What does brandubh mean?

Brandubh (also spelled brandub) is Irish for 'black raven'. It is the Irish member of the tafl family of Viking Age board games, played on a 7x7 board with 8 attackers against 4 defenders and a king.

Is Brandubh the same game as Hnefatafl?

They are the same family and play by the same core rules: rook movement, custodial capture, king escaping to a corner. Brandubh is the small, fast Irish board at 7x7, while Hnefatafl usually refers to the full 11x11 game.

How long does a game of Brandubh take?

About five minutes. With only 13 pieces on 49 squares, every move bites immediately, which makes Brandubh the best tafl board for learning and for quick games.

How is the king captured in Brandubh?

On the 7x7 Brandubh board the king is captured like an ordinary piece, caught between just two attackers. This weak king rule is standard for small tafl boards and keeps the fast raid board balanced. On the larger 9x9 and 11x11 boards the king falls only when surrounded on all four sides, or three plus his throne.

WORLDTAFL · THE TAFL FAMILY

Brandubh: the black raven, Ireland's five-minute war game

Brandubh (Irish for "black raven") is the Irish member of the tafl family: a 7×7 board, 8 attackers against 4 defenders and their king, every piece moving like a rook, capture by sandwiching, the king running for a corner. It is the smallest and fastest of the classic tafl boards, and the best one to learn the game on.

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The raid board

If the full 11×11 hnefatafl board is a pitched siege, brandubh is a raid. Thirteen pieces on forty-nine squares means there is nowhere to hide and no quiet developing moves. The king stands one clean rook-move from the edge on turn one, so the attackers are in crisis from the first breath, and one mistake by either side usually ends the game inside a minute. A typical game lasts about five minutes.

An Irish game with an Irish body

Brandubh appears by name in medieval Irish verse, and Ireland gave the tafl family its single finest artefact: the Ballinderry board, a 7×7 wooden board with peg-holes and a decorated border, pulled from a bog in County Westmeath in 1932. Its 49-hole grid with marked centre and corners fits brandubh exactly. The pegs tell their own story: this was a board built to be played on a ship's bench or a knee, in a world that moved.

How brandubh differs from the bigger boards

Armies: 8 attackers versus 4 defenders and the king, the same two-to-one ratio as every tafl board.
Corners and throne work as in Copenhagen rules: only the king may land there, corners are capture partners, the king escapes at any corner.
The king is young here: on the 7×7 board he is captured like an ordinary piece, caught between just two attackers. The four-wall law that protects the king on 9×9 and 11×11 does not apply on the raid board; it would make the small king nearly uncatchable. The full capture rules are on the rules page.
Pace: think blitz. On worldtafl.com the 7×7 board is the recommended first board and the ~5 minute quick-match lane.

Why learn on 7×7

Because every tafl idea, the corner blockade, the sacrifice to open a file, the shieldwall, the losing habit of moving guards for no reason, appears on 7×7 within your first three games, in miniature and at speed. Players who learn on brandubh step onto tablut and the 11×11 king's table already knowing what the game is about.

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