Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Mats Winther has just posted a new piece, the Scout, which moves as a camel
and captures as a queen. Interesting piece, moving as a shortrange leaper
and capturing as a longrange power piece. [Possibly the name 'Scout'
inspires leaping pieces; Greg Strong's Scout piece (Brouhaha, Hubbub)
also leaps 3 squares. Think I've seen others.] The converse of this piece
would be a piece moving as an unlimited slider that captures with a
shortrange move. If it's a crooked and/or leaping shortrange capture, the
piece might be restricted to bishop [or maybe rook] to limit its power a
bit. Whether or not you limited the shortrange capture to just the
bishop's original color, just the opposite, or both colors would affect
the power considerably. The idea of balancing queen moves with, say, alfil
captures, just doesn't thrill me. A queen that captures as a king would be
a tricky piece to use. A queen capturing as a knight is probably a bad
idea, especially on larger boards or with lower piece densities. Tricky
concept, [maybe a little annoying, as I prefer pieces to capture the way
they move, it's simpler] worth developing. 
***Edit*** Oops! Just read Michael Howe's full comment - sorry for poaching on 
your idea. A knightrider-king - how does that compare to the queen-king? 
Defense against the NN-K should be a specialty of some shortrange pieces, 
as the knight, like the camel, can only land in restricted spots. A moderately 
powerful shortrange piece could guard those spots where a linear piece couldn't.
There is a comment by M. Howe and another by M. Winther that I would like
to address in this thread [from my own perspective, of course :-) ]. But
let me give Mats' new piece a rating [and check the laundry!]

In the comments on 'The Scout' [M. Winthers], there were a couple of
statements that I wanted to examine further. They are: 
M. Howe: 'Leaping-riders can be awkward and unbalancing because of their
ability to attack through pawn walls, but this is a good
solution.'[referring to the M. Winther Scout]
M. Winther: 'If anybody wants to study the characteristics of a certain
type of new piece, how it affects the strategical situation, and what new
tactical themes are introduced, then my conservative implementations are
ideal.'
Let me mention a pair of [what I consider excellent ;-) ] leaping riders
in the game Grand Shatranj, the Oliphant [moves diagonally] and the
Lightningwarmachine [moves orthogonally]. They are each 2-step linear
riders, sliding 1 square or leaping 2 squares then doing either again at
the player's option. So each may move 1, 2, 3, or 4 squares, leaping over
up to 2 pieces - if those 2 pieces are [or can be] lined up exactly right.
While a mere pawn wall cannot keep them out, their [short] range allows a
'lion defense' - post a piece or two inside the wall [back far enough]
and kill them when they land. Of course, their agility requires a really
solid defense, but it can be done, with the right piece mix. This game was
fairly well received; people seemed to like it, and it's gotten some play.
All the pieces were designed to leap, with the exception of the king and
the pawns. The rook analogues and bishop analogues were specifically
designed to crash pawn walls or any barrier. They are very dangerous
pieces, but, after a bit of playing, ways to handle them were devised, and
a pawn wall may work after all, it just has to be part of a defense in
depth, a new requirement. Chess, changed a bit. More strategic, if my
correspondents are right. And this game introduced both new 4-square rider
pieces along with 3 more different 2-square leapers that I thought were new
when I posted the game [2 of which I believe are still new, as no one has
shown precedence, though I consider them fairly obvious, and posted them
in this and a companion game at the same time]. But the game works well
because all the pieces [except N and K] are new [or close to it] and
rather different. 
I guess my point here is that sometimes you have to make a leap of faith
to get a good game. My questions, asked in all seriousness and humbleness,
because both of you are obviously talented designers and I want to explore
the avenues this game opens up, are: Is this game [Grand Shatranj]
actually as good as I claim? Can it be, if it's as radical as some might
think? Does it 'break the rules' in some sense and get away with it or
not? If it does, how does it manage it? Anyone who hasn't gone away by
this point, please feel free to join in. someone could ask: 'If it's
such a good game, how come it isn't wildly popular?' Mats would probably
say, I suspect, that it's not conservative enough. Is he right?

[2007-03-01] 'A queen that captures as a king would be a tricky piece to use.' - Joe Joyce

The Marshall moves as the standard Queen, but can only capture like the standard King in Tom Hartley's NAPOLEONIC CHESS..

The Assassin moves without capturing like a Queen, and captures like a King, in the Evil Horde, one of several armies invented for Peter Hatch's Fantasy Grand Chess. I do not know how much playtesting has been done with these variants. [EDIT] changed the NAPOLEONIC CHESS link to a more recent version.

A queen-moves/king-capture piece is basically an Ultima Withdrawer in FIDE
garb. It suffers from the same sorts of problems; the main one being that
it's annoying, in my opinion. It's like arming a tank with a pistol.
God's own speed, hits like a baby. Cut it down to a 3-square queen that
captures like a king, and you've got a much more reasonable piece, again
in my opinion, for a Napoleonics game. 
Tom Hartley's NAPOLEONIC CHESS looks interesting, but I'd love to
hear/see how it plays. I'd also love to play a Napoleonic board wargame
against him sometime; his variants reek of wargame; I like that in a
designer. But I'm still iffy about the play quality of his game. I'd
like to make a comment, but there's no way to attach it to the game page
that I saw. I'll look again.
The Peter Hatch Evil Horde army is another interesting-looking shortrange
army with heavy rook tendencies. The Q-K piece fits better here
thematically. 
But I, like David, question how well the armies were balanced by
playtesting before the game was posted. Be interesting to hear about play
results from both games.

Mats, David, Antoine: I'd like to thank each of you for the piece
references.   Fergus Duniho's Caissa Britannia is a fairly popular game,
I believe. So, with a little luck, someone who's had experience with the
prince consort will tell us what it's like to use the piece.

ANNOUNCEMENT: I believe that Queens and Nightriders are too powerful to be allowed on a 12x12 board. Archbishops and Chancellors have been used in a multitude of chess variants - these pieces no longer interest me. So I have decided to work on a new variant where Pawns promote on rank 12 to one of three pieces:

[use R+P symbol] Grand Rook = R+F+A,

[use B+P symbol] Grand Bishop = B+W+D,

[use N+P symbol] Grand Knight = N+W+F, often called a Centaur.

Each 'Grand' piece can reach 8 more squares then the standard piece it is named after. I plan to change the names - do not wish to use the letter 'G' for all three pieces. After much semi-scientific analysis of piece values on large boards, I have concluded that the Grand Rook is worth as much as a Bishop and two Knights here. This makes it a reasonable replacement for the Queen, which equals a Bishop and two Knights on an 8x8 board.

[2008 EDIT] Key McKinnis used a wide selection of pieces in Drop Chess (2000), including the Demon (Grand Rook ) and the Pope (Grand Bishop). My Rose Chess XII variant ended up using an unusual selection of pieces, including Queens and Nightriders.

Continuing my [2007-03-03] Comment.

Define a 'Korean Lion Move' to be along a Queen-line to any empty square, regardless of any pieces, friendly or enemy, that blocks its path. In Köksal Karakus' Al-Ces the Silver General and the Gold General capture as in SHOGI, but make noncapturing Korean Lion Moves.