The commercial offsprings of Chess: Wendo

FIDE Chess is the most played abstract game in the Western hemisphere. It is not unexpected that publishers try to use this fact to create and promote their own commercial Chess-inspired games. Modern games like Kamisado, Arimaa, and Onitama are examples of this trend.

This is the first post on a series that describes some older Chess-like games.

Wendo is a 1977 uncredited game, published by Brain Center. It is played on a 7x8 board (plus two home bases), and each player controls an army of ten pieces with exotic movements.

the initial setup

The pieces move as described in the tiles, and their move capabilities are described in next diagram:

The leftmost piece is the Hydra, which is the game's King. There's also a tile named Barrier. 

• On his turn, the player moves one friendly piece to an empty square, or rotates it, or even flips it over (the pieces are transparent).
• Pieces can move over friendly pieces, including the Barrier.
• Pieces can also move over the enemy Barrier if it is unprotected.
• A Barrier is protected if it is in the movement range of a friendly piece
  
• Captures are by replacement. The exception is the Barrier that cannot be captured.
• Barriers cannot move but can be pushed by friendly pieces. The push happens if the Barrier is on the way of the moving piece, and all the intervening squares are empty. The Barrier will stop at the next square, after the piece's final square.
• When a piece reaches the last row, the piece can optionally be promoted by being replaced with any piece previously captured. The promoted piece is placed with the direction the player prefers. This must be done at the turn the piece moves into the last row.
  
• A player wins by capturing the enemy Hydra, or by capturing all its army (except, of course, the Barrier).