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This page is written by the game's inventor, Andy Maxson.

Renaissance chess

New Age Chess was partly inspired by Ralph Betza's classic Chess With Different Armies, and some of the simple chess variants, Ultima, and Rococo. The pieces should be around the same strength as their orthochess counterparts. This is the first in my series of games each working progressively back in time.

Setup

rcwqkwcr8
pppppppp7
********6
********5
********4
********3
PPPPPPPP2
RCWQKWCR1
abcdefgh
this diagram shows white at the bottom and black at the top
r=crab rook
w=waffle
c=charging knight
q=push me pullyu

Pieces

king and pawns move as in orthodox chess however there is no castling.The queen is replaced with a push me pull yu which moves normally but captures only by approach and withdrawal. It cannot move to an occupied square and can capture two on a turn when capturing by withdrawal, it must move directly away from its victim. When taking by approach, moves directly towards the victim. The bishop moves forwards as a knight but backwards and sideways as a king and is called a charging knight. The knight is replaced with a waffle which either moves as an alfil (jumping to the second diagonal square) or a wazir (one square orthognally). The rook is replaced with the crab rook which moves as a four square rook or a crab that moves as a narrow knight forwards and as a wide knight backwards.

Rules

All rules are as in orthochess except as stated otherwise. Pawns promote to any piece in the initial setup. In addition to checkmating the opponent's king victory is also achieved by stalemating and baring the opponents' king.

Notes

The game was inspired by supremo, a variant  of ultima featuring the pushme pullyu, Shatranj with its win by stalemate and bare king rule, and Chess With Different armies for which this was originally intended. This game has no colorbound pieces and not all captures are by displacement and there are multiple captures available.


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By Andy Maxson.
Web page created: 2007-01-30. Web page last updated: 2007-01-30