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H. G. Muller wrote on Sun, Jun 7, 2020 07:30 AM UTC:

Simplicity is a hallmark of elegance. So I think it is in general better to not use several completely different mechanisms for introducing pieces on the board. Use gating, dropping or brouhaha squares, but then stick to the method of choice.

Of course a question could be: why use any of these at all? What does it add to the game that some of the pieces start on brouhaha squares? They still have to make the first move as if the brouhaha square was a normal board square, so for the pieces themselves it makes no difference. One uses brouhaha squares to prevent distortion of the board regularity, which could interfere with checkmating abilities as these are on rectangular boards, such as the Omega-Chess Wizard squares do. So you can create room for extra pieces without side effects on the board.

But why would you want to create any extra room at all, if you already have so many empty squares on the back rank, in your initial setup?

@Greg & Thor: I used that same 'lonely King' setup in Elven Chess. I did not consider it odd at all. Why would you want the King to start in the front line? This way you have free castling paths immediately, so you don't have to worry about evacuating non-jumping pieces to clear the path, and destroying the Pawn shield in the process.


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