Musketeer chess, Series 2 - an open invitation to playtest some ideas.

2018 is heading for us fast, and with 2018 comes the awaited expansion pack for musketeer chess. Now, some of us have been participating in a thread set up by Dr. Haddad to brainstorm how some of these pieces could move. There's a lot of creative ideas (I mean a LOT), generated by genuine enthusiasm; but, to assure that these pieces are balanced and won't spoil the game's flow, I think a little bit of playtesting between interested players is needed, to see if our ideas work out in practice. Our ideas definitely talk the talk - but do they walk the walk?

Hence the title of this thread. I propose this thread as an open invitation for anyone to playtest with me some of the new musketeer pieces that I have suggested. For these movement patterns to be accepted as truly worthy of fitting the pieces they're assigned, they need to be playtested to see how they hold up against the current piece roster.

With this playtest game, there's only 1 change in the rules that must be followed - one of the chosen musketeer pieces has to be one of the following:

• Mammoth - King + Knight (M)

• Camel - King + (1,3),(3,1) leaper (CM)

• Zebra - Knight + (2,3),(3,2) leaper (Z)

• Lioness - Queen+ Dabbaba + Alfil (L)

• Blunderbuss - Inverted Cannon (King + Alfil + narrow Knight) (BL)

• Scorpion - Inverted Spider (R2 + Knight + Alfil) (SC)

(the blunderbuss and scorpion are just placeholder names for now - it's the piece that counts!)

Explaination behind each of the movement patterns:

• Mammoth - mammoths are extinct relatives of the elephant, so its move should be a bit similar to the elephant. The elephant is K+A+D, the mammoth is K+N;
• Camel - You could just have this be a regular (1,3) leaper, but most of the musketeer pieces are worth about a rook or more in value. I want to maintain the value ratio among the musketeer pieces. According to a post made by Dr. Haddad (https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess960-chess-variants/musketeer-chess-relative-piece-value, #5) K+C is worth as much as a Leopard, or 6.7 points;
• Zebra - Meant to serve as a counterpart to the unicorn. The unicorn is N+C, and to date I don't know of any relevant contemporary variants featuring the Zebra piece (that is, the (2,3),(3,2) leaper).  It's a two in one!
• Lioness - Typically the Lion is seen as the K+A+N+D compound, very strong. I see the Lioness as being a piece whose value is halfway between a queen and a lion. Well, Q+N is already taken with the dragon, so why not go for the next best thing and implement the Q+A+D compound? It's worth slightly less than a dragon, but it's not as controlling, allowing for perhaps more tactile play;
• Blunderbuss & Scorpion - see https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess960-chess-variants/new-piece-rules-and-combos-your-advice-is-needed?page=3 (#43) for my thoughts.

Nice ideas

Is two knights stronger than single mammoth, assuming KM vs KNN with 8 pawns each. 

Shall we find out? We can use the mammoth, if you want. I'm more than happy to play as black.

Bumping for interest. I’m also willing to try any pieces suggested in the appropriate thread. There’s talk of making the Lion a royal K+A+N+D, I think it would be interesting to try and play a game with a second royal piece, or trying it in a ‘maharajah and the sepoys’-esque environment.

How are you conducting the playtest, by email?

Whoo! HOW DO YOU MANAGE TO PLAY CHESS W/ THIS ARSENAL OF PIECES??? 

Anyways how about a P+R compound?

OR a more simple P+N compound?

There is only two musketeer pieces in any game, and they’re introduced BEHIND the back row. It’s pretty interesting strategy actually.

And also the hawk originated from musketeer chess.

Mammoth is essentially an Centaur. Any prototype design for that piece at the moment?

Oh. What is Seirawan Chess?

Much appreciated. 

To be truly a P+R compound, you should only be able to promote if your move started on 7th rank. Moving from a distance to 8th rank, and promoting, is something neither a Pawn nor a Rook can do.

Besides, I think it is a bad idea to make such a large promotion as R->Q enormously easy. Shogi has sliders that can promote, but there the promotion is only a modest increase of the abilities of the piece, like giving it 4 extra step moves.

BTW, a Mammoth would be significantly stronger than a pair of Knights. The value of such short-range sliders turns out to increase faster than linear with the number N of moves they have. Leapers with 16 moves should be worth 750-800 centi-Pawn, when N=325 and Q=950.