Knighted Queen Chess

Anyone ever play with a Queen on horseback? I.E. she can jump like a knight also. Does Qa5 break the game? Or hitting the Bishop Pawns for epic forks? I've already convinced myself it'd be too powerful to be much fun.

This piece is commonly known as an Amazon. It features, for instance, in Superchess, as one of the 'replacements'. Whether the piece is too strong will depend on the context. I have tested its strength, and its value came out as exactly equal to that of a separate Queen and Knight. (No additional synergy.) If you use it to replace Queens in the FIDE setup it becomes very problematic to find trading partners for it, however.

Note that this super-piece is still not as strong as the Chu-Shogi Lion, despite the fact that on an empty board it can reach more squares. The Lion is lacking the distant slider moves that go more than 2 steps, so it can only reach the squares in the 5x5 area around it, that the Amazon can also reach. The difference is that a Lion can jump to all these squares directly, and can actually make two King steps per turn, capturing twice, if it wants. It is worth about 15 Pawns.

The latest WinBoard release supports a variant Mighty-Lion Chess, which replaces the Queen-side Knights by Lions. This leaves the Queens in the game to oppose them, so that at least L vs Q+R trades are available to keep the game interesting. (L vs L trades are forbidden in this variant, like they are in Chu Shogi.)

A Knighted Queen/Amazon would be too powerful in normal chess. Maybe a variant with loads of pieces, or if it loses it's movement over time e.g. If all Knights captured it can't move like a Knight, same with Bishops and Rooks until it just moves like a King.

Well, in the Superchess championship you get Q+N, R+N, B+N and K+N compounds, plus three orthodox pieces (and King). Personally I think this is a bit overloaded, but it is playable. I think it is more important what the difference between the strongest and next-strongest piece is than what the absolute strength is. If the Queen participates, having a piece stronger than that isn't really a problem.

Interesting stuff...the 2-move lion sounds super broken xD

Might be fun still.

Few other ideas (which have probably been done already but I was just thinking about it this morning.

Cardinal (or Pope): moves either like a Bishop or a King. Different from Archbishop.

Champion: Moves/captures like a Knight or a Pawn. No promotion.

Fool: Moves like a King OR switches places with another piece regardless of position.

Wizard: Moves like a King. Captures like a knight, does not move when capturing.

Your Pope is used in Shogi (Japanese Chess) as the promoted form of the Bishop (not only Pawns promote in Shogi), and is called 'Dragon Horse' there.

'Rifle-Chess' captures like you propose on the Wizard are extremely dangerous. The main reason the Lion is so much stronger than the Amazon is that it can do such captures at King range (using its double King move to step back and forth). At Knight range seems even more dangerous. It can snipe off anything it attacks, no matter how well protected it was, and it can usually fork multiple targets, of which only one can be withdrawn. (With only a King move it is much less mobile than the Lion, though.)