Comments by BobGreenwade

Re: The Hangman's move: My intention is that the capture is optional. So it seems that mKmcoabafKdaubafK would be the way to go.

Based on my experience with PLA wire, I think this piece will need many supports, to be removed after printing. The piece itself looks very fragile, I would even expect it breaks when you will remove the supports. Or later on, when using it or in its storage box. Just saying.

It might. But I do have another (completely unrelated) print with a part that thin that lasted 3 years before breaking, and that's just one of five.

As for supports, I'd assume that such would be needed. I'd recommend using tree supports, even though it'd require more support material. And, if possible, using specialized support filament.

And the knot leaves much to be desired. This is not how you would make a noose.

I call this the Department of Whatcha Gonna Do. It was the best I could find. (That said, I may update it later after making my own... though I have little confidence in that.)

This reminds me of the piece (or actually a family of pieces) that used to be called Rhino, before  people started to use that symbol and name for the W-then-B. This differs from your Zip by already bending after the first step. (Which is actually more regular; the path you indicate bends at every step except the first.)

It's a little like those, yes; I had similar thoughts, though really I think it's closer to [W?nNN] -- a variation on the modern Rhino. The difference from that is that the Zip's moves are strictly defined, and it can stop halfway through a Knight's leap.

It's that extra orthogonal move at the start that makes this piece distinctive. I do think that it would be an interesting piece to see running around the board.

By "invert," do you mean to flip it over top-to-bottom?

I'm not sure about making it fewer zig-zags; there's a lot of complicated stuff that would be involved with not just taking out the third (that's a stock lightning bolt, not homemade), but also making sure the piece has the appropriate height and diameter.

I don't know about all; it's true that many of the pieces I'm building and putting on Thingiverse are merely proposals (the Gerbil and Anteater are among those, as is the piece that I'll be putting up here in a few minutes). But most of them I do want to build, especially those for Vanguard, Aquachess, and a couple other variants I'm doing (my huge project, plus variants based on Clue and Winnie the Pooh). Before I can do that, though, I'll need to either fix my printer or hire someone like makexyz.

And yeah, removing a portion of the lightning bolt wouldn't actually be terribly complicated; I overstated the matter. It mainly depends on what Lev actually wants.

12. Thunder. This is the best I could figure out from the Thunderer in Charles Gilman's Man and Beast articles, which is listed as a square-board piece even though one of the pieces that combine for it (the Tradewind) is one of his cubic/hex-prism pieces. I'm mainly guessing at his intent here, but I do find it interesting.

The Thunder, to start with, has all the moves of the Queen and Nightrider. It also can leap two spaces orthogonally or diagonally, and then may turn 45 degrees to move outward like a Bishop or Rook (respectively).

This is an extraordinarily powerful piece; see how it utterly dominates even this 15x15 board? Only the threat of capture can restrain it once it's in the field.

One way to restrain it would be to make it a promotion-only piece, and given that yesterday's Zip is also called Lightning, it seems like a logical candidate for what it could promote from. (In fact, it was putting up the Zip that led me to do this one today.)

I actually built this originally just as a private joke, and hadn't even intended to put it on Thingiverse until I saw what the move looked like; I put it there more for that than anything else. Despite its being overwhelmingly powerful, the move diagram has an interesting symmetry.

It also occurred to me that one could use this as the starting point for a chess variant with the potential for being truly (ahem) marvelous.

If you need it, I can make it for you

Who was this directed toward?

"Do" would have created the same confusion in me (and me being on the autism spectrum is just as much a contributor as language). "Build" or "draw" would've been clearer, or at least less likely to bring confusion.

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.

14. Thoroughbred. This is a simple combination (2,5)(3,5) leaper (AXCY), so named because it passes the Knight on either side while going nearly twice as fast. (In some games, it could also be called a Racehorse.)

I haven't bothered making a move diagram for this one, mostly because it's so simple.

This is the first in a group of three. The third one (Wednesday) is the piece I actually want to share (and, hopefully, use); today's and tomorrow's, though not exactly useless, are mostly just building the context.

You can make the joint 2 times stronger.

Here that is.

Maybe I'm wrong with asking for inverting it; that would be challenging for the skies; so lightning normally goes not into, but from it.

That was my point of hesitation on that part. But I think what I have here should serve your purposes.

Well, then, there's this:

The connection is now 5.5mm wide, and that by 10mm long should hold through any but the worst handling.

Yeah, that's why I supported in principle. And I think the policy should be exactly as you just described.