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Hi Aurelian

An older 10x8 game I made, Hannibal Chess, makes use of ferfils (i.e. modern elephants) plus the FIDE army, but with the ferfils in different spots in the setup than is the case for waffles in Waffle Chess (I wish to have pawns in a setup all protected, in all my games to date). That's ignoring the fast castling rules I've used for Waffle Chess (or [10x8] WAD Chess) since that piece type makes development otherwise way more awkward than for (e.g.) Hannibal Chess, perhaps. In the Notes for Hannibal Chess' page, I mentioned that lieutenants (i.e. the elephant-like pieces from Spartan Chess) could be used instead of ferfils (it'd be a mutator variant called Lieutenant Chess, in that case). Frog Chess is also an old 10x8 game of mine, but uses frogs instead of ferfils, and with their place in the setup slightly different from Hannibal, Waffle (or WAD) Chess.

Wide Chess is one 12x8 variant of mine (which is also old), with waffles and lieutenants used besides the FIDE army in the setup for it (fast castling rules are used here too, this time since castling would take a lot of moves regardless, on 12x8). In the Notes to that game's page I mentioned that WADs could be used instead of waffles (that mutator variant would be called Wide WAD Chess). I've given some thought to somehow using frogs plus another piece type, with FIDE army, in a 12x8 variant (or mutator of one), but so far I couldn't find a setup I liked, whether or not I used my fast castling rules (as in Wide Chess). For example, I tried using frogs with ferfils plus the FIDE army on 12x8, but found no possible setup to meet all my needs/desires. [edit2: Revisited this 21-Dec-2018, and came up with a variant idea I noted as a mutator in an edit to a Champagne Chess preset Comment I made. I also used frogs plus lieutenants to make a mutator variant idea, given in an edit of mine to a Comment to Parity Chess preset.]

Using frogs plus lieutenants, instead of frogs plus ferfils, did not seem to help, and using frogs plus waffles [edit3: revisited this 21-Dec-2018, and came up with a variant idea I noted as a mutator, in an edit to a Wide Chess rules page Comment I made.], instead of using frogs plus ferfils, may well not help, either, though I could check [edit: I've looked back at my old scribbled notes, and I had considered and rejected this idea, too - however, looking now, using frogs plus WADs(Champions) instead just might prove feasible to some degree, IMO.]. It would possibly be just classed a mutator variant of Wide Chess, though (especially if the non-FIDE pieces occupy the same spots in the setup as for in Wide Chess). That is, perhaps not deserving a page of its own, though a preset could be made and possibly be made official, without editorial objection, assuming the idea can be made to work. As an aside, I'm sure a 12x8 variant with both ferfils and lieutenants (plus FIDE army) could work, but it would be rather bland in my humble opinion since the lieutenant piece type is merely a slightly augmented version of the ferfil type. Hence I tried using ferfils with dragons (plus FIDE army) instead, in my new 12x8 Champagne Chess, which I hope is a more interesting mix of piece types to use together.

P.S.: My intuition about what makes a given CV a mutator of another may not always be agreed to by others, though the concept is hard to define regardless. Here's one attempt, made on this website, which I'm not at all sure covers what I've alluded to in the previous paragraphs:

Mutators

[edit: Here's a diagram of a variant idea (maybe to be called Fairyland Chess, if it pans out after studying it at my leisure). The castling rules would be as in Waffle Chess, and the frogs move like 3-leapers (by rank or file) or like ferz' (1 square diagonally). The idea is to successfully make use of frogs and WADs(Champions) plus FIDE army on 12x8, as alluded to in my earlier edit. I'd tentatively estimate the piece values as P=1; N=3.06(or 3 approx.); F=3.13(or 3.25 approx.); B=3.75; CH=3.86(or 3.75 approx.); R=5.5; Q=R+B+P=10.25 and Ks fighting value=2.67:] [edit3: This setup has at least one possible drawback in that maybe a frog can rush to the k-file on the 4th rank in 2 moves, which might be to some degree annoying.] [edit4: Seems not a problem at all for Black at move 1, as there's more than one way to deal with it fairly cleanly.] [edit5: this first setup idea may be fatally flawed after all, as first of all castling may be unsafe/awkward to arrange if e.g. White moves frog-pawns one cell forward each, making it tough to soon move either champion in a safe way (from harrassment by B[s] and/or a rook's pawn), and, also due to the setup, charging either rook's pawn may make well castling hazardous/awkward to some extent in general even if a champion is not moved as preparation first (e.g. a champion may be left out of active play for ages).]

[edit2: Here's a backup setup for this, which I currently dislike more than the original setup, e.g. due to the Bs positions, i.e. not allowing 'fianchetto' deployment of them, and hitting pawns in front of champions in the setup, A straight leap of a frog could be annoying as moving a Black pawn one cell could block a N from a nice developing square, and otherwise developing a kingside frog by a ferz-move might be awkward; all this seems to make this backup setup fatally flawed; thus this whole variant idea may need to be rejected.][edit6: I thought of an apparently better setup than the one below or above, but it's clearly now a mutator variant of my Parity Chess variant; see the Comments thread for the Parity Chess preset for details:]