The first minis I bought back in '92 were to build a chess set. The only TRO I'd seen was 3025. With no knowledge of the BT universe, I based my selections purely on the images in there:
Pawn - Wasp (small & disposable)
Rook - Warhammer (squared off w/ guns)
Bishop - Shadow Hawk (built like a friar)
Knight - Crusader (a jumper)
Queen - Battlemaster (elegant hourglass figure yet devastating)
King - Atlas (pure domination)
I sold it to a student and rebuilt it with different mechs.
This is why even today, my Alpha and Bravo companies are still 16-mech units with 2 lances of recons, 1 lance of medium attack, and one unit of heavy attack.
Has anyone ever considered a form of battlechess: instead of a capture, the two mechs duel offboard - the surviving mech returns to the board but retains all damage throughout the rest of the game. There is no checkmate. You must duel the 'king' to win.
I've though fondly of this topic over the years but never considered a thread. Thanks, YingJanshi, for bringing this one up!
JB