Single Comment

Mats Winther has just posted a new piece, the Scout, which moves as a camel
and captures as a queen. Interesting piece, moving as a shortrange leaper
and capturing as a longrange power piece. [Possibly the name 'Scout'
inspires leaping pieces; Greg Strong's Scout piece (Brouhaha, Hubbub)
also leaps 3 squares. Think I've seen others.] The converse of this piece
would be a piece moving as an unlimited slider that captures with a
shortrange move. If it's a crooked and/or leaping shortrange capture, the
piece might be restricted to bishop [or maybe rook] to limit its power a
bit. Whether or not you limited the shortrange capture to just the
bishop's original color, just the opposite, or both colors would affect
the power considerably. The idea of balancing queen moves with, say, alfil
captures, just doesn't thrill me. A queen that captures as a king would be
a tricky piece to use. A queen capturing as a knight is probably a bad
idea, especially on larger boards or with lower piece densities. Tricky
concept, [maybe a little annoying, as I prefer pieces to capture the way
they move, it's simpler] worth developing. 
***Edit*** Oops! Just read Michael Howe's full comment - sorry for poaching on 
your idea. A knightrider-king - how does that compare to the queen-king? 
Defense against the NN-K should be a specialty of some shortrange pieces, 
as the knight, like the camel, can only land in restricted spots. A moderately 
powerful shortrange piece could guard those spots where a linear piece couldn't.
There is a comment by M. Howe and another by M. Winther that I would like
to address in this thread [from my own perspective, of course :-) ]. But
let me give Mats' new piece a rating [and check the laundry!]