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.
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 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.
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.
Unique addition to the collection, this Drakkar set!
'Tyr' hnefatafl is a modern hnefatafl variant, inspired by some ambiguities in the 11th century manuscript portraying Alea Evangelii. Both sides have a extra piece type called a 'commander', and in addition, a piece type called 'vanguard', can switch sides. All this makes for faster and more exciting game, especially on larger boards.
Clearly, I wanted to add a 'tyr' hnefatafl set to my collection, and opted for the 17 x 17 version, simply because that size isn't yet part of any set in the collection. Plywood and self-adhesive 'tiled' plastic were to be the main ingredients of the board, whereas the pieces are those from two identical cheap chess sets.
People have repeatedly changed the squares in chess to hexagons, as this changes the moves of the pieces in interesting ways. Guess it's no surprise that someone has also done this with hnefatafl! Say hello to heXentafl, designed and marketed by NXSgame.com.
