Teutonic Knight's Chess

Teutonic Knight's Chess (in german: Ordensritterschach) features some rarely used pieces on an oblong board with 8 files and 10 ranks. The team is build around the Teutonic Knight (Ordensritter) who combines the moves of Wasir, Knight, and Camel (WNL in Ralph Betza's Funny Notation).

Setup

Back ranks:

In the files a and h are the FIDE chess Rooks, in files b and g are the Teutonic Knights (Ordensritter), in files c and f are Dragon Horses (crowned bishops, WB), in file d is the Archchancellor (crowned chancellor, FNR) and in file e is the FIDE chess King.

In the variant with Crown Princesses, the Dragon Horses on files c and f are replaced by Crown Princesses.

There is one rank of pawns, as in FIDE chess.

Pieces

The Teutonic Knight (Ordensritter) combines the moves of Wasir, Knight, and Camel. It can be seen as an augmented Gnu (NL) or as an augmented Marquis (WN).

The Dragon Horse (Drachenpferd) is the promoted bishop from Shogi. In addition to the bishop's move it can also move as a Wasir one step orthogonally. It is no longer colourbound.

The Crown Princess (Kronprinzessin) is a crowned Bishop-Knight compound known as princess to problemists and under many names to chess variant enthusiasts. It can move as a Wazir, a Bishop, or a Knight (WBN).

The Archchancellor (Erzkanzler) is an improved chancellor. It can move as a Rook, as a Knight, or as a Ferz.

The Pawns are the same as in FIDE chess with the following exceptions: In their first move, they can take a single step, a double step, or a triple step. A Pawn who has advanced only one rank may also use the double step. Capturing en passant is possible.

Rules

The aim of the game is to checkmate the opponent's King. If not otherwise stated, the usual rules of chess apply.

Pawns promote on the last rank to any piece in the initial setup.

I borrow the stalemate rule from the Duke of Rutland's Chess that you loose the game if you carelessly stalemate your opponent.

Notes

This chess variant is built around a new piece, the Teutonic Knight. As far as I know, it is not named before. I conceived this piece while thinking about the Rhino. The Teutonic Knight is a jumping Rhino restricted to three steps. Since the Teutonic Knight is not colourswitching, the bishops should no longer be colourbound, therefore I choose the Dragon Horse in the bishop's position. As a queen I also wanted some fresh and rarely seen piece. I choose the Archchancellor, which was described before. German problemists know this piece under the name Krake (octopus), it also occurs in Pocket Mutation Chess as Superchancellor. I choose the name Archchancellor because it fits into the context of the holy roman empire. The Crown Princess also occurs in Pocket Mutation Chess as Supercardinal.

Charles Gilman has informed me that he has proposed the name Archchancellor for the same piece here. His inspiration comes from Terry Pratchett's Diskworld. Another allusion I was not aware of.

The Colonel of the Nutty Knights army im Chess with different armies can also be described as a Charging Archchancellor, moving forwards and sidewards as an Archchancellor and backwards as a King.

Because the power of the pieces is increased compared to FIDE chess, I made the board longer.

Playtesting shows that there is an interesting tactical tension between the Teutonic Knight and the Archchancellor, because the latter lacks the camel move. Rooks and Dragon Horses are the weakest pieces in this game of about equal value. I found that having a pair of Rooks is worth more than just the value of one rook doubled.

The Archchancellor can force a mate without an assisting piece. Once it can attack an improperly defended King the game is quickly over.

The Teutonic Knight is very mobile on the board and a valuable piece. A King and a Teutonic Knight can mate a lone King.

The Crown Princess is a very strong piece comparable to the Archchancellor. However, she cannot force mate unassisted.

This 'user submitted' page is a collaboration between the posting user and the Chess Variant Pages. Registered contributors to the Chess Variant Pages have the ability to post their own works, subject to review and editing by the Chess Variant Pages Editorial Staff.

By Jörg Knappen.
Web page created: 2009-11-19. Web page last updated: 2009-11-19

Comments

Teutonic Knight's Chess. Played on an oblong board with rarely used pieces: The teutonic knight, the archchancellor and the crown princess. (8x10, Cells: 80)

💡📝Jörg Knappen wrote on Sun, Oct 29, 2023 05:31 PM EDT in reply to HaruN Y from 02:20 AM:

@HaruN Y: Thanks for the interactive diagram here and for Zabel Chess.

HaruN Y wrote on Sun, Oct 29, 2023 02:20 AM EDT:

files=8 ranks=10 promoZone=1 promoChoice=RTHC graphicsDir=/cgi-bin/fen2.php?s=50&w=00ecff&b=0000dd&p= squareSize=50 graphicsType= rimColor=#000000 darkShade=#dd0000 lightShade=#ffce00 coordColor=#ffffff borders=0 firstRank=1 pawn:P:fmW*fceF:pawn:a2,b2,c2,d2,e2,f2,g2,h2,,a9,b9,c9,d9,e9,f9,g9,h9 rook:R:R:rook:a1,h1,,a10,h10 teutonic knight:T:WNL:wildebeestwazir:b1,g1,,b10,g10 dragon horse:H:BW:promotedbishop:c1,f1,,c10,f10 kraken:C:KRN:chancellorferz:d1,,d10 king:K:KisO2:king:e1,,e10

Bob Greenwade wrote on Wed, Sep 27, 2023 10:00 PM EDT:

I was looking for a good way to expand the Knight for Vanguard Chess, I've decided to use the Teutonic Knight.

Piece-nik that I am, though, I also wanted a good FNZ piece to go with it, which I decided to name Calatravan Knight (because Hospitaller and Templar were taken, and the Order of St. James didn't lend itself well as a piece name).

💡📝Jörg Knappen wrote on Mon, Feb 8, 2010 05:15 PM EST:

Yes, it is. Currently I think that the Chancellor/Marshall is somewhat (maybe 0.5 pawn units) weaker than the Queen. The Fers move adds about 1.5 pawn units of strength, plus another 0.5 pawn units for curing the specific weakness of the Chancellor/Marshall, leaving the Archchanchellor at about 1.5 pawns stronger than the Queen. This difference should be noticeable during the game, but it is probably not enough to decide the pawnless endgame K+Archchancellor vs. K+Q in favour to the Archchancellor.

Note that this comparison is made for the 8x8 board. On larger boards the Queen gains strength compared to the Archchancellor because all her moves are long-range, but most of his moves are short-range.

The specific weakness of the Chancellor/Marshall is that the King can directly attack it. Thus adding a move-only Fers to it does not cure this weakness. But adding it may equalise the Chancellor with the Queen (on 8x8, of course).

Charles Gilman wrote on Mon, Feb 8, 2010 02:47 AM EST:

It occurs to me that the Archchancellor is almost certainly stronger than the FIDE Queen, as the standard Chancellor/Marshal is generally judged very nearly as strong as the Queen and this piece adds in the Ferz move. I wonder how much stronger. Having recently been looking into Ajax pieces I also wonder how much the intermediate addition of only the noncapturing Ferz move strengthen the Chancellor/Marshal compared to the Queen.

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