How is the king captured in Hnefatafl?

Under Copenhagen rules the king is captured only when attackers occupy all four squares around him, or three squares when he stands beside the throne, which counts as the fourth wall. The board edge does not help capture the king. On the small 7x7 Brandubh board, by contrast, the king is captured like an ordinary piece, between just two attackers: the weak king rule standard for small tafl boards.

Can the king capture pieces in Hnefatafl?

Yes. In Copenhagen Hnefatafl the king is armed: he can serve as one side of a custodial capture exactly like any defender.

What is a shieldwall capture?

A shieldwall capture removes a whole row of pieces pinned against the board edge. If every piece in the row has an enemy directly inland of it and the row is bracketed at both ends by enemy pieces or corners, the entire row is captured at once. A king caught in a shieldwall survives; his soldiers do not.

What is an exit fort in Hnefatafl?

An exit fort is a defender win condition in Copenhagen rules: if the king stands on the board edge, has room to move, and is enclosed by a wall of defenders the attackers can never break, the defenders win immediately.

Who moves first in Hnefatafl?

The attackers always move first. This is standard in every historical and modern tafl ruleset.

WORLDTAFL · THE KING'S TABLE

Hnefatafl rules: how to play the Viking game of kings

The short version: Hnefatafl is an asymmetric strategy game. One player has a king and a small guard in the centre; the other has an army twice the size on the edges. Every piece moves like a chess rook. You capture by sandwiching an enemy between two of your pieces. The defenders win if the king reaches a corner. The attackers win if they wall the king in on every side. The attackers always move first.

That paragraph is genuinely enough to start playing. Everything below is the precise version, following the Copenhagen Hnefatafl ruleset used in modern tournament play and implemented at worldtafl.com.

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The board and the armies

The full game is played on an 11×11 board with 24 attackers, 12 defenders and the king, who begins on the central square, the throne. Smaller historical boards use the same rules at smaller scale: Brandubh is 7×7 with 8 attackers against 4 defenders and the king, and Tablut is 9×9 with 16 against 8. The four corner squares are the king's escape gates.

How do pieces move?

Every piece, the king included, moves like a chess rook: any number of empty squares along a row or column. No jumping, no diagonals. Two restrictions:

Only the king may land on the throne or a corner square.
Any piece may pass through the empty throne, but never through a corner.

How do captures work?

Capture is custodial: you remove an enemy piece by closing it between two of your pieces on opposite sides, horizontally or vertically. Three details matter:

The capture happens only when you close the trap. Moving your own piece into a sandwich is completely safe.
Hostile squares can stand in for one of your pieces. The four corners are hostile to everyone. The throne is always hostile to attackers, but hostile to defenders only while it stands empty.
One move can capture several pieces at once if it closes several traps.

The king is armed: he can serve as one half of a capture like any soldier.

How does the king win?

The defenders win the moment the king stands on any of the four corner squares.

The whole defending game is about opening a road there. Good attackers spend the early game building a diagonal blockade in front of every corner before tightening the noose.

How is the king captured?

The attackers win by surrounding the king on all four orthogonal sides with attackers. Beside the throne, the throne itself counts as the fourth wall, so three attackers suffice there. The board edge never helps capture the king.

One exception across the family: on the small 7×7 Brandubh board the king is young, and falls like an ordinary piece, caught between just two attackers. The four-wall law protects the king only on the 9×9 and 11×11 boards; on 49 squares it would make him nearly uncatchable. If you learned the two-spear kill in the tutorial, that is why it works on the raid board and not on the greater ones.

The Copenhagen rules: shieldwall, fort, encirclement

Three additions turn the ancient game into the balanced modern tournament sport:

Shieldwall capture. A row of pieces pinned flat against the board edge can be taken all at once: if each piece in the row has an enemy directly inland of it, and the row is bracketed at both ends by enemy pieces or corners, the whole row falls. A king caught inside a shieldwall survives; his soldiers do not.
Exit fort. If the king stands on the board edge, has at least one move, and is enclosed by a wall of defenders that the attackers can never break into, the defenders win immediately. The siege has failed.
Encirclement. If the attackers build an unbroken ring around every living defender, so that no defender can ever reach an edge again, the attackers win immediately. The breakout has failed.

Repetition and stalling

Perpetual repetition is a loss for the defenders, whichever side keeps repeating. The burden of progress is on the king's side; the attackers hold the board. A player with no legal move loses.

Who moves first, and is it fair?

The attackers always move first. Neither side has a decisive edge under Copenhagen rules, which is why serious tafl is played in pairs of games, one on each side of the board. Winning with both armies is the real proof of skill.

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