Check out Janggi (Korean Chess), our featured variant for December, 2024.

Enter Your Reply

The Comment You're Replying To
Bob Greenwade wrote on Sun, Jul 30, 2023 03:54 PM UTC:

13. Bodyguard. Rather than an original or recently-invented piece, this time I'm presenting a particularly little-seen -- and, in my opinion, underused and underrated -- historical piece. The Bodyguard (which I've also seen spelled Bodygard) comes from the Mongolian game of Hiashatar, where it's known as the Hia (pronounced HEE-ah).

The Bodyguard can move one or two spaces in any direction, orthogonal or diagonal. It also has a "Hia power": Any slider that enters any adjacent space, or is in an adjacent space when the Bodyguard moves, is immediately stopped, and can only move one space while in that zone. Leaping moves are not affected by this.

The Betza for the basic move is, of course, Q2; encoding an Interactive Diagram with the Hia power would probably require a variation on spell=brake.

My physical design is intended to be reminiscient of traditional Mongolian soldiers' hats, recognizing the piece's origin (though admittedly the resemblance is a stretch).

If I were going to add (yet) another piece to Vanguard Chess, this would probably be the one. Also, it'd be a rather interesting piece to bring to Pick-the-team Chess (variant two), or to include in any game with move-borrowing that includes borrowing special properties.


Edit Form

Comment on the page Bob Greenwade

Conduct Guidelines
This is a Chess variants website, not a general forum.
Please limit your comments to Chess variants or the operation of this site.
Keep this website a safe space for Chess variant hobbyists of all stripes.
Because we want people to feel comfortable here no matter what their political or religious beliefs might be, we ask you to avoid discussing politics, religion, or other controversial subjects here. No matter how passionately you feel about any of these subjects, just take it someplace else.
Avoid Inflammatory Comments
If you are feeling anger, keep it to yourself until you calm down. Avoid insulting, blaming, or attacking someone you are angry with. Focus criticisms on ideas rather than people, and understand that criticisms of your ideas are not personal attacks and do not justify an inflammatory response.
Quick Markdown Guide

By default, new comments may be entered as Markdown, simple markup syntax designed to be readable and not look like markup. Comments stored as Markdown will be converted to HTML by Parsedown before displaying them. This follows the Github Flavored Markdown Spec with support for Markdown Extra. For a good overview of Markdown in general, check out the Markdown Guide. Here is a quick comparison of some commonly used Markdown with the rendered result:

Top level header: <H1>

Block quote

Second paragraph in block quote

First Paragraph of response. Italics, bold, and bold italics.

Second Paragraph after blank line. Here is some HTML code mixed in with the Markdown, and here is the same <U>HTML code</U> enclosed by backticks.

Secondary Header: <H2>

  • Unordered list item
  • Second unordered list item
  • New unordered list
    • Nested list item

Third Level header <H3>

  1. An ordered list item.
  2. A second ordered list item with the same number.
  3. A third ordered list item.
Here is some preformatted text.
  This line begins with some indentation.
    This begins with even more indentation.
And this line has no indentation.

Alt text for a graphic image

A definition list
A list of terms, each with one or more definitions following it.
An HTML construct using the tags <DL>, <DT> and <DD>.
A term
Its definition after a colon.
A second definition.
A third definition.
Another term following a blank line
The definition of that term.