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The Piececlopedia is intended as a scholarly reference concerning the history and naming conventions of pieces used in Chess variants. But it is not a set of standards concerning what you must call pieces in newly invented games.

The Piececlopedia: Windmill

Historic remarks

The windmill was invented by Alexandre Muñiz in 1997 for his game The Royal Standard, which was his submission for the 38 challenge.

Movement rules

The windmill moves as follows: first it chooses a piece, friendly or enemy, adjacent to itself. It can then move either clockwise or counterclockwise around that piece, passing through empty squares adjacent to the piece around which the windmill is moving. The windmill can end on an enemy piece, capturing it. The windmill must end on a square different than the one it started on.

(Note: In The Royal Standard, the adjacent piece must be a friendly standard-bearer. However, in that game, all pieces (bishops, rook, and standard-bearers) must move to squares adjacent to friendly standard-bearers, so that the standard-bearer limitation is not an intrinsic part of the windmill).

Movement diagram

In the diagram below, the windmill can move to all the squares marked by a black circle. It can also capture the black knight. Note that it can not return move the whole way around the rook and stop again at e4.









Windmill Helpmate Problem

In the problem below, it is Black to play and help White mate in 2. I composed this problem myself for this page, it is a fairly simple problem.









Written by Benjamin C Good. AI image added by Fergus Duniho.
WWW page created: January 12, 1999. Last modified: November 22, 2024.