It's not really chess as it's an RPG. Sacrificing units would affect the story, and since the game's difficulty is not anywhere near the difficulty of a real chess game, allowing non-permanent death would make the game way too easy (in fact even with permanent death the game is still extremely easy except for the latest one Radiant Dawn, which is unfairly hard). The only difficulty of the game comes from protecting your weaklings from death. War of Eustrath tries to mimic this but they overcomplex everything, the interface is a mess. Fire Emblem is simpler and much more fun.
OH, another thing I would love to see is a remake of Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot card game! http://killerbunnies.com/?page_id=3
I think you'd need to know the game to draw a valid conclusion from that. We're talking about an SRPG here, not a straight TBS. It's not nearly as simple as what you might claim.
My intent wasn't to exchange idea about a game I didn't played but to exchange in general about Strategy and Tactical games with a RPG context, not even about what Japan console players name Tactical RPG. I probably didn't make it clear enough my post was with a larger point of view. That said if sacrifice can be deep in Chess this most probably require a special goal as a King to make such mechanism work better. This permadeath question in SRPG (more TRPG in fact) is close to the alternate designs in classical party RPG, with permadeath or heavy penalty death vs only unconscious during a battle and lost only if the whole team is unconscious. The two point of view can work, it's not that permadeath is always better and that's all.
A game in the vein of Super Smash Bros./Jump Ultimate Stars would be so awesome. But that would be quite the challenge on the iDevice. Still would be awesome, though
