Hnefatafl – Ard Ri

Hnefatafl, meaning King’s Table (or literally, Fist Board Game) in Old Norse, is an asymmetric game of pure strategy played by the Vikings and neighboring people with many variations. Its origins are unclear, but it seems that it has appeared during the Viking period, in the 7th or 8th century CE, in Scandinavia and other lands which the Vikings have conquered, as accounted for in archaeological finds of Hnefatafl pieces. Ard Ri, meaning High King, is the Scottish variation of Hnefatafl, although the name Ard Ri is a modern invention and comes from Irish Gaelic, not Scottish. The original Scottish name for this game is unknown.

More than 8 Hnefatafl boards have been found archaeologically, in Scotland. Most of them are similar to Brandubh boards found in Ireland, with a 7×7 grid, except that in Ard Ri, only the center throne cell is marked by a circle, where as the corner cells are unmarked. Not all boards found in Scotland are for Ard Ri. Some have larger grids than 7×7.

Notable Ard Ri boards with a 7×7 grid and the marked center throne have been found at different excavations at Orkney, Scotland.

Ard Ri Board Game, found in 1976, made from Flagstone, from Buckquoy, Orkney, Scotland. Tankerness House Museum, Kirkwall, Orkney, THM 1976.158. Photo: Ritchie, Anna. “Excavation of Pictish and Viking-age farmsteads at Buckquoy, Orkney.”, Plate 13.

Another Ard Ri Board Game, found in 1976, made from Flagstone, from Buckquoy, Orkney, Scotland. Tankerness House Museum, Kirkwall, Orkney, THM 1976.177. Drawing: Ritchie, Anna. “Excavation of Pictish and Viking-age farmsteads at Buckquoy, Orkney.”, p. 198.

An important Ard Ri board with a 7×7 grid, was found in 1983, in Dun Chonallaich, Argyll, Scotland. It has 5 markings for the kings and his 4 defenders, implying that the position of the pieces on the board was the same as in Brandubh, with the king and 4 defenders in the shape of a cross in the center of the board, and 8 attackers on the outer edges in the shape of a cross as well.

Ard Ri Game Board from Dun Chonallaich, Argyll, Scotland. Note the defender pieces locations marked by dots in the center of the board.

There are no surviving Scottish documents that preserve any kind of references to the rules of Ard Ri. Therefore, the rules for Ard Ri are unknown. However, they have been reconstructed based on the known rules for Tablut, its similarities to Brandubh, and experiments conducted by Aage Nielsen in professional Hnefatafl tournaments to find the most balanced set of rules.

The accepted historical Ard Ri rules and the initial setup of the board have been proposed by Aage Nielsen in 2016, based on the markings on one of the the Buckquoy boards. His setup has been tested out in Hnefatafl tournaments this particular set of rules was found to be the most balanced version of historical Scottish Ard Ri. For that reason I have chosen to publish his rules and setup in this article.

Aage Nielsen’s Ard Ri Rules:

1. The game is for 2 players.
2. The board is a square with a 7×7 grid. There are 13 pieces total: 8 attackers, 4 defenders, and 1 king. The first player plays for the attackers. The second player plays for the defenders and the king.
3. The initial position of the pieces is shown in the following diagram. The king is placed on the throne. The defenders surround him in the shape of a cross. The attackers are placed on four sides in the same lines as the defenders, two per side.

   

4. The attackers move first. The two players alternate their moves.
5. All pieces, including the king, move any number of vacant squares along a row or a column, like a rook in chess.

   

   

6. All regular pieces (see about the king below) are captured if they are sandwiched between two enemy pieces.

   

7. Multiple captures in one move or capturing with the king is allowed.

   

• A piece is only captured if the trap is closed by a move of the opponent. An opponent’s piece is allowed to move in between two enemy pieces without being captured.

  

  

• The two sides have different goals to win the game.
  1. The goal for the defenders (king’s side) is to move the king to any square on the edge of the board. If the king has escaped to any of the edge squares, the defenders win.

     

  2. The attackers win if they can capture the king before he escapes to one of the edge squares. The king is captured like all other pieces by being sandwiched between two opposing pieces. In Ard Ri, there are no safe squares like the throne that protect the king. Therefore regardless on which square the king is located, he can always be captured by two opposing pieces.

     

• If the attackers surround the king and all remaining defenders, to the point that the king cannot escape, then the attackers win.
• 3 repetitions of the same move by the same player in a row are not allowed. If 3 repetitions in a row are made the repeating player loses the game.
• If a player cannot move they lose the game.

On Strategy:

1. According to the rules presented above, the balance of Ard Ri between the attackers and the defenders is similar, but clearly worse than the balance of chess. In chess since white go first they have about 52-59% of winning compared to the black, as has been documented in many different tournament statistical analyses. Aage Nielsen documented based on tournament results, that Ard Ri is 1.46 balanced on average, meaning that the defenders win about 31.5% more often. In other words, the defenders win in Ard Ri 68.5% of the time, compared to 52-59% of the white in chess.
2. Since Hnefatafl is asymmetrical, each of the players must use a different strategy to win.
3. The attackers need to form a blockade around the defenders so that the king gets surrounded and eventually eliminated. As long as the ring around the king remains unbroken he cannot escape. The blockade is formed by positioning the attackers in the shape of a rhombus on a diagonal of each row. Once the blockade is formed that attackers need to slowly make the rhombus smaller and smaller around the center of the board and tighten the noose around the king.
4. The goal for the defenders is to constantly create gaps in the blockade and have the king escape through one of those gaps to the edge of board. Placing defenders behind the enemy lines makes it much easier for them to eliminate more attackers and break through the blockade.
5. Some chess tactics are applicable in Hnefatafl as well. Forcing the opponent to make a particular move in order to avoid losing the game can be very useful. Creating a fork where one piece can attack multiple opponent’s pieces can provide an advantage. Pinning a piece, which prevents it from being moved from its location by the threat of losing the game, is another useful tactic which gives the player the control of the board.

Bibliography:

1. Ritchie, Anna. “Excavation of Pictish and Viking-age farmsteads at Buckquoy, Orkney.” In Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. 108, pp. 174-227. 1979.
2. Curle, C.L. Pictish and Norse finds from the Brough of Birsay, 1973-74. Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Monograph Series 1, 1982, pp. 76, 110. 
3. Royal Commission for Ancient & Historic Monuments, Scotland,Argyll, volume 6, HMSO 1988, pp.160-61.
4. Walker, Damian. Reconstructing Hnefatafl. Cyningstan, 2014.
5. Walker, Damian Gareth. An Introduction to Hnefatafl. Cyningstan, 2015.