Warmachinewazir-Spiel

Warmachinewazir-Spiel is one of my ideas for an alternative version of Courier-Spiel, both being played on a 12x8 board. In this case, pawns behave even more like in standard chess, and two warmachinewazirs are substituted for the elephant-like pieces in each army, with an additionally altered setup. Plus, different castling rules are preferred. Note that after a bit of moving pieces around, starting from one setup I tried for this variant, I began to realize it might be a good idea to use Reverse Symmetry for the setup, and that is how the game's final setup came to be.

A preset for play on Game Courier is available: Warmachinewazir-Spiel

Setup

Pieces

Warmachinewazir-Spiel uses the 6 piece types of standard chess, plus 3 unorthodox piece types:

A Warmachinewazir - also known as a Woody Rook; it moves like a wazir (moves one step orthogonally, i.e. by rank or file) or like a dabbabah (leaps two squares orthogonally).

A Guard - also known as a Man; it moves like a king (but unaffected by check).

A Centaur moves like a knight or guard.

Rules

Warmachinewazir-Spiel follows the rules of chess, except where noted below.

The castling rules for Warmachinewazir-Spiel are as follows: A king that has never moved, and is not in check, can 'leap' once a game, along the first rank, to any unattacked empty square between it and an unmoved rook, followed by said rook 'leaping' to the king's initial square so as to complete castling in one single move. It does not matter if any squares in between are occupied or under attack.

Threefold repetition of position or stalemate is a draw as in standard chess, and the 50 move rule is also in effect in Warmachinewazir-Spiel (i.e. game drawn if no captures or pawn moves have been made before 50 consecutive moves by both sides). Pawns move as in chess, and can promote to any piece type included in the setup, except for a king.

Last revised by Kevin Pacey.