Comments by BobGreenwade

A Sandworm might make an interesting piece.

Has anyone besides me even used this piece?

Now that I have a name for it, I intend to. In fact, I've already added it to the piece list for my all-Dragon game.

That's one take, though the larger sandworm like that is one that I'd want to represent with a giant piece (one that takes up more than one square), something that isn't implemented in XBetza, and probably -- probably -- never will be. In any event, removing adjacent pieces upon capture of a central one will probably have to wait until HG can program in the semicolons for bracket notation.

I have something a little different in mind for something more man-sized. I'm not sure yet whether it'll be today's PotD, or tomorrow's...

280. Yak. No, this isn't another Tifinagh piece*; this is named for the animal.

It simply occurred to me recently that particularly large boards could use a piece that's the equivalent of a Buffalo (NCZ), extending one space further. I considered naming it for a pouncing predator, but besides most such creatures being already taken, it didn't seem to fit the established pattern. This piece combines the leaps of the Knight (horse), Camel, Zebra, Giraffe, and Antelope, and also includes many compound ungulates (Gnu, Bison, Okapi, Buffalo, and so forth), so an ungulate seemed fitting. After a little bit of research, the animal that stood out was the Yak. (NCZFXNY)

I deliberately excluded the (4,2) leap of the Hare/Stag/Lancer since it's just an extension of the Knight move; pieces that add the DY or N2 can be considered separately. As it is already, it can be a formidable and versatile piece.

*The two forms of the letter yak are ⴽ and (in Tuareg) ⴾ, neither of which (in my opinion) make particularly good chess pieces -- at least, not without some sort of mirror image.

Thanks for the catch. I only just recently realized my error there. I'll go fix that, both here and in my games where it appears, today and tomorrow.

281. Mei (Chinese Rose / Rao). If a Nao is a Chinese Nightrider, then could there be a Chinese Rose? Well, of course there could! Like the Nao, the Mei (the best translation into Chinese for the word "rose" that I could find*) moves without capture normally, but must jump over a hurdle to capture. It's just that the Mei moves like a Rose. (mqNcqpN)

I don't think a move diagram is needed in this case, since most of us here knows how the Rose moves. I can vouch that the above XBetza does work; I tried it out in the XBetza Sandbox, and it behaves just as intended.

As I was informed in a later reply, this piece is called a Rao by chess problemists.

Creating this led me to discover some serious design flaws with my original Rose piece, which I've now corrected on my own system and will upload some time soon (Thingiverse is still having problems.)

*I have no doubt -- and, in fact, much hope -- that someone well-versed in the language will correct me if I got it wrong.

The issues that the Tinkercad website is having recently may lead me to take a break after this weekend. Since the problem mainly affects new uploads, I may continue for a short while, but otherwise I'll just wait for the problem to be fixed.

I had already planned on only going to #366 (I'm running out of possible pieces to post), posting only occasionally afterward for extensions of sets, missed rotary counterparts, special requests, new discoveries, and so forth. I also had planned, if I hadn't done this already by then, to take the time to create an index of sorts that I could post as an article.

An army with your pieces. What'd you call this army?

If it's a CwDA set, probably "Mad Movers."

By the way, Chinoise Rose in problemist language is called Rao.

I should've suspected that it would be something that rhymed with the others.

282. Sandworm. This spawned from a recent comment on this list, like a throwaway line in a movie that becomes a classic.* This is inspired by the creatures from well-known desert planets in the Star Wars and Dune franchises (Tattooine and Arrakis, respectively), but it's not the full-sized version (which probably would be something to go into a four-square space, though with rather similar moves). This can be thought of as a "Juvenile Sandworm."

A main feature of the fictional sandworms is that they burrow underground, so as a piece the Sandworm simulates that by jumping others. At its basic, it slides in any radial direction, like a Queen. In the interest of game balance, I limit that to two pieces that it can burrow under, though in games with particularly large armies that may increase. If there are no pieces to burrow under and the Sandworm moves no more than 4 spaces to capture, it may continue to capture another piece in the next square. ((paf)2QcyafQ4)

In this (hopefully not overly confusing) diagram, the White Sandworm is able to capture any of the Black pices on the board. The only two that it can capture in a single move, however, are the Knight (i9) and Queen (j10), since the Knight is only 3 spaces away, the Queen is in the next adjacent space, and there are no intervening obstacles.

I probably could've posted this much earlier, but (aside from the previously-mentioned issues at Thingiverse) the shape kept coming out so that Thingiverse's sample-graphic (above) made it look like... well, something that probably shouldn't be shown on this site. It still kinda does, but I think it reads OK. (I might see about making the teeth large enough to be visible in the image.)

*It's even happened to my own comments, at the Super-Team Family: the Lost Issues blog. I was only kidding when I mentioned Snow White and the Seven Soldiers of Victory -- which became my first idea to be published there -- and my remark about Bugs Bunny vs. Doctor Doom was supposed to be an example of things we probably wouldn't see done!

283. General. There have been many pieces called simply "General" over the years, not even considering those in Shogi and elsewhere that have adjectives and other modifiers in their names. This version, the one that I prefer to use, was created by Guiseppi Ciccolini in 1820 for his version of chess. It slides diagonally like a Bishop, or orthogonally an even number of spaces like a lame Dabbabarider. (BnDD)

István Paulovits also created his own General in 1820, which moves as Mann or Camel (KC); I'll address that one at a later date.

The model is based on a bit of 2D art that someone did for what a Gold or Silver General from Shogi would look like as a chess piece. Looking at it now, I think the center strut probably should be thickened (both for sturdiness and to better match the illustration).

...maybe different for those who keep up records on what is the Queen's English, if it's still called that now that Charles is King.

It would now be the King's English. Queens English is now spoken mainly by Fran Drescher.

Furthermore, I currently don't like the sound of Wazbaba somehow - call it a quirk of mine.

That's probably the most compelling reason of all to not use that name. (And remember, I happen to like the name quite a bit.)

My idea: because you call FA the Modern Elephant, I call WD the Modern Dabbaba, or better Modern War Machine.

I'm very tempted to call it a Washer/Dryer.

Concerning WD I call it War Machine, or simply Machine. Several decades ago (I'm a veteran), I was calling it War Machine as it is to the Dabbaba the same thing that (my) Elephant is to the Alfil (the translation vs the old Arabic word). Some are saying "Modern Elephant" to be explicit, so I would agree with Lev to say "Modern War Machine" or simply Modern Machine.

I think most of us can agree in principle that Modern War Machine can be conisdered the "conventional" name for the piece, even if other names are used to fit various themes and tastes. Even so, for this game, as much as I'd prefer to see it be the Wazbaba or MWM, I think Kevin's justified in leaving it as it is if he really, really wants to.

The case which upsets me is Aanka used for W-then-B. But I will stop saying it. Now everyone knows this story and may decide whether it is a good idea or not to use this name. I am tired to argue with those who are purposely not understanding. They can call Aanka what they want, and why not call the Rook an Obispo if they like.

A fuller discussion would be better served elsewhere, but for my own part the Aanca is both W-B and F-R -- the compound of Manticore and Griffin.

@Bob: "for your own part"? I don't know where you got that. I never saw this. I have seen "Godzilla" as compound of W-R and F-R. Here by Ivan Derzhanski.

I got it from combining the historical version with the (multilply repeated) erroneous version. You haven't seen this, because the only page I have it on is still Private (and probably will be for some time). And I'm very resistant to recognizing the name of a Copyrighted/Trademarked character as the "conventional" name for a piece.*

But I say "for my own part" because I don't expect anyone (at all) to follow along.

*Except, of course, when the piece predates the character, or the name is arrived at another way. Since the word gojira was literally coined for the first movie, the piece was clearly named for the character.

In other news, I'm told that the problem I was having with Thingiverse's editor has been patched up as of last Tuesday. I haven't tested it out yet; I probably will do so over the weekend.