Grand Apothecary Chess-Alert
Setup
The board is 12x12 with 8 brouhaha squares. The ranks are numbered (0),1,2,3,...,11,12,(13) with the parentheses standing for brouhaha squares only. There are in total 14400 initial possible setups. For the purpose of explaining the initial setup pieces are split into 7 categories:
- The king - the royal piece of the game. Always starts on g1 for white and g12 for black.
- The regular pawns almost fill up rank 3 for white and rank 10 for black. The exception are the the a and l files.
- The berolina pawns occupy the fields a3 and l3 for white, respectively a10 and l1 for black.
- The main board fixed pieces. They are four rooks at a2,b1,l2 and k1, two cannons at a1 and l1, and two nightriders at c1 and j1 for white. For black four rooks at a1,b12,l11 and k12, two cannons at a12 and l12, and two nightriders at c12 and j12.
- On the brouhaha squares there are two joker at e0 and h0 for white and respectively e13 and a13 for black. Also on the brouhaha squares at f0 and g0 and respectively at f13 and g13 there are two ospreys for each player.
- On the fields d1,e1,f1,h1,i1 for white and d12,e12,f12,h12,i12 for black are designated the heavy piece area and are occupied in the initial position at random by a queen, an unicorn, a varan, a valkyrae and a mortar for each respective player. That leads to 120 possibilities.
- At rank 2 for white and 11 for black between files b and k inclusively lies the are where lighter pieces lie. They are arranged in pair symmetrical to the middle of the rank. There are 5 such pieces which are arranged randomly on the right side and then symmetrically on the left side of the rank. These pieces are: the bishop, the vulture, the knight, the warlock and the Lyon.
Pieces
The King. Moves like an orthodox chess King and it is the royal piece of this game.
The pawn moves like an orthodox pawn. It can promote at the furthest 3 ranks for each player. On the rank closest to the player it promotes to either bishop, knight, vulture, cannon, Lyon or warlock. On the next rank the pawn can also promote to rook, joker, knightrider or osprey. At the furthest rank the pawn may also promote to queen, Varan, unicorn, mortar, Valkyrie.
The berolina pawn is a reverted pawn that moves to the 2 forward fields and caputures ahead. Promotion rules are the same as with the regular pawn.
The Queen is an orthodox chess queen.
The Varan is a knightrider+rook compound piece.
The unicorn is a knightrider+ bishop compound piece.
The mortar is a rook+Chinese cannon+ferz compound piece.
The Valkyrie is a bishop+ vulture compound piece (the vulture is a 41&43 path mover).
The rook is an orthodox chess rook.
The knightrider is a knight that may continue by repeating the first move.
The joker does not have a move of it's own. Instead it copies the last move of the opponent.
The osprey is a bent rider. Starts as a dabbabah and then continues towards outside like a bishop.
The cannon is the cannon from Xiangqi. It moves like a rook but captures by hoping over a piece called platform.
The bishop is a regular chess bishop.
The Vulture is a path mover akin to the falcon piece in falcon chess, but it's destinations are the 41&43 squares away from the piece.
The knight moves and captures like a regular knight but it can also move (but not capture) with a camel (3,1) leap
The Lyon step one step diagonally or jumps 2 or three steps orthogonally.
The Warlock steps one step orthogonally orj jumps like a zebra (3,2). .
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By Aurelian Florea.
Last revised by Aurelian Florea.
Web page created: 2021-01-29. Web page last updated: 2024-03-27