Let's play a forced move version of Bird's Chess. This forcing of opening moves is simular in concept to how some Checker tournaments are held by requiring the opening moves to be forced upon the players to keep the game from becoming stale or over-studied. This version will be called "Modern Bird's Chess". Bird's Chess is a game made up in 1874 by Henry Bird. His game is actually a pretty good game that would be a fine substitute for this Gothic Chess that seemily has the power to distroy all opposition to it. Anyway, I propose a new version of Bird's Chess and am calling it Modern Bird's Chess. In this version of Bird's Chess each player's first four moves are determined before the start of the game. If you're familiar with Gothic Chess's set up, put the pieces in the same places except that the Queen is placed next to the King on E1, the Guard (Known as Chancellor in Gothic Chess) is placed on D1, the Equerry (Archbishop in Gothic chess) is on G1. This is slightly different from how Ed has Bird's Chess in his article sited earlier (He has the Guard and Equerry on each other's respective squares), but I went to the chessvariants site figuring Ed isn't the only authority on Bird's Chess. In fact, from this set up, you'll notice that all's Gothic Chess is is Bird's Chess with the Queen and Chancellor in switched positions! I shall call the pieces by their Gothic Chess names though Guard and Equerry are just as good as any other names. We've gotten used to the names from playing Gothic Chess and this is a Gothic Chess discussion board.
OK, with the pieces set up as shown on the chessvariants.com site, the players must make the following four moves and then may play as they'd like. C= Guard and A= Equerry.
White------- Black
1. C d1-c3..... C d8-c6
2. Q e1-d1..... Q e8-d8
3. C c3-d3..... C c6-d6
4. C d3-e1..... C d6-e8

After these moves have been made, the regular rules for Bird's Chess shall appply. (As far as I can tell they are identical to Gothic Chess' rules. Real innovation there, Ed.)

What do you think, Fencer? Could we get rid of Gothic Chess and replace it with Bird's Chess and the Modern Bird's Chess variation? I'm sure you could just put them together on one web page and let the players decide which version to play. The Modern Bird's version would play just like Gothic Chess after the fourth move and people that like the different starting position would be happy. Of course, you could just put Bird's Chess on and people could play it as is or could agree to make certain opening moves before having free choice, just as Checkers does.