Thud

If, like me, you're a big fan of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, you may well have read Thud!

And if you have indeed read Thud!, you may remember it features a board game, called by its dwarfish name "Hnaflbaflwhiflsnifltafl" ...

Given the popularity of the Discworld novels, it's probably no surprise that a commercial version of hnaflbaflwhiflsnifltafl was produced, in 2002, under the slightly easier-to-pronounce name of Thud.

Why am I including Thud in a blog on hnefatafl-like games? Because it is clearly inspired by hnefatafl, as you might have guessed from the dwarfish name ....

But there is more than just the name to show it being an offshoot of the hnefatafl family. First of all, the game is asymmetrical, with one of the armies (dwarves) at the edges of the board, surrounding the other army (trolls) at the centre. The asymmetry is stronger than in hnefatafl itself: not 1:2, but 1:4.

At the centre of the board, surrounded by trolls, is the 'thud stone'. Although this essentially takes the place of the hnefatafl king, the thud stone does not move and can't be captured.

The moves of dwarves and trolls are different from the normal move in hnefatafl: dwarves move like the chess queen and trolls like the chess king. In addition, dwarves can hurl a dwarf, and trolls can shove a troll. As the thud stone does not move, the winner of the game is decided on counting numbers of captured dwarves and trolls. Anyone interested in more details on the rules of Thud can find them here.

Thud: clearly different from hnefatafl in many ways, but equally clearly inspired by it.