I like the idea of using the Horse as carrier for Pawns or Kings. But the current rules seem a bit messy to me. For instance, the moves are not always reversible: a Pawn can step out of the Knight in any of the 8 directions, but it can only step back into the resulting Horse for one of those.
The text does not exclude that the carried piece could make a capture when separating from the (Royal) Knight, so I assume this is possible. I wonder if this doesn't make the Knight too powerful, because it basically becomes a Centaur (KN), with the quirk that if it captures through a K move you cannot reacapture it, but at most the Pawn, while the Horse is invulnerable and can easily recharge to become another Centaur. This is almost as good as having rifle capture to adjacent squares. And that you can do it even after your move as an extra makes it similar to burning (like Odin's Forest Ox).
What happens if a Pawn ends up on last rank when leaving the Knight? Does it promote?
It also seems very hard to checkmate a Royal Knight, if it can make the royal piece to such a large number of targets (every square in a 7x7 area except the corners).
I would do away with the separating after the move. And perhaps limit the separating moves to non-captures.
I like the idea of using the Horse as carrier for Pawns or Kings. But the current rules seem a bit messy to me. For instance, the moves are not always reversible: a Pawn can step out of the Knight in any of the 8 directions, but it can only step back into the resulting Horse for one of those.
The text does not exclude that the carried piece could make a capture when separating from the (Royal) Knight, so I assume this is possible. I wonder if this doesn't make the Knight too powerful, because it basically becomes a Centaur (KN), with the quirk that if it captures through a K move you cannot reacapture it, but at most the Pawn, while the Horse is invulnerable and can easily recharge to become another Centaur. This is almost as good as having rifle capture to adjacent squares. And that you can do it even after your move as an extra makes it similar to burning (like Odin's Forest Ox).
What happens if a Pawn ends up on last rank when leaving the Knight? Does it promote?
It also seems very hard to checkmate a Royal Knight, if it can make the royal piece to such a large number of targets (every square in a 7x7 area except the corners).
I would do away with the separating after the move. And perhaps limit the separating moves to non-captures.