Walter Montego: The plan is already to make white first use King, and black use Queen. I've played it that was a few times as a "test", and found that white no longer gets blown out of the water. I was still able to win as black during those test, but that did not take into consideration the other changes to the game about what space scores what - so it should be a lot closer doing that.

The connect6 type of moving - that is also a interesting idea. Just looking at it, without making black use his queen early - I would still say Black would have an advantage because on their next to last move, a rook & queen places could attack a lot of the board that white would not be able to block with just one piece..... but I would have to play it to know for sure.