Comments by JorgKnappen

I don't understand how you derived the number 6 for the Spearman. In fact,
it has no backwards capture move and once the opposing King has broken the
line of Spearmen, no number of them can mate.

Maybe you want to say that a fox-and-geese style game with 6 Spearmen and a
King vs. a lone King from some initial position is won, but this something
very different.

The idea of a re-charging piece is hidden in the Nutty Knights army from
Ralph Betza's Chess with different armies. The charging pieces there have
many forward moves, but very poor retreating moves.

A re-charging piece turns 180 degrees upon reaching the 8th rank, and
another 180 degrees upon reaching the first rank again. A Charging Rook,
e.g., becomes a Reverse Charging Rook, moving forward as a King and
backward and sideward as a Rook and the 8th rank. On promoting a pawn, you
get a re-charged piece with full retreating power and poor forwardness.

I wonder how much this change would power-up the Nutty Knights.

One can also imagine re-charging pawns, walking up and down as pawns with
no hope for promotion ...

For the physical representation, balck and white Shogi-style pieces may
work fine where colour indicates the ownership of the piece and direction
the charged state.

Hi George,

I think the mating number of the quintessence is 2. Even a single
quintessence comes very close to a mate, but it cannot strike the final
blow to the enclosed King.

Ralph Betza gauges his armies based on play between humans, this is an important point. Human chess masters play the FIDEs much better than the different armies, therefore there FIDEs have a bonus, and the unusual pieces have a malus. Thus Ralphs estimates are still valid for human players, unless we have grandmasters of Chess with different armies.

As far as I can see, the name 'vicount' (without an s) is indeed Peter Aronson's invention. The piece itself is absent from Derzhanski's list ( http://www.chessvariants.org/piececlopedia.dir/whos-who-on-8x8.html ) and from Töws' Generic chess piiece creation system ( http://www.chessvariants.org/unequal.dir/genericchesssystem.html ). I recommend a look into the latter for some other names for rarely used pieces like Boxer (Commoner + Beaver) or Foursquare (FNLJG in Betza notation, L is Camel, J is Antelope, and G is Tripper).

Derzhanski's list also gives sources to games, Töws obviously draws from similar sources, but does not give them.

Hi, Charles, I think you are supposed to follow the link and undergo the 'purchase' procedure, as there is currently a special offer at $0.00 for this nice chess variant.

There is far too much in it to summarise it here in a comment. There are 6 different armies (one of them the FIDEs), and each of the new armies is equipped with 'mutators' (as George terms it) that still feel fresh and unusual. 

Besides the new armies, the general rules are extended by new ways of winning the game, bringing down the number of draws, and duelling (introducing a poker-style element). So Chess 2 is different even with FIDE vs. FIDE armies.

This is a double excellent for this game.

The first excellent goes to Hans for digging this game out and posting it here.

The second goes to the game design: The inventor has really thought hard of the initial position, and it makes a fine game. There is a lot of tactical tension in the setup, but there are no obvious exploits. Great game!

Finally I found a work-around that allows me to update the information here, editing in the missing user name to submission form. The forward Ferz move is now added to the Colonel, as it should be.

The piece I inadvertedly created, the Charging Chancellor, may also be of the right strength to tone the Nutty Nights down. An army with srunken Nights and Charging Chancellor together will probably already being on the weak side, but inside the error margin of my estimates.

Grandmasters of the Nutty Nights may prefer this very weak version.