English Chess Forum

If you could invent a new piece with the combinational moves of 2 other pieces, what would you choose?


Eg, a piece that can move like a Knight and Bishop, or a Rook and pawn. Obviously the strongest one would be Queen and Knight but I was looking for more obscure combinations.

Combining a Queen and pawn would but fun. You would rarely use either en passant or under promotion, but when you did it would surprise the opponent.
What would be the rule for castling a Queen/Rook combined piece?
Queen and King would be my choice though. It would only be a slight change in the rules but it might control some juniors - since you could not place the piece where it would be threatened, nor could it be taken.

Haha the piece can be taken. I meant the actually how it moves you are comparing it i.e. so a if it moves like a king it can still be taken. So a bishop and a king would be a piece that can move as many squares on as it wants to along the diagonal also move one square like a rook.

(2,1) (== knight) and (3,1) leaper combined. Tremendous fun and not actually too overpowered either. Well maybe in blitz - forks!

(2,1) leaper and bishop is a nice piece too. Throw in the (3,1) leaper while you're at it and its a wonderfully odd piece but manageable too.

Knight + (1,0) + (1,1) leaper makes a brilliantly 'solid' sort of a piece Not sure if its better than a rook or not - tremendous at doing some things, still quite slow.

One interesting one is bishop + (1,0) leaper. How does that compare to a rook? Should be roughly equal.

what's a leaper?

What about some sort of circular moving piece - that would make things interesting without being too similar to what we already have.

Vector to define the move pattern then mover if it just moves there, or leaper if it goes over other pieces on the way. Then you need something to represent line movers of course. I guess (n,0) and (n,n) are the obvious two.

Then there's truly odd stuff like cannons from Chinese chess - move like rook, capture by jumping over one opposition piece to take the next in a row; combine with a normal rook capture for amusing checkmating power! Also the lion(?) from some huge board shogi variant. Takes *two moves* every move, each like a king. Think only allowed one capture a turn, but its still an utterly monstrous piece.
(Well pedantically like a (1,0)/(1,1) step mover, which is what a king is.).

Some of us have computer printed out western shogi style sets to allow for toying with such things Obvious generalisations to 3D. For some odd reason most 3D chess variants seem to stick with line movers, which makes mating the kings incredibly hard. Needs some plane movers! (n,m,0) say.

Combine the King with the movement of a Knight, then see how long it takes to mate the little swine!

the king and rook would be a rook that can move one square diagonally. not a bad piece

Ray Sayers wrote:Combine the King with the movement of a Knight, then see how long it takes to mate the little swine!

If I remember correctly in Indian chess the king is allowed to move like a knight but only once. I think this is designed as a substitute for castling.

I suspect the fairy chess composers had this thread cracked well before many forumites were born.

As they say, "there's nothing new under the sun".

I have a vague memory of a variant where when capturing a piece takes on the property of the piece it captures, which must make for some interesting strategic decisions not to capture certain pieces.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_chess_piece

The difficulty is usually:

(a) Finding someone willing to play variant chess games; and
(b) Finding a variant that is any good (often they are too complicated or too unbalanced).

One of my favourites (but maybe a bit too complicated) is Alice chess:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_chess

Rook & bishop.

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:I have a vague memory of a variant where when capturing a piece takes on the property of the piece it captures, which must make for some interesting strategic decisions not to capture certain pieces.

Perhaps you're thinking of the Chameleon in Baroque Chess (aka "Ultima"), invented by Robert Abbott in 1962.

I played Ultima a few times at university, but found the rules too difficult to remember, and I'm sure my opponents misinterpreted them as well now and then. It used a normal Staunton set on an 8x8 board, but every piece employed a different method of capture, from the simple replacement used in regular chess, through hopping over as in draughts, to more recondite manoeuvres like "bracketing" (placing two of your men, one either side of the hostile one). The Chameleon used the method of capture of whatever piece it was taking. (Thus, of course, no Chameleon could ever capture an enemy Chameleon.)

To return to the original question posed in this thread. I like both the suggestions that combine the king's move with that of a longer-range piece, either rook or bishop (not both). Also some of the others suggested here. My only criterion would be that the new piece not be capable of delivering mate on its own, as the (B+N) one could. That seems to me to violate one of the essential principles of chess, that it rewards skill in co-ordinating your men.

Dunno. Takes quite some cooperation to get solo mated by just a bishop/knight combination. For that matter can you even mate with K & (B+N combo) vs K? At a quick look I don't see how you can. Its trivial if you give it the 1,0 step mover moves of course. I do like that piece as an option vs a queen.

It isn't entirely trivial to do even with a bishop + knight + 3,1 leaper combo - I can remember working that one out.

If anyone wants different pieces in a very balanced/effective combination then Shogi is very reccomendable. Lots of little step (one square at a time) movers.