3D Chess with Different Armies

Unfortunately, not enough is known about the strength of 3D pieces. We cannot yet play 3D Chess with Different Armies with complete confidence that the game starts out even.

However, my best guess is that translating the 2D pieces into 3D usually preserves their relative values fairly well.

The existing two-dimensional armies might not benefit equally from moving into the third dimension, but to a large extent they do seem to be okay. Perhaps 3D Grandmasters would notice the difference, but at lower levels of play the values should be close enough: 3D Colorbound Clobberers versus 3D Fabulous FIDEs should be a fair game.

The 3D abstract-translation fbNF is somewhat weaker than the 3D Knight, but the difference is small and this is only one piece in a larger army; meanwhile, the "upright" 3D fbNF is sure to be as strong as the upright 3D Knight.

The 3D WD is quite an interesting piece. Perhaps two of them can checkmate the bare King (with help from their own King, of course).

The 3D HFD is too strong: as White, its first move threatens three different moves that fork or trap multiple enemy Queens.

The other pieces seem to preserve their relative values.

The 3D Colorbound Clobberers and the 3D Forward FIDEs should be okay, and if you use the upright translation, the Nutty Knights should be nice.

The Remarkable Rookies are too strong in 3D, but only because of the HFD. Try using a BD instead.

Another Thought

Of course, you can also ask if it's boring for each player to have 8 copies of the same army. What if each player had a set of Clobberers on the bottom level, a set of Rookies on the second level, and so on? (Ah, but this is not Chess anymore because it's too hard to coordinate so many different kinds of pieces; let's reserve this for Great Chess.)

A Simple Case

If White uses the Knight from Very 3D Chess and Black uses the Knight from Mixed 3D Chess, the armies are slightly different, and the game is even (White's advantage from the first move may be less than normal).

3D Chess with Different Orientations

If one player sets up with Rooks from 1a1 to 1h1, Knights from 2a1 to 2h1, and so on, and uses rules of motion that are rotated 90 degrees from the other player's rules (for example, using Prone Pawns instead of Upright Pawns), of course the game is still even, and even though both players use the same pieces they use different pieces.