Hnefatafl

A.k.a. Viking Chess. Savage marauders attack a Kingdom. Can the King escape?

SET UP

A table and 2 chairs.
An 11x11 TALF board.
A full sets of Pawns. 12 mighty Kingdom knights, 24 savage Viking marauders, and your Majesty, the King.
The board is preset with the King on his throne in the center of the board, protected by 12 knights. The Vikings surround the Kingdom with 6 on each side.
Player roles are determined.
The Vikings move first.
Rules should be determined and announced before game play starts.

Hnefatafl and all its variations have asymmetrical objectives. The Kingdom wins if the King can escape to one of the 4 corners. The Vikings win if they can effectively surround the King on all 4 sides, or 3 sides against a border.

All game pieces move like a Chess Rook. Meaning a piece can move any number of spaces in any adjacent direction, (not diagonally).
In all variations, only the King can occupy a corner space.
Captures can be made by surrounding an opposing pawn on both sides. For example, if the board had X0_, and X moved a pawn to create X0X, the center opposing pawn would be captured and removed from the board, X_X.
A pawn can valiantly move into a capture position without penalty. It is the outside pawn's movement that effectivley 'gang up' on the victim.
The Vikings can effectively block/cut off corners so long as there is at least one opening for the King to escape to.

There are many variations of Hnefatafl, including...
The size of the board.
If the King can participate in a capture (is armed) or not.
If the throne is armed or not.
If the corners are armed or not.
If only the King can occupy the central throne or not.
If only the King may move thru the central throne or not.
There are other variations that have shield wall formations, and a Beserker Viking with special attack powers.
Check out many more variations such as, Historical Ard Ri, Magpie, Historical Brandubh, Federation Brandudh, Historical Tablut, Foteviken Tablut, Linnaeus Tablut, Simple Tafl, Beserker Hnefatafl, Copenhagen Hnefatafl, Fetlar Hnefatafl, Historical Hnefatafl, Old Hnefatafl, Sea Battle 11x11, Tyr 11x11, Tyr 15x15, or Historical Alea Evangelii.

I love this game! Its simple to learn, and it’s spelled exactly like it sounds, with the 'H' and second 'f' are silent.
Hnefatafl is at least 400 years older than modern day conventional Chess, and my favorite way to play the game.
The Tafl board was commonly found in European taverns during medieval times.
The Vikings would sail to foreign lands and use a Tafl board, branded or drawn on an animal skin, and use rocks to plan and coordinate their attacks, making it one of the oldest known military strategy tools.

This game and the TAFL game board are a keystone marker on The Predators Tract, and The Sticks and Stones Series shelves.
What makes this game so great is its flexibility, the many variable rules allow for multiple ways to play, making the Talf board a great investment.
Be careful to determine and share the rules you agree to play by. I offer a way to keep track of them for full transparency of each version you try.
The assymetrical objectives and disproportionate number of pawn pieces make this game seem lopsided, but it is not.
In nearly all the variations, the Viking attackers outnumber the Knights 2 to 1, but corralling the elusive King is much harder than you think.
Introduce this game to your local Chess club, for an ancient ‘new’ perspective on empirical strategy tactics. After playing this and a few others of my type of games, I’ll guarantee they will become better Chess players.