H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Jan 6, 2018 09:49 AM EST:
True, 10x8 boards have their attractions. Main disadvantage is that they are difficult to come by, as physical rather than virtual entities. Alteratives are Seirawan gating or Musketeer gating (new pieces can appear on a square evacuated by a virgin piece in the same move), or Gustavian boards (just adding two extra squares on each back-rank). I have also seen gating by Pawn pushing (i.e. a piece appearing on the square behind the one evacuated by a virgin Pawn), or dropping on the back rank as a separate turn.
But for Chess with Different armies there is no need to play with armies of 10 (non-Pawn) pieces rather than 8. Most armies consist entirely of exotic pieces already, the whole idea was to do away with all orthodox pieces other than King. So the specific virtue of a 10x8 board would not be used at all. So the question is just whether you want the game to be larger or smaller. And the more pieces each army has, the fewer different armies you can make without reusing the same pieces. So it seems the cons outweigh the pros.
True, 10x8 boards have their attractions. Main disadvantage is that they are difficult to come by, as physical rather than virtual entities. Alteratives are Seirawan gating or Musketeer gating (new pieces can appear on a square evacuated by a virgin piece in the same move), or Gustavian boards (just adding two extra squares on each back-rank). I have also seen gating by Pawn pushing (i.e. a piece appearing on the square behind the one evacuated by a virgin Pawn), or dropping on the back rank as a separate turn.
But for Chess with Different armies there is no need to play with armies of 10 (non-Pawn) pieces rather than 8. Most armies consist entirely of exotic pieces already, the whole idea was to do away with all orthodox pieces other than King. So the specific virtue of a 10x8 board would not be used at all. So the question is just whether you want the game to be larger or smaller. And the more pieces each army has, the fewer different armies you can make without reusing the same pieces. So it seems the cons outweigh the pros.