Synochess

In the vast majority of chess variants, the two (or more) sides have identical sets of pieces at the start. But not all of them do .... In real war, armies facing each other are not necessarily identical, and this has been reflected in some chess variants. One of these, Spartan chess, I already have in the collection.  

Another chess variant with unequal armies is Synochess. In this variant, one side, called the 'Kingdom', has a normal western set of pieces. The other side, the 'Dynasty', has a set of pieces coming from xiangqi and janggi (Chinese and Korean chess, respectively).

In the collection, I've got board and pieces to easily put together a Synochess set.

For the board, I picked my 'mahjong' board, as that one combines western and Chinese influences.

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As to the pieces, I decided to use my Bakelite St George set for the 'Kingdom', and my Acrylic xiangi set for the 'Dynasty'. This ensures both sets are disc-shaped and so don't look too different. 

A Synochess set with both western and Chinese traits!

'Mahjong' set

Saw this xiangqi set on eBay (yes, I have a saved search on those, with email notifications ...). Just the one picture of the closed box, but it looked really unusual, and it didn't cost a lot, so I took the punt.

Turned out it was a xiangqi set with rectangular pieces, reminiscent of mahjong stones!

The set didn't come with a board,  but that was easily remedied, as I have plenty of those. Best fit was this faux leather board.

Looks good, and you must admit this 'mahjong' set is an unusual and unique addition to my ever- growing collection of xiangqi sets.

Shong Chee set

I stumbled across this 'Shong Chee' set on Etsy. As far as I can make out, it was marketed in the 1980s by a company in Taiwan.

The game comes as a hinged wooden box, which contains plastic pieces (plus the rules for 'Shong Chee', which are identical to those for xiangqi, so it's not a Taiwanese variant of Chinese chess).

Put the pieces on the board, and it looks like an ordinary xiangqi set

But look more closely, and you'll see the set is far from ordinary (and that's why I snapped it up from Etsy as soon as I saw it) ...

All the pieces have been given names very different from xiangqi (though their moves remain identical). No rook, but an Air Force. Navy rather than horses. Ministers/elephants replaced by Congressmen. No king and mandarins in the palace, but a President and Senators. Army instead of pawns. And, finally, Missiles taking the place of the cannons. 

Definitely a unique set in my xiangqi collection, and glad I got it!

Large vintage wooden xiangqi set

To be honest, I got this vintage xiangqi set off eBay for two reasons: I really liked the box it came in. And it was cheap. The listing didn't show much else, so it was a bit of a gamble, but you have to admit, it's a nice box, right?

When the set arrived and I opened it, I was pleasantly surprised by what was inside: Chinese writing and drawings, and a wooden board.

Remove the board to find two trays with the pieces.

Underneath those trays, more Chinese writing ...

... and the trays themselves have more Chinese writing. Lot more than I expected!

The board itself looks quite nice itself ...

... and although the pieces themselves aren't anything special, they look fine on the board.

Gamble paid off, as far as I'm concerned!

Eurasian chess set

Eurasian chess is a hybrid between Xiangqi (Chinese chess) and Western (FIDE) chess. The pieces, their movement, movement restrictions, and the layout of the board are really sort of halfway between its two 'parents', and it also has a piece (the vao) which isn't part of either, but is inspired by both.

I was keen to create a Eurasian chess set myself. For pieces, I decided to use the caps of certain medicine tubes, because these combine both the flat discs of xiangqi and the three-dimensionality of Western chess pieces. 

I painted the pieces for the two sides silver and gold, with the aim of painting the various pictograms, in blue and red, respectively, on them later.

As to the board, I again wanted to combine playing on the squares (as per Western chess) and playing on the lines (as per xiangqi). I still had some chequerboard pattern self-adhesive vinyl left from when I made a 'westernised' xiangqi set. 

And on this I added lines through the centre of the squares with the use of gold and silver self-adhesive strips. Two colours to highlight the home-halves of each side, which the king is not allowed to leave (similar to the palaces in xiangqi, but less restricted here).

Done this way, the pieces can be said to play on the squares and lines at the same time!

Back to the pieces, they now needed to have the various pictograms painted on them.

And then the board needed to be finished properly, using draught excluder strips to mark the edges of the play area.

Decided to use three strips per side, and it does look good, I think!

Finishing the edges ....

Pieces done, board done, one more thing to do!

Definitely a full set unlike any I've created before. Both the board, with play on the squares as well as the lines, and the pieces, as 'raised discs', combine elements of the main forms of Asian and European chess. Whaddayathink?

'Cheeky Dragons' set

Over the years, I've bought several chess sets from a guy calling himself 'Ogg the Clever' (see here, here, here and also here for a non-chess set). When he added a 'cheeky dragons' set to his line-up, I really wanted them!

And not just 'wanting' ..... I thought those would be perfect for a xiangqi set, and 'Ogg' was very willing to amend the numbers of the various pieces so they would make a full xiangqi set.

The set didn't come with a board, and I felt the black wooden board I've used before would be the perfect match.

Judge for yourself!

Don't you love them?