For the board, I ordered a 50x50cm sheet of blue perspex, as well as a pack of adhesive small yellow stars. Does anyone see where this is going?
The board is for a 13 x 13 hnefatafl set. Hnefatafl boards come in several sizes, from 7 x 7 to 19 x 19, and there is some historical evidence for 13 x 13 boards.
There are no historical details regarding the number of pieces, but given the size of the board, 16 + 1 vs 32 seems appropriate. Not surprisingly, there is no historical evidence for the starting configuration of the pieces, so I've adopted one that is circulating on the internet (no doubt following test play):
So here's my 'brexitafl' set!
Why do I refer to this set as 'brexitafl'? Clearly, the old Vikings were blissfully unaware of Brexit ...
First of all, I guess it's pretty clear that the blue board with the yellow stars represents the EU. In the centre of the board, we have the UK coins (led by a £2 queen; not by a king as normal in hnefatafl) trying to escape from the EU. Around the board, we have euro coins trying to prevent this escape. Sounds familiar? The final reason for this being 'brexitafl' is that if the UK queen indeed escapes from the board, she'll suddenly realise there's not much beyond it, and life on the board actually wasn't that bad ....
