"Terracotta Warriors" set

Saw an unusual xiangqi (Chinese chess) set for very little on eBay, and couldn't resist. The board was basically a rolled-up square of faux leather, and, to make it more of a physical board, I flattened it and glued it to a piece of plywood.

What was unusual in this set was the shape of the pieces. Normally, xiangqi pieces are basically discs, with the name of the pieces written on them in Chinese characters. Have a look at the xiangqi set for which I made a board long ago to see what I mean.

The set I got off eBay has no discs, but three-dimensional pieces, in the style of the terracotta army.

The pieces are made from some sort of resin. The dark pieces are stained dark brown ...

... whereas the light pieces are off-white, stained such as to resemble ivory.

Although it's quite a neat little set (certainly for the price I paid), to me it just feels odd. I used to play xiangqi quite a lot many years ago, and I'm very used to seeing the pieces on the board as discs with Chinese characters. Having three-dimensional figurines as pieces instead makes it harder for me to see patterns, lines of attack, etc. Guess an experienced player of FIDE chess would find it equally strange playing with discs bearing the pieces' symbols!