A "Friendly" Game of... Chess?
When David L. Brown introduced the Friend in his 1998 book White and Black from Brown - A Selection of 168 Diagrams and Chess Related Fluff, it was mainly as a passing comment. Of those 168 diagrams representing "fairy chess problems," the Friend appeared in none of them, In fact, as far as I can tell, the Friend has never been used in a chess variant.
Until now.
While Brown found the Friend uninteresting from a chess-problem standpoint, I think it has great potential, so I decided to throw together a variant that would explore that potential.
Setup
Setup is on as 12x12 board. The pieces are arranged as follows:
Back row, from the center out: 2 Friends, Caliph, Dayrider, Midnighter, Mtawala
Second row, left to right (for both players): Hangman, Impala, Poison, Buffalo, Displacer Squirrel, 2 Bodyguards, Archer, Lady in Waiting, Gerbil, Sniper, Jellyfish.
Third row, from the center out: Scorpion Pawn, Patient Pawn, Chicken Pawn, Berolina Pawn, Standard Pawn, Mecklenbeck Pawn
Alternate Setup #1
Another way to manage the second row would be to simply allow the Black player to set up the pieces in any order desired (except that the Bodyguards still go in the two center positions); that order is then duplicated by the White player.
Alternate Setup #2
The players can have two of each of the second-row pieces, and just set up the Hangmen through Displacer Squirrels on both sides of the second row with Bodyguards in the center, and the Archers through Jellyfish on both sides of the third row with standard Knights in the middle; the Pawns would then take the fourth row.
Those Knights could be replaced with Camels, Zebras, Antelopes, Kirins, Phoenixes, or just about any other short- to mid-range mover or leaper.
Pieces
Main Pieces
Archer: Moves two spaces diagonally, or makes "rifle captures" at (1,2).
Bodyguard: Moves one or two spaces in any direction. Also has the Hia power: any sliding piece that comes into an adjacent space stops immediately, and can only move one square at a time. (This is discussed in greater detail below.)
Buffalo: Can make a leap of (1,2)(1,3)(2,3).
Caliph: Moves diagonally like a Bishop, or leaps (1,3) like a Camel.
Dayrider: Can move to any adjacent space, or make repeated 2-step leaps in any direction. (All leaps must be the same direction.)
Displacer Squirrel: Like a regular Squirrel, the Displacer Squirrel can leap to any space two squares away, including a Knight's move. If there's a friendly piece on that perimeter, the Displacer Squirrel may also switch places with it.
Friend: This is the centerpiece of the game. The Friend has no moves of its own, but "borrows" the move, along with any special powers or properties, of any piece that guards it (see below).
Gerbil: Can leap two spaces diagonally, or (1,4).
Hangman: Moves one square in any direction. Captures by moving directly away from an enemy piece.
Impala: Can leap (1,2)(3,4).
Jellyfish: Moves one square in any direction. Any enemy piece in a neighboring square cannot move. Also, the Jellyfish is poisonous; any piece that captures it (except with a rifle capture) is itself captured.
Lady in Waiting: Moves up to 6 squares in any diagonal or orthogonal direction.
Midnighter: Moves repeated steps of (1,2)(2,5)(3,5) in the same direction. (It only uses one of those leaps in any given move.)
Mtawala: Moves orthogonally like a Rook, or (2,3) like a Zebra.
Poison: Moves one square orthogonally to capture, or a "lame Knight" move (1,2) without capturing. Also, any piece that captures it, except with a rifle capture, is also captured, because the poison is, well, poisonous.
Sniper: Moves one square in any direction normally, or two squares without capturing. Also can rifle capture at (0,5) or (2,3).
Pawns
All Pawns move as the standard Chess pawn, except as noted.
Berolina Pawn: Moves one space diagonally forward without capturing, or captures one space directly forward. Has an opening option of two spaces diagonally forward.
Chicken Pawn: If under attack, can move directly backward like a Rook, or diagonally backward like a Bishop. (Hey, they can't all be brave.)
Mecklenbeck Pawn: Promotes on the 10th rank (9th if Alternate Setup #2 is used) instead of the 12th.
Patient Pawn: Has an opening option of two spaces directly forward, or one space directly forward and then capturing one space diagonally forward.
Scorpion Pawn: Can also leap (1,2) wide and forward (that is, one space forward and two to either the left or right) without capturing.
Standard Pawn: Moves one space directly forward without capturing, or captures one space diagonally forward. Has an opening option of two spaces directly forward. (It's not just like the standard Pawn; it is the standard Pawn.)
Rules
Because there is no King, there is also no Castling.
Victory is achieved by capturing all four of the opponent's Friends -- or, technically, when the last Friend is in checkmate. Because there are four Friends, "check" does not have to be declared until there's only one left (though it still would be the polite thing to do).
Pawn promotion is to any piece that's been captured, other than a Friend or another type of Pawn.
Special Abilities
Some of the pieces' special abilities warrant expanded explanation.
Bodyguard: The Bodyguard's "Hia power" is a passive one. Any sliding piece -- Archer, Caliph, Lady in Waiting, Mtawala, or Sniper, as well as a Friend trying to use their moves -- in an adjacent square can only move one space. The Archer and Sniper can still use their rifle captures, and the Caliph and Mtawala can still use their leaps (as can any other leaping piece), but as far as sliding goes they're limited to just one space. This includes not only starting in a space next to the Bodyguard, but also trying to slide past it; any sliding piece is stopped in its tracks as soon as it reaches a square adjacent to the Bodyguard.
Friend: As mentioned above, a Friend can receive abilities from any friendly piece that guards it -- that is, it would be able to immediately capture any piece that captures the Friend.
The Friend cannot capture with a non-capturing move, nor move without capture with a capture-only move.
A Friend only gets the special initial moves of a Pawn if neither the Pawn granting the ability nor the Friend has moved yet (meaning it can only be done with the help of another Friend). It does not gain the ability to make en passant capture, nor a Rook's or King's ability to castle. (See the Note below.)
Special abilities that the Friend can also receive include the Archer's rifle capture, Bodyguard's Hia power, the Displacer Squirrel's ability to trade places with friendly pieces, the Hangman's withdrawing capture, the Jellyfish's immobilizing and poison, the Poison's poison, and the Sniper's rifle capture.
The Displacer Squirrel's and Hangman's powers can only be used with the respective pieces' moves. That is, a Friend with a Displacer Squirrel's ability could only switch places with a piece two spaces away, and a Friend with a with a Hangman's ability could only move one space when doing a withdrawing capture.
A Friend can gain moves and abilities from another Friend. This can cascade to a third Friend -- but isn't necessarily reciprocal. For example, if Friend 1 is gaining the abilities of a Caliph and is using it to guard Friend 2, who is also gaining the abilities of an Archer, Friend 2 also gains the abilities of the Caliph, but Friend 1 doesn't gain the abilities of the Archer because Friend 2 cannot guard it -- if Friend 1 is captured, Friend 2 loses the Caliph's move and so cannot use it to capture Friend 1's attacker.
Jellyfish: Any piece adjacent to a Jellyfish cannot move, including leaps, slides, and rifle captures. However, unlike the case with the Bodyguard, this does not affect pieces merely moving past the Jellyfish.
Notes
With four Friends on each side to deal with, the balance of power can shift wildly during the middle part of any game. Moving just about any piece can add powers to Friends or take them away, on both sides. The pieces with special powers, and Friends who gain those powers, can affect nearly anything on the board.
Normally, the Friend doesn't gain any of a piece's "special moves" (initial double move, en passant capture, castling) at all, and under Mr. Brown's rules presumably wouldn't gain any special abilities from other pieces either, other than locust and withdrawing captures and possibly rifle captures. I've altered that rule for this game; pieces like the Bodyguard, the Displacer Squirrel, and the Jellyfish are here specifically to explore the possibilities.
This is a more-or-less deliberately exaggerated example of a Friend's potential in an actual game. Here, the Friends are not only the pieces to defend, they're also potentially the most powerful attackers in the game. The second row is packed with oddball pieces for just that reason: to show what a Friend is capable of.
This 'user submitted' page is a collaboration between the posting user and the Chess Variant Pages. Registered contributors to the Chess Variant Pages have the ability to post their own works, subject to review and editing by the Chess Variant Pages Editorial Staff.
By Bob Greenwade.
Last revised by Bob Greenwade.
Web page created: 2023-08-13. Web page last updated: 2023-10-22