Colony Rook. Unless the Colony Rook happened to drop a bomb on the Ruins and eliminate it. Here in this frame I am showing how a Rook moves (just in case you didn’t know). I would like your attention on the loaded Rook. It’s only carrying two pieces but in this case it has the potential of all three pieces plus any applied Fields. Shots b. and c. show the two basic positions of the leaves on the second sublevel. These are the Box and Diamond positions.
The Home Guard
You know moving around on that second sublevel is a lot of work, I wonder if the Colony Rook can help? Yes he can. He can Pivot any time it’s his teams turn if somebody on his team is holding a Power Grid Star. Hold one Star and it's a complete turn up to 360 radius. There are eight clicks to a full turn of the Class B. Colony Rook. The leaves occupy second sublevel and turn over the Ground level. Can you see the strategic advantage of being able to rotate the riding pieces over the Ground Level? You could be kicking around four pieces repositioning them for a new battle plan and it’s just a castle function (it’s free). Get used to holding lots of stars and Power SquaresYou will be the one providing his Field Strength, he’ll be busy doing other things
It Takes Two
It takes capturing two of these Rooks to Possess the Crystal and as an added bonus these Rooks are automatically Armored. You only need to possess the two Rooks for a single turn to release the Crystal but they must be the pair flanking the Crystal. In my games possessing any Crystal will provide you with the transfer of fields. It takes Armor to take out Armor. It takes a Footstool to get on the Castle Rooks. This is however the only Armor affected by the Devisive Pawn. If a Devisive Pawn blows next to a Castle Rook, we consider this Rook cracked and immobile for the rest of the game. You can still use its third sublevel as an occupied position but the Rook is immobile. You may want to hold the Ruined Rook if it is setting on a Power Grid Square. I’ve seen these Castle become cracked and still be a strategic part of the game
A Thief In The Knight
A couple of things that you’re never going to forget are how to steal the other guy’s pieces. In Gridlock Chess we use the terms Eliminate or Capture literally. You could steal A Class B Colony Rook if you wanted to. You would have to use your men to occupy the Rook. Your points would have to out score his and he gets to count the five points from the Rook. Same on a Class A Colony Rook. Capturing a Colony Rook is a risky thing because it’s an elimination piece and your not eliminating it. This means that the hierarchy of your opponent’s elimination pieces has change and we will go over Elimination Pieces in their own Briefing Board. But you stole his Rook anyway right? You can use the Pawns to capture any piece with an empty driver’s seat as long as you do it from an angel, Remember you can move Pawns up or down through the sublevels. Doing it diagonally is how they eliminate or capture like in regular chess.
The Mass Riders
There are a couple things going on in the Briefing Board above that will help us review a few Gridlock Principles. At top we see three Armored Pawns trying to activate armor for the Class B Colony Rook but Gridlock’s Guard is shutting that down. He’s not much of a problem, looks like the Pawns could just eliminate him and still keep the armor activated with a simple move. This Colony Rook is engaging its secondary armor. If the Colony Rook had a Queens Guard on board the Colony Rook would have the primary armor and need to be held in check by Tonk, The Queen or one of the Queens Guards. The Rook must be part of Tonks Chambers to have its primary armor activated. That’s why this is an Elimination Piece. In the bottom corner we see some of the colony riders that might ride the Colony Rook.