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Mastodon > Unicorn Great > Big Board > Centennial > Eurasian > Wildebeest > Fantasy Grand > Black Ghost > Eight-Stone > Templar > Modern > Courier de la Dama > Switching > Seirawan. Betza says CDA is THE Next Chess, and differing forces do indeed have a place now at the table of the Chess cafes.
http://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=614
Fantasy Grand is the most significant development modelled on Chess
Different Armies. 
http://www.chessvariants.org/large.dir/fantasygrandchess.html
Both make different armies out of differing piece-types,
where each army has even-balanced total power.  Any CV played has its first move unbalance, so CDA and FG are just logical steps, an argument might run. Other CVs have made different starting arrays the two sides out of the very same pieces.  That off-center deployment of forces even rarely may be necessitated by unusual board itself lacking any symmetry.
Rather than pieces, how about rules being different but equal? (For ideas, see Betza's  http://www.chessvariants.org/other.dir/manyrules.html.) Say Black gets one Pawn three-step prohibited White, or Black gets one double move prohibited White. Imbalances and asymmetry, like overcomplexity versus simplicity in rules, have relative lack of aesthetic appeal. Think Ockham's Razor. The CV genre of different forces and rules for the two opposite teams, however equalised, just seems to start from a hole and a handicap of their own making for acceptance among the classiest Next Chesses. 
Now Fantasy Grand is on normal 10x10, like CDA is on the old-fashioned smallish 8x8 Betza preferred.  Fantasy Grand has some inventive combinations, that Paulowich comments on, strong Soldier Pawns of the Dwarves, the Giant Army's Giant being Alibaba and Behemoth Rider like Jetan's Dwar...  Betza's Black Ghost is a different army too in the sense that only black gets the Ghost.  Place the Fantasy Grand Armies' project of Elves, Dwarves, Evil Horde, Giants and Druids right ahead to purpose of the Black Ghost. (Black Ghost sounds like ''Ralph Gnohmon,'' his nom de plume.)
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