Empire Chess and Orda Mirror Have Arrived!

Hey everyone, Couch Tomato here! The last two of my variants, Orda Mirror and Empire Chess have finally arrived at Pychess! These chronologically both came before Shinobi Chess. But why now? Recent updates to Fairy Stockfish have allowed us to add these variants because they both used pieces that were not part of the original Fairy Stockfish. So thanks to Ubdip for making the huge change, and thanks to Gbtami as always for adding them to Pychess!

Orda Mirror is a variant requested by popular demand, where you get to use the Horde army from Orda Chess against another Horde army! The main difference is that the yurt is replaced by the falcon, a piece that moves like a queen but attacks like a knight. This finally gives the Horde a piece that can actually move across the board!

Empire Chess is another asymmetric variant, heavily inspired by Orda Chess. And no, despite the image above, it has nothing to do with the Galactic Empire! The Imperial army is more based on the Holy Roman Empire. While pieces in Orda are based on knight movement, Imperial pieces all have queen movement, making them all very quite strong! A new rule in Empire Chess that you may have seen in Xiangqi and Synochess is the King Faceoff rule. The Royal king and the Imperial kaiser cannot face each other on the same rank or file, leading to new ways of delivering checkmate using the king/kaiser himself!

Enjoy, and may the Force be with you!