Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

This looks good so far, but please ensure that all pieces in the Interactive Diagram are showing.

Not so impatient; it was hardly an hour old. The Diagram should be fully operational now, including the morphing of NCZE. I might have to adjust the value of the 'own half' types by hand, though; the Diagram's heuristic does not take it for granted that morphing on the enemy half can always be achieved, and awards little bonus for it. (And it doesn't think much of pieces that cannot capture...)

I am still in doubt whether I should include both the Bishop and the Dragon Horse. These are so similar. Perhaps I will replace the Bishop by a Scout (mNcA).

I thought that for a first try 12x12 was already large enough to get significantly shorter games, and make it a 'race to mate'.

@HG: yes I was convinced that you hadn't finished. :=) And about the size, of course, I was saying that your idea/principle is good and that it might be ALSO interesting at very large games. It is good to test it first on a reasonable size.

I will test it. I wonder what's happen in the end game if the losing side pushes his/her K in the opponent's zone where the attacking pieces have less power. Doesn't that make the mate more difficult to achieve?

Good point. I did not give much thought to the end-game, as I beleived the game would almost always be decided in the middle game, due to the material superiority of the attacker. But this is a needless flaw; I can add the condition that the pieces can check from anywhere, even if they cannot make other captures. That doesn't really improve their strength as defenders, as a King will never be amongst the attackers in the middle-game.

Thanks for raising this point!

I see your hesitation for including dragon horses. I believe that you need sliders. Have you considered the rarely used (old fashioned?) Hunter and Falcon, fBrR, fRbB?

I wanted a Rook-class piece to have a good value spectrum. The Hunter and similar 3-way sliders would be too weak. 5-way sliders (bfRfB?) might be too strong, and also have the disadvantage of becoming very similar to either R or B.

I could also go for divergence instead of asymmetry. E.g. mBcR, or if that is too weak, mBWcR. But I am not sure that this would be any better than a BW, in the sense of being more different from what else is already on the board. To not bias the game back towards favoring defense the piece must have some sliding/riding moves, and the sliding moves only come in two flavors, which are already heavily used.

It is a bit of a dilemma, because I consider it best to present the idea of the 'attacking leapers' in a setting that otherwise would be as ordinary as possible. So I hesitate to include very uncommon pieces. Otherwise a Mao-rider  might be an idea. Or a crooked piece.

@HG. I see. And what about Pao family? Or, funnier, the Argentinian pieces, like mpRcR? Too weird maybe.

I wanted to avoid hoppers, because these cause completely new tactical patterns alien to Chess players. I also have an aversion against riders on large boards, because it is not intuitively obvious whether an in-between piece blocks them or not. You really have to count it out all the time.

But lame riders are already better. A lame Slip Queen is about as strong as the Dragon Horse (according to the Diagram). A Crooked Bishop was too strong. It could even be weakened by making it a compound of a lame Skip Bishop and lame Slip Rook (or the other way around; then it would be color bound.) The only thing against it is that it is rather unusual.

Perhaps a divergent mQcN would appeal more to Chess players.

The Pawns on the second row could become a problem if you need to keep track of which Pawn starts where.

Perhaps add an orthogonal equivalent to the Elephant, or maybe even the equivalent of an Alibaba to solve this? Or simply say that if a Pawn ends up on the starting square of another Pawn it can make another double/triple step?

Also, the White Boyscout's image is missing.

Perhaps I should switch to Wildebeest Pawns, for which it doesn't matter whether they have moved.

The Boyscout image is a problem in the alfaeriePNG directory, where the inage is named wcrooked.png instead of wcrookedbishop.png. I will remove it from the list anyway; it was only there to see which value the Diagram woulld assign to it on this board.

The Wildebeest Pawns are definitely far better than the originals. Aside from not having the problem of having to track which Pawns start where, they fit the theme of the game much better.

I still think an orthogonal equivalent of the Elephant would be a good addition, but that is up to you.

The only other improvement I can think of at the moment is to have piece images next to their descriptions in the Pieces section. Regardless, this page looks good enough to be approved.

I still think an orthogonal equivalent of the Elephant would be a good addition, but that is up to you.

This would be the War Machine, aka Machine, aka Woody Rook. :)

Because this is merely a 12x12 variant I cannot fit every 8-target leaper known to mankind. There also is a limit on how much the attacker should be favored over a defender; if attacking is too easy white's initial-move advantage gets too large. I left out the War Machine because I did not like that the rider move it would have in analogy with the Elephant would only go onto the enemy half in one direction. Orthogonal moves are just less suitible for this idea.

I suppose I could have used a modified Champion, that would have a non-capturing Alfilrider move on its own half, but kept a non-divergent orthogonal moves everywhere, instead of the Slip Queen.

I have seen (for Alfaerie: Many and Auto Alfaerie PNG piece sets) the Woody Rook labelled as 'Warmachinewazir' (one word). So it seems at least some people/sources somewhere use Warmachine (i.e. War Machine!?) just to refer to the Dabbabah piece type.

I now have replaced the Slip Queen by a (modified) Champion, and I feel quite happy about it. The Champion is a much less outlandish piece. By replacing only its A move by a non-capturing ride it still has enough defensive power left to not bias the game much more in favor of the attacker as it already was. And it has two forward rides, like all other modified leapers. So it perfectly fits in. It provides a good orthogonal counterpart for the Elephant, and its move is quite different from any of the other pieces. The value according to the Diagram's heuristic is only slightly below the a Rook, not really altering the value spectrum.

I am searching for a good name of this type of leaper modification, where you replace capture on its own half by riding. Perhaps 'flash leaper'? 

Rules question: How do moves across the mid-line of the board work? Can a knight on f6 capture on g8 or must it enter the other half of the board as a non-capturing knightrider? If the latter, can it move as far forward as as empty squares allow, or can it only take a single knight leap?

I'm assuming cross the mid-line as a non-capturing knightrider and go as far as you can, but I'm not certain that's correct. Clarification appreciated.

It depends on where the pieces start their move. So a white Knight on a1 can move to e9 (provided b3, c5, d7 and e9 are all empty), and from f6 it cannot capture to g8, while from f7 it can capture to g5. I thought this was clear from the expression 'when in stands on its own board half', but I will make it more explicit.

Thank you for the clarification. It's obvious in the interactive diagram. Likely on the wording of the rules as given, but capable of being misundertood.

Now I'm certain this is the rule, let me give the game an excellent. The slashing rider moves deep into enemy territory and the defense against such should be a thing of beauty.

I echo Michael's sentiment; I think this may be a future Featured Variant.

Those "slashing riders"* are indeed quite interesting. Do their single-step moves capture only the King? (I've never quite understood the k modifier, and I guess now's my chance!)

*That's an interesting term. Has it been used before? If not, I hope it catches on, for any sort of XmXX piece.

From their own board half they either ride to an empty square, or capture the King with a single leap. The k means capture of a King (originally introduced for describing the Xiangqi ban on King facing as a kR move on the Kings). Because it would be meaningless to use in in combination with c, which means capture anything, which aleady includes King, it was later decided to have the combination of k and c mean capture anything but King.

I added this possibility to check because of Adam's remark that it would be difficult to checkmate a King that took refuge on the enemy board half without it.

I coined the term 'flash leaper' inspired by the term 'flash mob', a crowd that seems to assemble from nowhere, under social-media guidance.

An excellent experimental variant. Need I say any more about a concept so simple and brilliant that it works with any practically any board with an even number of ranks, and with odd numbers of ranks with some adjustment?

The author, H. G. Muller, has updated this page.