WORLDTAFL · THE KING'S TABLE

Hnefatafl: the Viking board game of kings, and where to play it online

Hnefatafl (roughly "the king's table") was the great strategy game of the Norse world. For some seven hundred years, from the age of migrations through the height of the Viking era, it was played in halls from Ireland to Ukraine, by farmers and jarls alike. Boards and pieces have been found in warrior graves, trading towns and monasteries. Then, around 1200 AD, chess arrived along the trade routes and buried it. The rules were never written down by the people who played it best, and for eight centuries the king's table sat silent.

It is back, and you can play it in your browser in the next thirty seconds.

How Hnefatafl works (the two-minute version)

Hnefatafl is an asymmetric strategy game: the two sides have different armies and different goals, which is exactly what makes it feel so alive next to chess:

• The defenders hold the centre: a king and his small guard. They win if the king reaches a corner tower, sanctuary.
• The attackers outnumber them two to one and start on the four edges. They win by capturing the king, walling him in on every side.
• Every piece moves like a chess rook: any distance along a row or column.
• You capture a piece by catching it between two of yours, the custodial capture that defines the whole tafl family. Moving into such a trap is safe.

One side runs; one side hunts. Games are short, sharp and dramatic. A typical small-board game lasts five minutes.

The three boards of the tafl family

Different corners of the medieval North played the game at different scales, and all three survive as a natural skill ladder:

• Brandubh (7×7), the small Irish raid board: 8 attackers against 4 defenders and a king. Fast and fierce, and the best board to learn on.
• Tablut (9×9), the Sámi board, recorded by Carl Linnaeus in 1732; his notes are the reason we can reconstruct tafl rules at all.
• Copenhagen Hnefatafl (11×11), the full king's table, played under the modern tournament ruleset with shieldwall captures and edge forts. This is the deep game.

Is Hnefatafl harder than chess?

It is different. The rules are far simpler. A bright eight-year-old learns them in two minutes. But the asymmetry means you must master two entirely different arts: the patient siegecraft of the attackers and the desperate breakout play of the defenders. Serious play is always in pairs of games, one on each side of the board.

Play Hnefatafl online

worldtafl.com is a free, modern home for the game, built for phones:

• Interactive two-minute tutorial: learn by playing, not by reading
• Five bot opponents, from a sleepy farmhand to The Old King himself
• Challenge a friend with one link. They are playing in seconds
• Quick match, ratings, divisions and leaderboards on all three boards
• Daily riddles and post-game analysis of every move you played

Further reading: the tafl research and tournament community at aagenielsen.dk, and the tafl games article on Wikipedia. WORLDTAFL implements the Copenhagen ruleset used in modern tournament play.