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Loonybird

Pawns move and capture in different ways. One night I went into the bathroom and thought What if in a Chess game all pieces except the king would move and capture in different ways? In what was very much the same moment I saw that the three basic pieces, Rook, Bishop and Knight, gave rise to six combinations. These consist of a top-piece called the hunter which constitutes the way the piece captures and a bottom-piece called the carrier, which constitutes the way the piece moves. Of course only hunters can give check, therefore a piece is called after its hunter. I immediately decided for piece drops to avoid the possibility of a drawish system. As an afterthought came the concept of      which may be considered as 'normal Loonybird'. Thus I left the bathroom with two new games. The diagram shows the board with the pieces in the initial position.

• The nature of the pieces has been explained, but for the option to re-enter them. If a piece is captured, it becomes the captor's property, and he may drop it, at the cost of a turn, on any square. Therefore one needs flat pieces, white on one side and black on the other, with ideograms for identification. If captured, the captor reverses the piece and puts it beside his side of the board. As in all systems that feature the re-entering of pieces, this is called a 'piece in hand'
• Pawns are the same as in orthodox Chess, but do not have the initial double step. They promote on moving to the seventh rank to a piece the opponent has 'in hand'. This makes promotion exceptionally strong and, if all pieces are on the board, well worth even the worst exchange, say a rook for the bishop-knight, to force an opponent into a piece in hand. Pawns, if captured, are out of the game
• The king is the same as in orthodox Chess. He has a castling option with the rook-bishop under the usual conditions, moving to b1, with the rook-Bishop having the choice between c1 and d1. Castling with a dropped piece is not allowed