The Game Ned Kelly

The basic concept of hnefatafl, a small group trying to escape from the clutches of a larger group, lends itself well to the game being marketed as an 'escape story'; see for instance Magpie and Papillon's Escape. This Australian commercial game centres around the outlaw Ned Kelly, being helped by his gang members in trying to escape from the police at the Siege of Glentowan.

Unlike any other commercial hnefatafl sets I have, The 'Game Ned Kelly' comes in a cardboard tube, study enough to survive the journey from Latvia, where I finally found my cope of the game for a reasonable price (prior to that, I had seen several eBay listings originating from Australia, but the shipping costs were just prohibitive, and customs charges would have come on top of that).

The 11 x 11 board is made of cloth, not unlike the one that came with my very first hnefatafl set, but not as elaborately decorated.

The pieces are made of plastic; 12 bronze-coloured pieces around a bronze-coloured Ned/king, all 'iron-clad', against 24 blue-coloured pieces in the shape of 'police helmets'.

The pieces are quite simple, but they certainly do the job.

The rules for 'The Game Ned Kelly' are pretty much those for traditional hnefatafl (same movement of the pieces, same method of capturing, Ned/king escaping in the 'shamrock' corners), but there is one important difference: when capturing a piece, the capturing side can choose to either remove the captured piece from the board, or leave it on the board and reintroduce one of their own previously-captured pieces on one of the relevant starting squares. I'm not aware of any other game derived from hnefatafl to have this particular rule, which is reminiscent of the drop rule in Shogi (Japanese chess).

Hnefatafl World Championship 2020

You may well be familiar with the fact that chess has its regular world championships, with Magnus Carlsen the reigning men's world champion, and Ju Wenjun the reigning women's world champion.

Hnefatafl also has a regular world championship. Unlike for chess, the hnefatafl tournament is organised as an on-line tournament. 

The 2020 hnefatafl world championship started in September 2020 and was completed last month. Actually, there were two tournaments running side-by-side: 'historical hnefatafl', on a 9x9 board, and according to tablut rules, and 'modern hnefatafl, on a 11x11 board, and according to Copenhagen rules. 

The tournament ran over three different rounds, with the best players in each round continuing to the next round. A total of 16 players registered for the 9x9 tournament, and 28 players for the 11x11 tournament. Quite a few players participated in both tournaments. 

Mario Aluizo was victorious in both tournaments, and unbeaten in the final rounds of both. He can therefore rightly be called the undisputed 2020 Hnefatafl World Champion. 

Rules, scores, the moves of all games, and much more can be found here. Congratulations to Mario!

Tawlbwrdd, with a twist

Only a handful of medieval manuscripts give us information on 'tawlbwrdd', but it is very clear from those manuscripts that tawlbwrdd was a Welsh version of hnefatafl, played on either a 9 x 9 or an 11 x 11 board. Tawlbwrdd as marketed under the title 'The Celtic Game' is a very basic 11 x 11 version. To fit in the small box, the board comes as four 'jigsaw' cardboard pieces which interlock to create the full board. The pieces are simply plastic (black and red) discs, with a black cube representing the king.

There is some controversy regarding whether or not tawlbwrdd was played with dice. According to some, the word 'tawlbwrdd' translates as 'throw-board', suggesting the use of dice. This would make tawlbwrdd unique among hnefatafl variants. However, none of the manuscripts mentioning tawlbwrdd specifically talk about dice, or suggest they played a role in the game.

Nevertheless, 'The Celtic Game' is marketed as a game played with dice. Or rather, with a die, as one is included.

And, in case you're wondering, the die determines how many squares a piece can move every time. Remember, this is not based on any historical evidence ....

Replica hnefatafl set

There are quite a few archaeological finds of glass hnefatafl pieces, often in Viking graves, and I personally feel the 'swirly' design is particularly nice.

Wouldn't it be great to be able to add a genuine old hnefatafl set to my collection? Well, no chance of me ever finding one in my garden, which leaves the next best thing: a replica set. I came across this very nice looking replica set, and ordered one.

The board is simple in design (as it would have been in Viking times, judging from the few archaeological finds of hnefatafl boards), and made using a very nice piece of wood.

The glass pieces are the 'swirly' type as shown in the first picture in this post. They are hand-made, so they're all slightly different (again, as they would have been in Viking times). The pieces are nearly spherical (with flattened bases), with the king being taller.

The set looks really nice together!

While looking for replica glass hnefatafl sets, I stumbled across a replica of a king from the Birka grave, and felt that king would also go well with the replica set.

So here's the same set, but with the original king replaced by the 'Birka king'.

Original king obviously matches better with the other pieces, being in the same style and colours. Birka king stands out more. What's your favourite?

By the way, is it just me, or does the Birka king have a hint of Dalek?

Papillon's Escape

The concept behind hnefatafl lends itself well to stories involving escape in some way, and the Papillon's Escape board game, dating back to 1988, is a good example of that 

The game is based on Henry Charrière's escape from the penal colony at Devil's Island in French Guiana, as detailed in his (partly or wholly) autobiographical novel Papillon.

The plastic board features raised squares, without any ornamentation. The pieces are wooden, and painted purple for the 'king' (or rather, for Henry Charrière), black for his helpers, and red for the opposing guards.

As such, it is very similar to a 9 x 9 version of hnefatafl, although the starting array around the king is different from the usual cross or diamond formation.

Unlike in traditional hnefatafl, all pieces can only more one square orthogonally. 'Papillon' escapes from Devil's Island by reaching the edge of the board, whereas the guards win by capturing him; capture is via the normal custodianship method.

Magpie

Nigel Suckling's "The Leprechaun Companion", published in 1999, includes the story of a leprechaun who found a bag of gold and needs to bring it to safety, with the help of four friends. Eight thieves, however, lie in wait to catch the leprechaun and steal the gold. 

If this sounds a bit like a hnefatafl game, it is, and it is called 'Magpie'. A print-and-play file was made available, allowing anyone to print off the board and pieces and so create their own magpie set to play with.

I decided to keep it simple and basically follow the instruction: print off the board and pieces, and glue them on stiff cardboard.

With the pieces, I took one liberty: I coloured the leprechaun hat.

And my second liberty was to liven the board up a wee bit by adding small graphics of leprechauns and magpies.

And this is what the complete Magpie game then looks like:

One difference with traditional hnefatafl is the starting array of the attackers. Helpers and thieves have the normal hnefatafl move (like the rook in chess), but the leprechaun can only move one square (because the gold is heavy, of course!). 

A very simple Magpie set, and deliberately so, in order to stay in the print-and-play spirit in which it was made freely available. After Thud, Magpie is the second book-linked hnefatafl variant in my wee collection, although Magpie is much closer to traditional hnefatafl than Thud.

Break Away

Break Away is a board game dating back to 1984, and clearly one derived from hnefatafl.

The board and pieces are made from plastic, with the pieces fitting within the squares of the 9 x 9 board. While not in play, the pieces are stored into two compartments on either side of the board, and these compartments can also be used for captured pieces during play. Basically, Break Away can be considered a portable travel version of hnefatafl.

Two differences between Break Away and traditional hnefatafl are clear. The most obvious one is the number of attacking pieces: 12 rather than 16, which means the game does not have the 'normal' n +1 vs 2n number of pieces. Secondly, whereas the attacking and defending pieces move like the normal hnefatafl pieces (i.e. like the rook in chess), the king can only move one square horizontally or vertically. To make up for this restricted movement, the king can escape via any edge square rather than only in the corners. 

The game does include an extra four white pieces, to allow the attackers the use of 16 pieces. This 'Master Break Away' option restores the n +1 vs 2n formula, and makes the game more similar to Tablut (except for the limited movement of the king).