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I feel the board may be a tad small, and think increasing it to 6 hex on a side might be better. Also the problems with the rooks could be resolved by moving them to the back rank and turning them into crowned-rooks (dragon kings). To complement these and to complete the second row I've added a couple of crowned-knights (centaurs). Here's my suggestion.
I do feel though that the pawns are a little sparse. The hexagons in between the pawns appear to me as these great lacunae that demand pawns of their own - but if with regular pawns, it would mean the center could become quickly filled with unopposed pawns making the tension less familiar. So I propose filling them with berolina pawns. Which would take two steps to get to the sixth rank (an area regular pawns can't occupy at all unless they capture).
I'd also propose greater diversity of pieces - with greater range of strength, rather than the overly standard linear sliders + their knight compounds.
So maybe this?
One might also introduce pieces that can peep through other pieces given the number of screens, but i notice the pao and vao icons are oversized for these hexes (the lion icon is leo = pao + vao):
...with shatranjians and amazon replaced by supercombine (which can make its additional steps before or after its slide): third idea
Thanks for the input Jeremy. I've adopted your berolina pawns and leo - and also have increased the board size further - to produce these 2 related variants, described more fully here.
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Most hexagonal variants are fun because they have three different colored bishops. This variant doesn't have that, but it does have, I think, a more chess-like feel.
This is a variant I've wanted to implement for a long time, but we don't have the correct boards to do it with. When Fergus comes back, I'll ask him to upload one so I can do this. Currently the hexagons aren't oriented properly.
Consider this board.
On the bottom row, marshall queen king amazon archbishop.
On the second row, rook knight bishop bishop knight rook.
On the third row, pawns.
Bishops move similarly to the way rooks move in Glinski's Hexagonal.
Pawns move straight forward, similarly to the way bishops move in Glinski's hexagonal, traveling along the stright lines in between hexagons.
Regular pawns capture in one step ferz move, the way bishops regularly move in this version. Berolina pawns, oppositely.
Notice: Here, pawns can make an initial one step move AND can be captured en passant! (In fact, this en passant maneuver is an essential aspect of the opening).
Rooks move either horizontally, or vertically like the pawns (only continuing along those lines as the wazir-riders they are; however the idea of limiting forward motion to one step might be interesting too!).
Knights move the same way they do in Glinski's.
The compounds move as you'd expect.
Variants similar to this one if not exactly the same have surely been invented before? I would feel more 'at home' playing it than the hexagonal variants I have played, which feel very alien to me with their odd orientations.