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This page is written by the game's inventor, Andrew L Smith.

12 Augmenters Chess

This was inspired by Ralph Betza's Augmented Chess, but I figured I could be a bit more adventurous with the pieces. I liked how the Fibnif is a basic piece in Augmented Chess even though it's a combination of two augmenters and thought "hang on, can't I do that with any 2 augmenters to make a piece out of 3 augmenters", which birthed the idea of the Corps. After combining this with enough new augmenters to allow every piece to be different (rather than giving both copies of the same piece the same augmenter) I had something pretty different to the original on my hands!

Setup

Pieces

The main pieces

The Pawn, Bishop, Rook and King all move as they do in regular chess. Pawns cannot hold any augmenters, while Bishops, Rooks and the King hold one augmenter each.

The Corps (in place of the Knights) cannot move on its own. However, it holds 3 augmenters.

The Regent (in place of the Queen) is a stronger version of the Corps. It holds one augmenter, and two out of three of the following base pieces: Bishop, KnightRook.

Finally, pawns promote to Amazons, which combine the Bishop, Knight and Rook but still do not hold any augmenters.

The Augmenters

The augmenters can be split into four categories: Queen line leapers, which move a fixed number of spaces orthogonally or diagonally; half-knights, which have four of the eight Knight moves; partial rooks, which move an unlimited distance but can only go in one direction; and the grasshopper which is in a category of its own.

Since there are six non-Corps pieces that require one augmenter each and two Corps that require three augmenters each, all 12 augmenters will be used exactly once in the army.

Queen Line Leapers

Half-Knight

Partial Rooks

Grasshopper

Rules

Setup Phase

Before the pieces start moving, each side must finish setting up their army. This happens in 5 stages:

  1. White chooses the two base pieces to place in their regent.
  2. Black chooses the two base pieces to place in their regent.
  3. If time control is being used, the clock starts ticking now.
  4. White places their 12 augmenters on their pieces.
  5. Black places their 12 augmenters on their pieces.

Now, white is ready to play the first move.

Gameplay phase

The rules are the same as those of regular Chess unless stated otherwise.

Each piece can move using its own basic capabilities or those of the augmenter(s) it has. For example: a Rook with a Ferz as its augmenter would be able to move any distance orthogonally or 1 space diagonally; and a corps with the Wazir, Dabbabah and Threeleaper would be able to move up to three spaces orthogonally, jumping over any pieces in its way.

If the Kings have different augmenters, they can use those augmenters to check each-other.

The King can use his augmenter to get out of check, and a King with a Partial Rook augmenter can move through check as long as his destination is safe. However, all the usual restrictions on castling (except the requirement to only use one hand, see below) still apply.

If a King is using the Dabbabah or the Side-Mover as an augmenter, the player must use both hands to castle by touching the King and Rook at the same time. This is to prevent ambiguity between Kg1 and O-O. If a player using both hands to castle attempts to castle illegally, they may move either the King or the Rook to comply with the touch-move rule. Players may castle with both hands even if they aren't using an augmenter that forces them to.

Upon reaching the opponent's back rank, Pawns must promote to Amazons; they cannot choose to underpromote.

Notes

Equipment

A standard chess set can be used for the base pieces, with paper or cardboard tokens for the 12 augmenters and the 3 base pieces for the Regent to choose from. Blu-tack can be used to stick the augmenter tokens onto the pieces.

Approximate piece values

Like the Knight of regular chess, the Corps should be slightly weaker than the Bishop, but this difference is likely significantly less than a pawn.

Setup strategies

It is ill advised to use an augmenter that can move to squares the piece can already access with its basic capabilities. For example, Rook+Wazir and Rook+Lance gain nothing from their augmenters. While Rook+Dabbabah is not completely useless because of its ability to jump, there are better augmenters for the Rook.

Since the King must be kept safe at all times, a long-range augmenter is helpful to get him out of danger quickly.

Make sure all your pieces can get to anywhere on the board! This isn't a problem for the Rooks, King or Regent but it does cripple some combinations such as Bishop+Dabbabah and Narrow Half Knight+Alfil+Dabbabah.

It's usually best if the Corps and Bishop on the side you plan on castling to can jump over the pawns in front of them. This can allow casting to happen quickly in a pinch.

As White must set up their pieces first, Black can react to White's setup and try to counter any weaknesses.

Regarding the three augmenters that don't go to exactly 4 spaces: the grasshopper is one of the stronger augmenters in the opening and its uniqueness means it can fit on any piece, but it loses its value as pieces get traded and is almost worthless in the endgame. On the other hand, the Side-Mover is incredibly powerful in the endgame (assuming it's on a piece that can move to any rank), but it doesn't provide any forward moves so it's almost useless in the opening. Finally, the Lance is useful in both the opening and the endgame, and its maximum forwardness makes for brutal attakcs, but it also has the lowest mobility of any augmenter.

Here is a sensible setup if you want to get started! It's probably far from optimal, but it follows all the principles I think make for a strong army.

In total, there are almost 40 million possible armies (though the vast majority of these include at least one stupidly placed augmenter and will therefore never get used). This means there are likely thousands of viable armies the players might choose, more than enough to make opening theory impossible.



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 Andrew L Smith.

Last revised by Andrew L Smith.


Web page created: 2021-09-21. Web page last updated: 2021-10-20

Revisions of MS12-augmenters-chess