Check, or Combination Chess

W. S. Campling described this game in the July 1898 issue of The British Chess Magazine. David Pritchard has also described it in The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants and in chapter 18 of The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants. A century before Fusion Chess, it introduces the principle of combining pieces. Its main differences from that game are that the Queen moves as a King, it may also combine with other pieces, and up to three pieces may combine together.

Setup

Same as Chess.

Pieces

Pieces are displayed as white Alfaerie pieces and as blue Magnetic pieces. The Alfaerie pieces include some compromises, because I'm working with what is available. I designed the magnetic pieces especially for this game.

Pieces move as in Chess, except for the Queen, which may move only one space in any direction as a Man or King does. To better distinguish it from combinations of pieces, the Guard image is being used here instead of the usual Queen image for the white Alfaerie pieces.

Although he identifies combinations of pieces only by naming the pieces combined together, here are the combinations possible in the game with information on what they are commonly called:

Six Couplets

Rook-Knight, commonly known as an Empress, Marshall, or Chancellor.

Rook-Bishop, commonly known as a Queen.

Rook-Queen, commonly known as a Dragon King or a Crowned Rook. It moves as a Rook or one space diagonally.

Knight-Bishop, commonly known as a Princess, Cardinal, or Archbishop.

Knight-Queen, commonly known as a Centaur, moves as a Knight or one space in any direction.

Bishop-Queen, commonly known as a Dragon Horse or a Crowned Bishop. It moves as a Bishop or one space orthogonally.

Four Triplets

Rook-Knight-Bishop, commonly known as an Amazon.

Rook-Knight-Queen, called a SuperChancellor in Pocket Mutation Chess, it moves as a Rook, Knight, or Ferz.

Rook-Bishop-Queen, moves as a normal Queen, as the powers of the Queen in this game fully overlap with those of the combined Rook and Bishop. (The doubled-queen image in the Alfaerie set is for distinguishing this combination from the Rook-Bishop combination.)

Knight-Bishop-Queen, called a SuperCardinal in Pocket Mutation Chess, it moves as a Bishop, Knight, or Wazir

Rules

1. Spaces are capable of double and triple occupancy by any combination of Knight, Bishop, Rook, and Queen, as long as each piece is different from the others. This is doable by moving one piece (or a pair of pieces) to a space occupied by one or two other pieces belonging to the same player.
2. When capturing, combined pieces must all move as one piece, leaving nothing behind. (Pritchard adds that pieces must remain together when making a check, but Campling does not say this.)
3. A piece in combination with others may move away by itself under its own powers of movement when it is not capturing. This includes moving away from one combination to combine with another piece, which he does explicitly demonstrate.
4. Presumably, the rules above concerning individual pieces also apply to pairs of pieces. Campling does not explicitly state or deny this, and I'm not sure if he thought of the possibility at the time he wrote his article. But we may presume that a pair of pieces can move from a triplet under the powers of movement of one of the pieces, and this would include joining together with another piece to form a new triplet.
5. When capturing a combined piece, all pieces are captured.
6. Castling is not legal when the Rook is combined with other pieces.
7. Presumably, if a piece moves to a Rook's space, then moves away, and the Rook has not itself moved, it may still castle.

Notes

Campling did not give individual combinations of pieces their own names, as though they were distinct pieces. Instead, he conceived of the game as allowing double and triple occupancy of spaces. With this in mind, it may be played with a small Chess set on a larger Chess board capable of fitting three pieces on one space.

Last revised by Fergus Duniho.