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L. The list of official nominations for the variant-by-committee.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Robert Shimmin wrote on Wed, Mar 12, 2003 04:08 AM UTC:
Takeover knights: Capture by means other than replacement makes for a
powerful piece, esp. when combined with the possibility of making double
captures (one by replacement, one by overtaking).  This is a bit TOO big
of a gun for my taste, but your mileage may vary.

Footsore camel: Interesting piece.  My value guestimate is somewhere
between bishop and rook, with similar trends throughout the game because
it is a rider of a sort.  It develops about as easily as the bishop,
though perhaps not as flexibly.  I think it could make for some
interesting opening play.

Teleporter: I think this piece is broken.  Since it cannot be captured,
and it can teleport its own king, I can see a large class of drawn
endgames where the weak side's king can perpetually evade check through
teleportation.

Lazy camel: I think it's about knight-valued, overall, and a neat way of
getting the Omega Chess wizard onto an 8x8 board.  It seems mostly
defensive though -- after the bishop-pawn moves, it can make a diagonal
step and attack the opposing side's center, but this seems an opening
move more likely to be threatened than actually carried out.  Perhaps it
would be a good fit for Shatranj with Different Armies.

Mule: Simple, straightforward.  The knight-move makes it want to be used
for a shock troop on the 8x8 board, but its value is more rookish, and it
does have some blanketing power for the endgame.  If it gets voted in,
I'd want some other weak piece to take the knight's place, though.

NnL: By the endgame, this would be almost as powerful as the full-fledged
wildebeest, but in the opening, scarcely more valuable than the knight. 
It constantly tempts the player to trade it off, although it wants to stay
in the game, because it's always getting more valuable.  Another
interesting entry. I think LnN would be an even more interesting piece,
albeit not on this small a board.  Anyone for Seperate Realms Grand
Chess?

Kamikaze: I think 'bomb' pieces need more limitations than this before
they play well with others.

Terminators: Is draw by isolation possible?  They can knock out the entire
center, leaving only files along the edge...

Samurai: I like this one -- the centaur is ordinarily a bit overpowered
(somewhere between a cardinal and a queen, in my estimation) to play well
in the minor piece role (yet maybe use it instead of knightriders in
tripunch chess...), but by forcing compulsory capture on it, it lays down
the question of what lengths are worth going to in order to preserve it
for the endgame, when it might have more freedom because it would not be
so easily trapped.