Since you more‐or‐less explicitly requested a comment on this from me… :p
It's certainly an interesting take on Random setups, quite different from the in some ways superficially similar Universal Chess due to Carlos Cetina. The main potential weakness compared to sth with a bit more player agency such as Pick‐the‐Team is that you're relying on statistics to yield a more‐or‐less balanced setup; sometimes it'll work, sometimes it really won't. And ofc especially with Different Pawns and Kings it's probably hard for any but the most experienced(!) players to tell in advaance how balanced a given piece selection will be. Obviously the usual strategies (two games, switching armies; optional Pie rule, ⁊c.) can help w/ this to an extent, but it's sth to bear in mind.
I'm not totally sure the ‘Introductory Rule’ is likely to be much help; defending against unfamiliar pieces is at least as difficult as handling them oneself (as I learned playing Metamachy)
Is the Arrow Pawn described as intended? As written it's a superset (which I recognise from JWB's Meta‐Chess, though idr the name and I don't have the PDF to hand) of the steward (which is not denoted as a pawn — though it's of comparable strength to — indeed in some cases perhaps weaker than — some of the other pawns)
Ngl upon reading ‘Gold Pawn’ and ‘Silver Pawn’ I was half‐expecting the Gilman pieces :p Also I like the Zombie Pawn — it's contageon as in Maka Dai Dai (and H.G.'s several spinoffs) but for the opposite purpose
Is there a special rule for castling with a colourbound corner piece, à la CwDA?
It's a small detail, but whilst I'm not normally a fan of the promotion‐only‐to‐captured‐pieces rule, the way it's done here is a nice touch :)
The idea of expansions is pleasant, and perhaps with physical sets (and to a degree with software) even makes sense, but in practice is there any reason not just to pick pieces from e.g. one of the existing Cetina UC lists? At least for regular pieces, since the Royal and Pawn lists for those games are perhaps a little anæmic (though again, one could simply merge the lists). Especially since the main point of this (in common with UC, and arguably Pick‐the‐Piece, among others) is afaict less the actual set of available pieces and more the way they're employed (although ofc the obvious counterargument regarding trying to compile a Canonical List of Pieces is always a thing)
Since you more‐or‐less explicitly requested a comment on this from me… :p
It's certainly an interesting take on Random setups, quite different from the in some ways superficially similar Universal Chess due to Carlos Cetina. The main potential weakness compared to sth with a bit more player agency such as Pick‐the‐Team is that you're relying on statistics to yield a more‐or‐less balanced setup; sometimes it'll work, sometimes it really won't. And ofc especially with Different Pawns and Kings it's probably hard for any but the most experienced(!) players to tell in advaance how balanced a given piece selection will be. Obviously the usual strategies (two games, switching armies; optional Pie rule, ⁊c.) can help w/ this to an extent, but it's sth to bear in mind.
I'm not totally sure the ‘Introductory Rule’ is likely to be much help; defending against unfamiliar pieces is at least as difficult as handling them oneself (as I learned playing Metamachy)
Is the Arrow Pawn described as intended? As written it's a superset (which I recognise from JWB's Meta‐Chess, though idr the name and I don't have the PDF to hand) of the steward (which is not denoted as a pawn — though it's of comparable strength to — indeed in some cases perhaps weaker than — some of the other pawns)
Ngl upon reading ‘Gold Pawn’ and ‘Silver Pawn’ I was half‐expecting the Gilman pieces :p Also I like the Zombie Pawn — it's contageon as in Maka Dai Dai (and H.G.'s several spinoffs) but for the opposite purpose
Is there a special rule for castling with a colourbound corner piece, à la CwDA?
It's a small detail, but whilst I'm not normally a fan of the promotion‐only‐to‐captured‐pieces rule, the way it's done here is a nice touch :)
The idea of expansions is pleasant, and perhaps with physical sets (and to a degree with software) even makes sense, but in practice is there any reason not just to pick pieces from e.g. one of the existing Cetina UC lists? At least for regular pieces, since the Royal and Pawn lists for those games are perhaps a little anæmic (though again, one could simply merge the lists). Especially since the main point of this (in common with UC, and arguably Pick‐the‐Piece, among others) is afaict less the actual set of available pieces and more the way they're employed (although ofc the obvious counterargument regarding trying to compile a Canonical List of Pieces is always a thing)