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So someone else independently came up with the same idea? Hmmm...

Like I said before, it looks like pretty much any simple piece a Chess Variant can have has been thought up before. Maybe it’s time to devote less energy to trying to come up with new pieces and opening setups, and more energy to coming with with ways we can develop opening theory for setups, figuring out how to make a Chess variant that comes as close as possible to having high depth, short games, no draws, and no advantage for the first player (or deciding how important each of these four factors are), and finding ways to come up with opening theory, endgame theory (which pieces can mate the king, etc.), and what not.

I’ve actually been working on opening theory for the one variant I have “officially” invented; White has about a 7% advantage and I’m trying to come up with ways Black can equalize. 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Nb6 equalizes things for Black and Black has a better game after 1. f4 c5; I’ve been spending the last two weeks looking for a good reply to 1. c4 (right now, 1. c4 Mh6 looks like the most equalizing line for Black; 1. c4 e6 is refuted by 2. g4).

I personally think the Rhino makes more sense on a hexagonal board. Here is how a hex-Rhino would move:

. . . . 1 2 . . .
 . . . . 1 . . . .
B C . . 1 2 . . 3
 B B C . 1 . 3 3 4
. . B B 1 2 3 4 . 
 . . . A # 4 . . .
. . A 9 8 6 5 5 .
 A 9 9 . 7 . 6 5 5
9 9 . . 8 7 . . 6 
 . . . . 7 . . . .

Here, we see the hex-Rhino (This may also be considered a hex-crooked-Rook) travels like the usual piece people use as a hex-Bishop, but stops at the squares in between, and can take two paths for each of the six directions it can go in a straight line, resulting in 12 total paths.

Speaking of Hex chess, I never liked the idea of the “bishop” as normally implemented in Hex-chess, nor the knight or the queen.

I used to play hex-based wargames with my dad when I was a kid and, in those games, there is no “diagonal”; the only movement allowed is to one of the six fully adjacent hexes; some pieces could move two, three, or more hexes, but never diagonally.