Ebony xiangqi set

Look for xiangi sets on eBay, and you come across some really expensive set, made from oxhorn, bronze, or copper; the most expensive one I saw was £899, but I'm sure there must be even more expensive sets around.

Seeing these sets really did make me want to add a more high end set to my collection, but without paying silly money, of course. Searching around, I came across this set made from ebony, and felt that would be a nice birthday present!

Definitely the nicest of my xiangqi sets!

Spartan Chess set

Spartan Chess is a chess variant which emerged from the idea that if two armies meet for a battle in real life, those armies aren't necessarily equal in terms of their divisions, strength, etc. In Spartan Chess, one side (the Persian army) has the traditional pieces, whereas the other side (the Spartan army) has different pieces, with different movements, plus two kings.

I'm sure there was a lot of play-testing to arrive at a balanced game!

When I ordered the pieces for my 'Alien' set, something went wrong with the initial order, and, once all was resolved, I ended up with two sets. And that gave me the impetus to use that other set for creating my own Spartan Chess set.

I already had a board I got off eBay some time ago, and felt that would serve well as a board for my Spartan Chess set. 

So I ordered a cheap set of plastic Staunton pieces, of the same size as the 'alien' pieces. In keeping with the colours of the board, I painted the Staunton pieces gold, and the 'alien' pieces metallic green.

Of course, that only used up half of the two sets; I still had one Staunton side and one 'alien' side. Of the four colours present on the board, I used up the colours of the squares (gold and metallic green); the edges of the board provide me with two more colours .... Of course, you see where this is going, right? So I pained the two remaining sets metallic grey and metallic red, thereby creating a second set of Spartan Chess pieces.

And that means I could play Spartan Chess with 'white' or 'black' for either the Persian or the Spartan army!