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Charles Gilman wrote on Sat, Dec 28, 2013 07:29 AM UTC:
Daniil Frolov appears to have created a brand new piece in a comment on this page in the analogue to the Mao. All the other analogues - to FIDE, XQ, and even Shogi pieces - are describable in Man and Beast terms. Orthogonal pieces are transformed into Queenwise ones just as they are in my Dual Direction Variants: Rook to Queen, General to King, Cannon to Tank, Point to Princeling, Superpoint to Superprinceling, and Wing to Princess. Diagonal peces are transformed into Knightwise ones: Bishop to Nightrider, Ferz to Knight, and Stepping Elephant to Short-leap Charolais. Knightwise leapers themselves are transformed into compuond leapers: Knight to Bison and Helm to Terrace. Queenwise pieces become the Ace- pieces of Man and Beast pages 08 and 19: King to Aceruler, Queen to Acerider, Gold to Superminiace and Silver to Underace. Evewn the piece into which the Pawn is transformed can be described in Man and Beast 19 terms as a Caddied Pawncross. The Mao analogue had no obvious analogue.

So what might this pece me termed? It might be worth trying naming it nased on its move, which is a radial step followed by an "outward" Knightwise one to reach a Bison destination. The best way that I can think of to illustrate this is by marking destinations as upper-case A-H and the required pass-through square by the equivalent lower-case letter, as follows: 

.BA.AH.
B.....H
C.bah.G
..c@g..
C.def.G
D.....F
.DE.EF.
The destinations are clearly Bison ones, but it is weaker than the Bison as the Mao is weaker than the Leaping Knight. It is however stronger than George Duke's Falcon as it has the latter's first-perimeter pass-through square but can leap over second-perimeter pieces.

At fist I thought of combining the Bi of Bison and Fa of Falcon anf came up with Fabian, the name of a fairly famous ancient Roman politician, but then I wondered whether it might be better to go for something with the C and A so that "King followed by outward..." (Kfbo) could be extrapolated to things other than the Knight. Extrapolating based on Falcon would not make sense as Kfbo Camel has Giraffe and Charolais destinations as against the Fantail's Zemel and Charolais ones, Kfbo has Charolais and Antelope destinations as against the Puffin's Charolais and Rector ones, et cetera.

I do have the precedent of a one-off that can't be extrapolated in Workhorse for a Pawned Helm when my name for the Pawned Knight, Challenger, can be extrapolated. Thus a Pawned Zebra is a Zhellenger whereas I have no one-word name for a Pawned Stripe. However I do have the phrase to describe it, and there could me case for changing Workhorse as well - but I digress. back to Daniil Frolov's new piece.

With so many piece names starting with C already I about a Mar- word, modelled on Marshal. Theoretically this could ectrapolated across the board regardless of the SOLL's remainder modulo 4. Thus if for example Kfbo Knight were a Marauder the one with Kfbo Camel would be a Camauder, Kfbo Zebra a Zebauder, Kfbo Giraffe a Girauder, Kfbo Antelope an Antauder, Kfbo Zemel a Zemauder, et cetera.

One thing that this does make me notice, however, is that King followed by outward non-coprime piece is interestng too as its destinations often include coprime ones. Thus Kfbo Dabbaba has Trebuchet/Camel destinations, Kfbo Elephant has Zebra/Tripper ones, Kfbo Trebuchet has Cobbler/Giraffe ones, Kfbo Charolais has Satyr/Gimel ones, and so on. Should I try extraplating to these as well and call them Dabauder et cetera? A problem is that Charolais and Chamois have the same first 3 letters. Should I use 4 letters in the case of the non-coprime ones?

Any further thougts are welcome.


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