Some updates:

Mapped the UVs for practice, made the board and fixed lots of my geometry... I also created low poly versions for future use.

2 questions:
What could be the problem with the figures (besides the pawns)?

They have the same material as the pawns...
EDIT: if anyone encounters this the normals are probably reversed.


How do I set up a material(what do I need to connect) from 2 shaders and a checker, so that every color of the checker will use a different shader? that is, where the checker is black output from first(black/white) shader will be used and vice versa...

Thanks,
Benny