From Chivalry to Lancer

Lancer (1973), aka Astroblitz (1968), is an uncredited game, published by The Game Crafter and Waddington House of Games.

The game box comes with two boards, one for two players, and another for three players. There are twelve pawns times three colors, and four larger pieces of each color.

Each player, on their turn, moves a friendly piece either (a) to an adjacent empty hex, (b) by jumping Checkers-like over one or more pieces of any color. Jumped enemy pieces are captured and removed immediately (enemy pieces cannot be jumped over twice, while friendly one can). Jumps are not mandatory.

The board has special marked hexes that players must reach. In the two-player version, a player wins by moving two friendly pieces into these hexes. In the three-player version, a player wins by also moving two pieces, to any scoring hex on either or both adversaries.

The larger pieces (named Yeomen, while the smaller ones are called Lancers) can also be moved but are not capturable. Their goal is defensive. These pieces cannot move into the no-man's land (the light-blue area).

There are also black hexes, and the central hex on either board, that cannot be moved into or jumped over. 

 

in the Astroblitz version the scoring area also exists:
it is defined by the subtle pink line across the player's area

A variant to the three-player version would be to win by placing one piece on each one of the scoring areas of the adversaries. Perhaps that would make the game too hard to finish, but it would also prevent lasting 2 vs. 1 alliances.

Not sure why captures are not mandatory, since that removes tactical depth to the game.

The gamecrafter website have a printable board:

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Lancer/Astroblitz is very similar to the much older Chivalry (from 1887) by George S. Parker.

Official rules of Chivalry here. 

The following iteration was Camelot (aka Inside Moves) in the 1930s, a more well-known board game,

some opening theory for Camelot

 

Rules and much more at the World Camelot Federation.

 

There are other variants using this ruleset. One is a large version, Grand Camelot (from 1932) and a mini version, Camette (2002).

 

 

Another reimplementation of Camelot is Inside Moves. Here's a review from GAMES #66,