Hex Dragonal Chess

This variant arose from a discussion initiated by Jeremy Good that can be found here.
A distinguishing feature is the unusual approach to defining directions of movement. This is covered more fully in the notes.

Setup

The board consists of 127 hexes, and each player begins the game with 32 pieces; a piece-density of 50.4%.

Pieces

Name	Icon	Descriptiom
King		Moves 1-step horizontally or diagonally.Â Possible moves are shown in the graphic by a blue dot.Â There is no castling. See under notes for an explanation of the terms for movement directions.
Dragon King		Slides horizontally or vertically, or takes 1-step like a King	the slide component is illustrated in the Queen's Graphic by the green dots
Bishop		Slides duagonally	the diagonal slide is illustrated in the Queen's Graphic by the blue dots
Elephant		Slides obliquely.Â	the oblique slide is illustrated in the Leo's Graphic by the yellow dots
Knight		Leaps 2-steps: the first obliquely or vertically; the second diagonally or horizontally, continuing away from the starting hex.Â Possible moves shown by a blue dot.
Archbishop		Combines Bishop and Knight
Marshall		Slides horizontally or vertically, or makes a Knight's move	the slide component is illustrated in the Queen's Graphic by the green dots
Leo		Slides horizontally,Â vertically, diagonally, or obliquely, but may only capture if leaping another piece, the screen.Â The leap must be over only one piece and the destination cell must be occupied by an enemy piece.
Queen		Slides horizontally,Â vertically, or diagonally
Pawn		May move a single step vertically forward but only if the destination is empty. May move a single step diagonally forward but only if the destination contains an enemy piece. If on or beyond the central rank may move a single step horizonally to the side but only if the destination is empty. There is no double initial move. Promotes on reaching the far-most rank.
Berolina Pawn		May move a single step diagonally forward but only if the destination is empty. May move a single step vertically forward but only if the destination contains an enemy piece. There is no double initial move. Promotes on reaching the far-most rank.

Rules

Apart from piece types, their initial placement, and piece movement (see "Setup" and "Pieces" above), FIDE rules apply.

Notes

Board Directions

These represent my interpretation of the description given by Jeremy Good at the start ofÂ this thread.
They are illustrated in the following graphic

directions

Hex Dragonal G Chess

Adds 2 Great-Grasshoppers, replacing 1 Leo and 1 Pawn.

The initial array becomes:

Name	Icon	Descriptiom
Great-grasshopper		Moves like a Queen, sliding vertically, horizontally or diagonally, but must leap one and only one other piece, the screen, in making its move. May land up to n cells beyond the screen where n was the number of cells it took to reach the screen. Possible moves are shown in the graphic by a blue (non-capturing) or red (capturing) dot.

This 'user submitted' page is a collaboration between the posting user and the Chess Variant Pages. Registered contributors to the Chess Variant Pages have the ability to post their own works, subject to review and editing by the Chess Variant Pages Editorial Staff.

By Graeme C Neatham.
Web page created: 2009-08-02. Web page last updated: 2009-08-02

Comments

Hex Dragonal Chess. Based on an idea by Jeremy Good this CV has horizontal rows of hexes and an unusual set of directions,. (13x13, Cells: 127)

Anonymous wrote on Wed, Jun 2, 2010 09:04 AM EDT:

Something similar was used in this game of 1980:
http://www.pathguy.com/chess/Galaches.htm

Charles Gilman wrote on Thu, Aug 6, 2009 01:59 PM EDT:

I recognise the piece called a 'Rook' here. The idea of a piece moving straight forward/backward/sideways on a hex board was put to me when I claimed that there was 'no piece bound to half a hex board' although the Dabbaba is bound to a quarter of it. I eventually documented it in my piece article Man and Beast 12: Alternative Fronts - you can find it by searching on that page for Moorhen. It is defined by the straightness of the directions (and of up and down on a hex-prism 3d board) regardless of whether they are orthogonal or hex diagonal and whether the orientation is Wellisch, Glinsky, or hex-ranked.

The labels for the directions are somewhat confusing as 'oblique' usually indicates a direction such as that of the FIDE Knight, going through intervening cells off-centredly. A more accurate description for the directions of each colour are forward/backward hex-diagonal, sideways orthogonal, forward/backward orthogonal, and sideways hex-diagonal. The linepieces in these directions I term Unicoranker, Rookfiler, Rookranker, and Unicofiler. These definitions also work on a Glinsky board, but on that it is the first two that have four directions and the second two only two.