Imperial Contest - interpretation of a 19th century game

As far as I'm aware, 'Imperial Contest' is the oldest commercial hnefatafl game. It dates back to 1855, and depicts the Crimean War, with England, Turkey, France and Sardinia facing Russia. I have never seen even a picture of the original 19th century game, but some information on it is here. 

As I expect I will never have the chance to add an original copy of 'Imperial Contest' to my collection, I decided to create my own interpretation of it. 

For the pieces I created flags, using carbon rods, plastic end caps and rubber washers, together with a bit of kite line. For the board, I chose chamois. 

First I put the flag poles together, 24 smaller poles and one larger one (for the tsar). 

I searched the internet for the flags that the countries would have flown in the Crimean War, printed them off, and added them to the lines on the flag poles.

Then I drew a 9 x 9 board on the chamois, and added the coastal outlines of the countries around the Black Sea, giving the board a bit of a feel of a map.

So here's how the full game looks like: 

Unless and until I see a picture of an original 'Imperial Contest' game, I'll never know how accurate my own interpretation is compared to the original, but at least I've sort of added 'Imperial Contest' to my collection of hnefatafl games. 

Swords and Shields

Swords and Shields is a commercial version of hnefatafl, dating back to 1970. I'd been keeping my eye in eBay for quite a while, until I could pull the trigger on one in pretty good shape, given its age of half a century!

The board is the usual fold-up board made of cardboard, and depicts a 9 x 9 hnefatafl playing area. The rules are standard for hnefatafl.

The pieces are made of hard plastic: black swords for the attackers and bronze shields for the king and defenders. 

I'm glad to have been able to add Swords and Shields to the collection!

Zombies Attack

While surfing the web, looking for information on hnefatafl variants, I stumbled across an Etsy site which offered for sale a game called 'Zombies Attack'. The story of the game was that zombies attack a high school with children, and the children need to find a way to escape. The Etsy site didn't give the full rules of the game, but it was clear to me the game was loosely based on hnefatafl. So, obviously, I had to either get a copy of the game, or make a version myself. Before I had made up my mind one way or another, the Etsy listing disappeared, but fortunately, I had saved the board layout, and what little was given in terms of the rules of the game: 

Why do I, in the absence of the full rules of the game, consider 'Zombies Attack' a hnefatafl variant? First of all, there is the general layout of the game, with a larger force on the outside trying to capture a smaller force on the inside. And secondly, the asymmetry in both sides having different aims. My assumption, by the way, is that the red squares are escape squares for the children.

Making a version of the game myself meant coming up with ideas for the pieces and the board. As to the pieces, I thought one day that using minion figurines would give the game a really quirky feel. I ordered several sets of minions as well as cheap plastic discs, in different colours, on which I would place them.

Twelve minions would be the school children, on blue or yellow discs (it wasn't clear on the Etsy site what the significance of blue vs yellow squares on the board was).

Twenty-eight minions, on green discs and with their overalls painted black, were to be the zombies.

And now to the board .... I couldn't really come up with an idea for a board that would fit the quirky minions, until one day I thought "bubblewrap"! Board made from bubblewrap, with more coloured discs for the 'squares' would fit very nicely!

So then it was a matter of measuring out the board and gluing the discs in place.

And then, once the board was done, place the minions on it.

Quirky or what?

5-in-1 set

Surfing the interwebs for hnefatafl-related stuff, I stumbled across SevenOaksGrove on Etsy. Among lots of other things, it offered a very nice vinyl hnefatafl board, allowing the playing of 7 x 7, 9 x 9, and 11 x 11 versions. The price was really decent, especially given the postage from the US, so needless to say I ordered a board plus a set of playing pieces.

Because of the layout of the board, with concentric squares, it can be used to play 7 x 7 Brandubh, ...

... 7 x 7 Ard Ri, with the square starting array for the king side (unlike my Ard Banrigh version), ...

... 9 x 9 Tablut, ...

... 11 x 11 Tawlbyrdd, ...

... and 11 x 11 Hnefatafl!

The pieces are simple, turned wood, and nicely done.

Good addition to the collection!

'Ard Banrigh'

Look for information on hnefatafl variants and you'll come across the mention of a small (7 x 7) Scottish version, called Ard Ri ('High King'). But dig a bit deeper, and you'll realise that there is no historical evidence for this, and so it's likely it's a modern invention. Of course, there is historical evidence for a 7 x 7 version of hnefatafl, but Ard Ri is said to have 8 + 16 pieces rather than the 4 + 8 pieces normally associated with a 7 x 7 size. 

Historical or not, I felt I had to add Ard Ri to my collection, and decided to create a board of raised squares covered by sari fabric (of which I still had some from creating the 'board' for my Kama Sutra set).

The central square is deliberately made higher than the other squares.

The sari fabric was fastened on the board using gold-coloured drawing pins.

So now for the pieces! In the end, I decided to remain Kama Sutra-esque, and order one queen plus 24 pawns from the erotic chess set made by oggtheclever (I have ordered several chess sets from him before; see here, here and here). The queen and 8 pawns are coloured 'antique bronze', and the remaining 16 pawns 'aged pewter'. I also decided to use the alternative 'cross' formation for the starting array of the queen side rather than the more common 'square' formation. 

So this is what the board looks like with the pieces on it:

Clearly, with all the pieces being female, I felt I needed to change the name of this set slightly; 'High King' isn't quite appropriate! So I looked up what 'High Queen' would be in Scottish Gaelic: 'Ard Banrigh'.

Hnefatafl World Championship 2021

 

The 2021 Hnefatafl World Championship took place from September 15 to December 12 last year. Like last year, the tournament was conducted on-line. A total of 35 players participated, from 15 countries.

Similar to previous years, there were two tournaments happening side-by-side. One used the modern Copenhagen rules, where the other used historical tawlbwrdd rules.

Plamen Dragonov, from Bulgaria, won both tournaments, and can now call himself both the Hnefatafl World Champion and the Historical Hnefatafl World Champion.

More information, including scores and moves of all games, can be found here. 

Drakkar set

I'd seen this 'Drakkar' hnefatafl set pop up on eBay several times, but always shied away from clicking the 'buy-it-now' button, because they all appeared to be located in Russia, and who knows where your money then goes and whether you'll ever see what you ordered .... But then, it wasn't very expensive, so the worst that could happen is me losing the money. So I bought a set in the end, and, even though it took a long time to arrive, it did eventually!

The set itself is made from wood, and a model of a Viking longboat serves both as a place to store the pieces, as well as for a board for another Nordic game, Daldos.

Of course, my interest was in the hnefatafl aspect of the set, and a cardboard board allows playing of a 9 x 9 version of the game.

The pieces are pretty rough and simple, but smell quite nice, of burnt wood!

Unique addition to the collection, this Drakkar set!