Gimel

Gimel is a 1980 game by Manuel A. Widmaier, published at Bütehorn Spiele, and later at Hexagames.

It is played on a 8x18 board -- I suppose a shape emulating Senet's -- and each player has 24 pieces between three types:

• Eight scarabs or beetles (represented as disks) that move like chess Kings
• Eight bastets, i.e, the cat gods (as pyramids) that move as chess Knights or as a single 2-step orthogonally
• Eight horus pieces (as cylinders) each moving to any place on the perimeter of a 3x3 square centered in the moving piece (see picture below)

Initially the board is empty. On his turn, each player might do one of the following actions:

• Drop a friendly piece (still in reserve) on an empty square
• Move a friendly piece (already on board) to an empty square
• Capture an enemy piece by replacement
  

The goal is to score points by capturing enemy pieces: scarabs value 1 point, bastets 3 points, and each Horus values 6 points. If players have the same score, win the one with more pieces captured.

The game mixes the typical two phases of dropping the army, then moving. This can make it hard to plan ahead, since any new piece can appear at any place, anytime. Shogi has this mechanism but is much more controlled, because usually there are few pieces in reserve to drop, and they are achieved afterwards, as captures in the middle of the game. Not with Gimel!

Here's a positive review on Jeux et Strategie #2:

The review on Games & Puzzles #78 is less enthusiastic: