In terms of chess variants there are, in my mind, three elements players generally consider.
The first is the overall theme of a variant.
Most don’t delve too deeply into overlaying a deeper theme to the game, but they do exist, Spartan Chess coming immediately to mind. The alternate array variant is excellent and the theme associated with it fits perfectly.
Another variant with a rich theme is Caïssa Britannia from creator Fergus Duniho.
In this case Duniho went out to create a game based at least in part on his own background.
“Although not strictly British in origin, British Chess was created in a former British colony that was named for a place in Britain (York). Its creator, Fergus Duniho, is ethnically part Irish, Scottish, and English. His native language is the same as it is for the British (English), and he lives almost on the border of the British Commonwealth nation of Canada,” details www.chessvariants.com
Duniho related that Caïssa Britannia based on an idea he said he had in 2001 to create a British themed chess variant with lions, unicorns, dragons, and a royal queen.
Lions, unicorns, and dragons are respectively the heraldic animals for England, Scotland, and Wales, which is actually a pretty need aspect of the piece array.
The Queen is the royal piece, because the current British monarch is a Queen, which of course makes sense.
So the object of the variant is to checkmate the enemy Queen, so the Queen cannot move into check.
The Queen also has some special rules associated with it. The two Queens may never face each other across an empty diagonal or orthogonal line, something you see in Xiangqi.
“I tried some combinations of Lions, Unicorns, and Dragons from fairy chess and chess variants, but I wasn’t satisfied with the results … I decided to create my own Dragon instead of pulling one from fairy chess or another variant, and I drew some inspiration from castling and Chinese Chess to limit how the royal Queen can move. I now have a game I’m satisfied with,” stated the creator on chessvariants.com
The rest of the array explained on the website, for the game played on a 10X10 board includes;
• The Prince Consort is the Queen’s husband. It replaces the King from chess. The Prince Consort may capture by moving one space in any radial direction, or it may slide like a Rook or Bishop without capturing.
• The Lion was created by T. R. Dawson, who called it a Leo. The Lion moves as a Cannon or a Vao. In other words, it moves as a Rook or a Bishop, except that it must jump an intervening piece, called a screen, to capture another piece.
• The Unicorn was created by David Paulovich for Unicorn Chess. This piece moves as a Bishop or a Nightrider.
• The Dragon was created by Duniho for this game. It is a compound of an Alfilrider and a Dabbabarider. It may make any number of consecutive two-space leaps in the same radial direction, so long as each leap except the last lands on an empty space.
• Since this game is British in theme, the Bishops are Anglican instead of Catholic. Unlike the Catholic Bishops, who took a vow to remain on one color, the Anglican Bishops didn’t make this vow. In addition to sliding diagonally, as the Chess Bishop does, the Anglican Bishop may step one space orthogonally without capturing. (I love that the bishop is given an English twist to fit the theme).
• The rook and pawns stay as they are in regular chess, with the knight only available as piece should a pawn promote.
As a variant this one gives players a very powerful array. Carnage early is likely, and games may not be long affairs because almost every piece is far reaching.
As an example of the power, “the Unicorn is probably the most powerful piece in the game. Of all the pieces, it is the only piece that can checkmate a Queen without help from another piece. This makes it a super-major piece. Its long-range attacking ability is very useful,” notes the website.
The biggest joy of this game was fashioning the pieces, the dragons using a child’s toy as the head mounted to a rook, and lions simply a toy with the back half of the body chopped away, mounted and painted. The unicorns are simply extra knights with horns added from a golf tee tip.
In terms of playability this is an interesting one based on the big power of pieces, although the possibility of massive cascading defeats might be an issue once the game is better understood.
