How to play Knightmare Chess

8 months ago
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Learn the rules to the board game Knightmare Chess quickly and concisely - This video has no distractions, just the rules. For a refresher of the original rules of Chess, check out this video: https://youtu.be/iPXcfS0UDlI

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RULES:
The rules are the same as regular chess except for these changes. For a refresher of those rules, check out this video. Shuffle the deck deal it out to the players. Each player now constructs a deck from their cards equaling 150 points or less. Each card’s point value is seen in the top right. If the value has a red asterisks, then that card is considered unique. If you are playing with multiple decks, you may not have more than 1 copy of a unique card in your deck. Once each players deck is constructed, the remaining unused cards are set aside and will not be used.

Pick a player to go first, then turns alternate. Each player now shuffles their deck, then draws 5 cards, forming their hand. On each of your and your opponent’s turns, you are allowed to play 1 card if you want and it allows. At the bottom of every card is text indicating when and how that card may be played. You may never play more than 1 card on your move, or on your opponent’s move. You may choose to play no cards on your turn if you want.

When you play a card, put it into your own discard pile and perform its described action immediately. That Some cards are continuous effects that remain in play to the right of the board instead of going to the discard pile. In those cases, those cards remain active until their end condition is met, they are discarded by another card, or the game ends.

After you play and perform a card’s effect, draw cards from your deck until you are back up to 5 cards. When you run out of cards in your deck, then no longer draw and continue to play with the cards remaining in your hand. When you run out of cards in your hand, then continue the game as you would in traditional chess while incorporating any continuous effect cards that are in play.

Some cards transform pieces. Unless the card specifies otherwise, a transformed piece can still be affected by cards that target the original piece name. If a transformed piece is captured but immediately rescued on that move or the following one, then that transformed piece retains its special powers; but if it is rescued on a later turn, then it is returned as its original type of piece.

After you move a piece without playing a card, you are allowed to discard 1 card from your hand, if you want, to draw a replacement. Cards discarded in this way are not activated and you may not discard a card on your opponent’s turn.

Except for continuous effect cards, no card may directly cause a checkmate or capture of a king. This rule takes precedence over every other rule or anything on a card. If a played card would break this rule, then that card has no effect, but is still considered played. So you can’t force your opponent to move a piece so they are in checkmate, but you could use a piece with transformed movement to checkmate your opponent. Cards that limit movement can be used to remove the threat of check or checkmate.

The checkmate rule trumps every other rule. When a card conflicts with the regular rules of chess, the card overrules it. If two cards conflict with each other, then the card most recently played overrules the other, and that card is discarded if it isn’t already.

IN the bottom of center of the cards image are symbols indicating what type of piece is affected. The symbols are: pawn, rook, knight, bishop, queen, king, all, and special.

Some special terminology on the cards to know is:
Adjacent squares are all squares orthogonally and diagonally around the target square.
Legal move is a move that follow all normal chess rules and any active cards.
Lost pieces are the same as captured pieces.
Dead pieces are removed and set aside and may not return to play.
Move can refer to either a player’s turn and/or the play of a card; or it can refer to the movement of an individual piece. Unless the card specifies that the move must be legal, then the move can be illegal as specified on the card
Piece includes pawns
Regular card is any card without a continuous effect.
Replace means to remove a piece from play and put another piece in its place.
Return means to take a piece that had been captured and put it back in play.
Swap means to exchange the positions of 2 pieces on the board.
A transformed piece is one that has been given a new name and new powers by a continuing-effect card.

The first player to checkmate their opponent wins. Some variants you can play are...

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