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Bob Greenwade wrote on Mon, Jun 17 03:41 PM UTC:

And now, because I have multiple things going on (including a trip away this coming weekend), the largest group ever for this collection...

335-342. Double Pieces. These are taken from David Howe's Growing and Shrinking article. I'm not aware of any variants that use them directly, but they're still interesting, and this listing might inspire something.

The brief description is that Double pieces are two pieces of the same type moving in unison, locked into (orthogonally) adjacent spaces, as if the entire board was made up of tiles of that size. Since they're orthogonally adjacent, a Double piece can be either horizontal or vertical (though the nature of the game would probably make horizontal more common).

Thus, the Double Bishops, rather than moving diagonally, would move one space along the short axis, and two spaces along the long axis, somewhat like a limited Nightrider. The Horizontal Double Bishop (#335) would have a sideways bias. (sNN)

The Vertical Double Bishop (#336), by extension, would have a vertical bias. (vNN)

The Double Rooks move like normal Rooks along their short axis, but two steps at a time (like a Dabbabarider) along their long axis. Therefore, the Horizontal Double Rook (#337) moves one step at a time vertically, but two steps at a time horizontally (vRsDD), while the Vertical Double Rook (#338) does the reverse (vDDsR).*

Since the Rook is fully symmetrical (turn it 90° and it looks the same), the same model is used for both.

The Double Knights are somewhat more complicated. Since making a Double Knight means doubling one of the two numbers in its (1,2) leap, both have (2,2) leaps, along with (1,4) leaps along their long axis. Thus, the move of the Horizontal Double Knight (#339) is like an Alfil and horizontal Giraffe (AsFX)...

...while the Vertical Double Knight (#340) is like an alfil and vertical Giraffe (AvFX).

Finally, the Double Queens combine their respective Bishops and Rooks, so that the Horizontal Double Queen (#341) is a Horizontal Double Bishop plus Horizontal Double Rook (vRsNNsDD), and the Vertical Double Queen (#342) is a Vertical Double Bishop plus Vertical Double Rook (sRvNNvDD).

Like the Double Rooks, the Double Queens only need one model, and for the same reason.

It should be easy enough to extend these principiles to any piece, creating Double Ferzes, Wazirs, Guards, Mastodons, Chancellors, Archbishops, Rhinoceroses, Ravens, Gorgons, Stewards, Satraps, Blue Geckos, or whatever else is called for.

*The two diagrams were made on separate days, a couple of weeks apart, and I didn't think to check one before making the other. I'll fix one of them presently, so they match.


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