Fleap
Introduction
Fleap is my first entry to the 43 square challenge. I like the Equihopper a lot (but can't find many variants that use it) so I decided to use variations of it in my entry. The game is played with flat, Shogi-like tokens, with an Equihopper-type piece on top and a normal Chess piece on bottom.
Rule 0: Same as FIDE chess, except for the following:Setup
Pieces
The piece before the slash is the piece
showing at the beginning, the piece after the slash is the piece on the
flipside of that piece.
Equihopper/Pawn.
(no 2 step or en passant)
Non-Stop
Equihopper/Knight.
Ballista/Bishop. The Ballista moves w/o capture as a 2
square queen. It rifle-captures as an Equihopper. The Ballista is the
only piece that can launch the Nuke.
EquiRepeater/Rook. The EquiRepeater moves/captures like an
Equihopper, but may continue one square in the same direction and
distance (if the first square was empty).
Fore'n'aft/King. The Fore'n'aft, a non-royal piece, moves
like an Equihopper. However, it can also move to the square that the
target piece would go if it equihopped him.Rules
Object: Capture one of the opponent's kings. Pawns can promote to kings, so I put "one of the" in there. Nukes: The Ballista may
drop a Nuke (if you have one) on any square that it can capture at. A
Nuke destroys the piece on the target square, any pieces adjacent to it
(white or black), and it leaves a crater where the square itself used
to be. Each side gets one Nuke, but capturing the opponent's Ballista
gives you their Nuke unless they have used it already. A Pawn that
promotes to a Ballista gains a Nuke for its side. Runners cannot cross
craters, but leapers may. A piece whose home square is destroyed treats
it as if it is occupied.
Capture: Captured Equihopper-type pieces go back to their owner, are
flipped, and then are immediately placed on their home square. Pawns go
anywhere on their row. A piece whose home square is occupied must be
placed anywhere on the first two rows. If there are no free spaces, the
piece is held until one is. Captured FIDE pieces are removed from the
game.
Promotion: Pawns (not Equihoppers) promote upon reaching the opponent's
Pawn row. Pawns can promote to any piece, but promoted pieces do not
return or flip when captured.
Notes
Notation: Only a few special cases. For replacement, do it like P>b2,e3xc3 (Pawn is placed on b2, then your piece on e3 captures something on c3) or whatever your personal situation is. Nuke launches are like Bxxc4,xc3,e5,b4,c4 (Ballista nukes c4, removing c4 and capturing the pieces on c3,e5,b4,and c4).Inspiration: the Equihopper, Ralph Betza's Chess with Different Armies for the idea of a themed team, Clockwork Orange chess for the "Returned but different" idea, Shogi for the flippability, and my twisted imagination.
Name: "Fleap"="Flip"+"Leap". I could have called it "Flop"("Flip"+"Hop"), but I was afraid that it would turn out to be too prophetic.