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Skica. 10x10 with Ski Pieces and Camels. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Bn Em wrote on Sat, Oct 8, 2022 12:35 PM UTC:

Ski‐ is a nice prefix for general use (though compared to Grant Acedrex's Ski‑manticore, the Tiger Chess astrologer is perhaps less obvious as a ski‐ piece since it arguably jumps over two squares — in the same way the osprey is arguably a ski‑‘2.manticore’, to use Aurelian's term for lack of anything better), but it does make sense imo to have separate words for the simplest ski‐ pieces; Bicycle/‐reme/‐plane are nice enough in that they extrapolate easily for longer initial leaps (tricycle, pentareme, ⁊c., practical utility aside).

Fwiw, I tend to agree with Gilman's conflation of jumping ski‐bishop with Tamerlane's non‐jumping Talia/Vanguard/Scout/Picket (he selects the latter term), on the grounds that they reach the same squares, like leaping and non‐leaping elephants; the leaping is then distinguished by a prefixed word (that said, I would tend to similiarly conflate normal and contra‐gryphons and Renn cavaliers for the same reason, so I suppose that can be taken with a pinch of salt given general tastes here). Fwiw he also has an ‘‐on’ suffix for extending a radial leap into a subsequent slide (such that ski‐bishop/picket ≡ ‘elephon’, ‘trilbon’ ≡ notional ‘tri‐plane’, and things like Sowons (per Long‐Nosed Generals) are possible) — though he doesn't touch oblique‐starting pieces.

As regards atomic names, his ski‐queen ≡ Fagin avoids clashing initials, albeit being a bit of a specific reference; Picket and Pocket (≡ ski‐bishop/‐rook) have no such luck, though Picket is always substitutable as above (and both T and V are relatively uncommon initials for CV pieces) (and also, Bat does in fact have a prior usage, as does Quetzal)