Keeping the number of armies at four might be good for the article, but it is obviously not what we want to do. And if that was the only motivation it still doesn't explain why the Mashers should be disqualified rather than one of the four 'classical' armies. That these might have been invented earlier does not seem to be a good reason, as it is tantamount to excluding improvement.
BTW, I have started a test with N2R4 now, and initial results do not yet suggest it would be stronger than Queen. As Queen replacement for black the score in the match so far is 26-18 in favor of the Queen. (But could include some first-move advantage; after 100 games I will reverse colors for 100 more games to average that out.)
Keeping the number of armies at four might be good for the article, but it is obviously not what we want to do. And if that was the only motivation it still doesn't explain why the Mashers should be disqualified rather than one of the four 'classical' armies. That these might have been invented earlier does not seem to be a good reason, as it is tantamount to excluding improvement.
BTW, I have started a test with N2R4 now, and initial results do not yet suggest it would be stronger than Queen. As Queen replacement for black the score in the match so far is 26-18 in favor of the Queen. (But could include some first-move advantage; after 100 games I will reverse colors for 100 more games to average that out.)