Hnefatafl
Tablut
The Sami 9x9 game from Linnaeus’ 1732 notebook: a smaller board, escape to any edge, and a king who is easier to take away from his throne than beside it.
What is different here
Carl Linnaeus watched Sami players during his journey through Lapland in 1732 and wrote down what he saw. His notes are the only account of tafl by somebody who actually saw a game being played, which makes tablut the best-attested member of the family and, awkwardly, still an incomplete one.
The board is nine by nine. Sixteen attackers face eight defenders and their king, who begins on the central square, the konakis. The corners have no special power. The king wins by reaching any square on the edge.
The one clearly asymmetric rule is how the king falls: hard to take at the centre, ordinary to take anywhere else.
- 9x9 board: 16 attackers against 8 defenders and the king.
- The king escapes to any square on the edge, not to a corner.
- The corners are plain squares with no power at all.
- On or beside the konakis the king needs all four sides held; elsewhere two attackers are enough.
- The empty konakis is hostile and works as one half of a capture.