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Teutonic Knight's Chess. Played on an oblong board with rarely used pieces: The teutonic knight, the archchancellor and the crown princess. (8x10, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]So many of your variants are an education far beyond the realm of board games, and this page is no exception. Before reading this page I was unaware that the title of Archchancellor had existed in real life, although I knew about, and have mentioned elsewhere on the site, its use in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. What exactly was the rôle of archchancellors among Teutonic Knights, and did they have ordinary chancellors under them? Interesting that you interpret the name for a piece in the same way that I would have done. Did you notice my view on the intuitive piece for the name and take inspiration, or is it coincidence?
The Teutonic Order did not have archchancellors. Their leaders are (they are still extant!) titled Hochmeister which is translated into english as grandmaster---not a name suited for a chess piece. The Holy Roman empire had three archchancellors, the most important of them was archchancellor of the germans. This post was filled by one of the 7 electors, the archbishop of Mainz. He was responsible (among other duties) for the organisation of the emperor's election and he substituted in emperor in the time of an interregnum (together with two vicars). No, I have not been aware of the reference you mention, but now I know it and I shall build it into the notes when I revise the text.
It occurs to me that the Archchancellor is almost certainly stronger than the FIDE Queen, as the standard Chancellor/Marshal is generally judged very nearly as strong as the Queen and this piece adds in the Ferz move. I wonder how much stronger. Having recently been looking into Ajax pieces I also wonder how much the intermediate addition of only the noncapturing Ferz move strengthen the Chancellor/Marshal compared to the Queen.
Yes, it is. Currently I think that the Chancellor/Marshall is somewhat (maybe 0.5 pawn units) weaker than the Queen. The Fers move adds about 1.5 pawn units of strength, plus another 0.5 pawn units for curing the specific weakness of the Chancellor/Marshall, leaving the Archchanchellor at about 1.5 pawns stronger than the Queen. This difference should be noticeable during the game, but it is probably not enough to decide the pawnless endgame K+Archchancellor vs. K+Q in favour to the Archchancellor. Note that this comparison is made for the 8x8 board. On larger boards the Queen gains strength compared to the Archchancellor because all her moves are long-range, but most of his moves are short-range. The specific weakness of the Chancellor/Marshall is that the King can directly attack it. Thus adding a move-only Fers to it does not cure this weakness. But adding it may equalise the Chancellor with the Queen (on 8x8, of course).
I was looking for a good way to expand the Knight for Vanguard Chess, I've decided to use the Teutonic Knight.
Piece-nik that I am, though, I also wanted a good FNZ piece to go with it, which I decided to name Calatravan Knight (because Hospitaller and Templar were taken, and the Order of St. James didn't lend itself well as a piece name).
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pawn:P:fmW*fceF:pawn:a2,b2,c2,d2,e2,f2,g2,h2,,a9,b9,c9,d9,e9,f9,g9,h9
rook:R:R:rook:a1,h1,,a10,h10
teutonic knight:T:WNL:wildebeestwazir:b1,g1,,b10,g10
dragon horse:H:BW:promotedbishop:c1,f1,,c10,f10
krake:C:KRN:chancellorferz:d1,,d10
king:K:KisO2:king:e1,,e10
@HaruN Y: Thanks for the interactive diagram here and for Zabel Chess.
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