Gunjin Shogi

Literally meaning ‘Soldier Shogi’, Gunjin Shogi is not really related to Shogi other than by having a military theme and pentagonal pieces. The game is more similar to Army Chess (Lu Zhan Jun Qi) or Stratego, featuring hidden pieces and a hierarchical system of combat, where higher ranked pieces defeat lower ones: the objective is to capture the opponent’s flag. Like Army Chess, Gunjin Shogi requires a third person to act as umpire and resolve combat. Unlike Army Chess (and more like Hai Lu Kong Jun Qi), Gunjin Shogi includes planes and tanks.

Each player has 23 pieces, consisting of a flag, 12 officers, 2 planes, 2 tanks, a cavalry unit, two engineers, a spy and two land mines. There is a hierarchy of ranks, with some exceptions – planes naturally cannot be destroyed by land mines and engineers deactivate land mines, for instance.

The game dates to at least before the second world war (I base this on an incomplete pre-war set I was shown in an antique shop in Japan).