Altered Chess: get rid of sticky pawns

Since chess is pretty drawish and allows for closed positions where no progress is possible, I tried to think of something to "improve" it. It actually just concerns two pieces, the pawn and the knight. Lets see:

This altered pawn, lets call it the Guard for the sake of distinction, is able to move and capture in any direction. But only one square at a time with the exception being the very first move, where it can go two squares forward (not diagonally) just like in regular chess. It can also promote to any other piece except the king when it reaches the last rank, like in normal chess too. The en passent rule is covered by the movement, so it doeesn´t need any specific notation.

The altered knight, erm.. lets call him the Cavalier, doesn´t move in an L shape anymore but the same as the guard. However it can additionaly jump and capture over other pieces in a straight or diagonal line. All other pieces, Bishop, Rook, Queen and King stay the same.

Additional rules:

• No castling. Since the guards can move in any direction it should be easier to protect the king
• No three-fold repetition. The site which makes the third repetition loses the game.
• (not sure) allow different starting positions like in shuffle chess

What do you think of the general idea? Any suggestions are welcomed.

Can the cavalier jump without capture? It sounds good so far, though.

Do all pawns become guards? That by itself is a very big change. Players might easily give up bishops to keep guards, and since guards promote the entire front rank of pieces is valuable. And since guards (and all pieces) can go backwards there might be a hesitation to engage. Two very defensive players might go for 50 moves before anything is captured. It could be an interesting game.

Yes it is possible. But it needs something in front of it to jump two squares.

@vickalan

Yeah all 8 pawns are now guards. They are obviously more valuable now as you said, but bishops still have the range, so not sure what value they would have compared to other pieces. Maybe the guards movement should be reduced to up, down, left and right and capture only diagonal in any direction.

It is difficult to say if turtling would be benefitial, would require some tests to see it. Otherwise the 50 move rule might be altered to 50 moves no captures or crossing own half results in a loss.