Piece Pawns... a new, fun, and playable chess variant

Instead of pawns, each side gets another set of pieces on his second rank where the pawns usually go. These pieces should be smaller plastic ones to easily distinguish them from regular pieces.  The array of piece pawns parallels the traditional piece array. Thus, rook piece pawns are in place of rook pawns, knight piece pawns are in place of knight pawns, etc.

     The piece pawns move like their namesakes. For example, a bishop piece pawn moves like a bishop. A king piece pawn moves like a king, etc. Piece pawns, however, lack capturing power for the most part. The only thing a piece pawn may capture is the opposing king!  To make it crystal clear, piece pawns may not capture regular pieces, nor may they capture other piece pawns.  Regular pieces, including the king, can capture anything including piece pawns.

     The trade off is that what piece pawns lose in capturing power, they gain in maneuverability.They do have  one tooth in their jaws, however, reserved for biting/capturing the king! In addition, piece pawns retain promotion powers. Upon reaching the back rank, piece pawns may promote to their namesakes. (Notice that it is optional. Probably in most cases it would be a clear advantage to do so.)A knight piece pawn promotes to a regular knight. A queen piece pawn promotes to a regular queen, etc. A king piece pawn promotes to a second king! In the event of promoting a king piece pawn to a second king, both kings must be captured. Thus a king is not really in check until it's a player's last king.               May piece pawns king and rook castle on their second rank?  Yes, they may, if they abide the usual castling conditions. (It seems that piece pawn castling would be a rather rare occurrence as it  doesn't seem overly practical. But there it is,  still on the table.)

I believe you will find Piece Pawns very fun and highly playable. Naturally, the way piece pawns open up lines of play is dynamically different from how traditional pawns do so. With the absence of sturdy and stodgy pawn defenders, pieces have to be on their toes, and bear the mantel of being the piece pawn protectors, in addition to their usual duties and ambitions. Enjoy figuring out the riddle of the relative value of piece pawns to that of regular pieces. A piece pawn's latent potential may yet emerge in an endgame. A loose rook piece pawn might dart to the last rank and transform into a full fledged rook or suddenly add fire to a mating attack once a good amount of regular wood has been chopped! I hope you enjoy. Feel free to comment your experiences.

My name is John Vandenberg. My chess.com handle is JSV.

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