Revisions

Another new unofficial army for Chess with Different Armies, the Starbound Sliders are a different take on a Rook-based army. While the Remarkable Rookies focus on the orthogonal nature of the Rook's moves, the Starbound Sliders' moves take inspiration from the Rook's strengths: infinite range and not being colorbound. However, they also inherit the Rook's inability to jump.

Setup

In this setup, white is playing with the Fabulous FIDEs, and black is playing with the Starbound Sliders

Pieces

In place of the Rooks, there are Stars. They move forwards or sideways like Rooks, but backwards like Bishops.
Funny notation: fsRbB.
Text notation: ST

In place of the Knights, there are Lancers. They move like Kings, but they can also go forward as far as they like, like the Lance.
Funny notation: KfR.
Text notation: LK

In place of the Bishops, there are Sideriders. They move sideways like Rooks, backwards like Bishops, or 1 square diagonally forward.
Funny notation: FsRbB.
Text notation: SR

The Queen already fits the theme of unlimited range peices that aren't colorbound, so she is unchanged.
Funny notation: RB
Text notation: Q

Rules

Notes

Much like the Rook itself, the Starbound Sliders are weak in the opening but strong in the endgame. Defence and trading is the name of the game here!

The Star is very similar to the Rook in properties, purpose and value. The backwards bishop moves make it slightly better at retreating, at the cost of being unable to go straight back home after an opportunistic forward move.

The Lancer is quite strong as far as minor pieces go. It can protect the centre using its King moves once it gets there (though this does take a while from b8 and g8), but its main ability is that it is by far the best pawn escort of all the minor pieces. If you can put a lance behind a passed pawn, your opponent is in trouble!

The Siderider is very slow to develop, as it can only go forward one square at a time. When close to home, the poor thing is only barely stronger than a Ferz! However, once it gets to the other side of the board, it becomes as strong as a Star (though at that point you may as well push a pawn instead). It's ability to defend an entire rank as a minor piece also makes it reasonably useful on defence, which is vital on a team as slow as this one.

Total: 32
This makes the Starbound Sliders only just stronger than the Fabulous FIDEs but a fair bit weaker than the Nutty Knights.

As this army is very slow to develop, armies that can make attacks quickly like the Fabulous FIDEs may have a slight advantage while armies that have a lot of short range pieces like the Remarkable Rookies may struggle.

If the Starbound Sliders are weaker than I thought they'd be, they can be made stronger by swapping the politions of the lancers and the sideriders. This allows the sideriders to get to the edge of the board where they are safer and have more defensive utility, and puts the lancers in prime position to attack the centre. This variation should be referred to as the "Super Starbound Sliders"

On the other hand, if the Starbound Sliders are too strong, then the sideriders can be downgraded to side movers (WsR) as found in Chu Shogi. This would make them even more slow to develop, and makes them unable to retreat quickly as well. This army should be called the Suppressed Starbound Sliders.

Additionally, you could combine these balance adjustments to make the lancers more able to attack the centre while also having weak side movers. This should be called the Speedy Starbound Sliders.

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The Starbound Sliders

Setup

Pieces

Rules

Notes

Revisions of MSthe-starbound-sliders