| Tablut |
Background.
Tablut is a game that was described by
the Swedish botanist, Linnaeus, when he visited Lapland in 1732 as a student.
The game appears to be related to the Viking game
Hnefatafl. In the Lapland version of this game, they say that the King's forces
are representative of the Swedish army trying to escape from a Muscovite
entrapment.
Rules
* The board is laid out as shown left, with eight Swedes (shown as red pieces), the Swedish King (large red piece in centre) and 16 Muscovites (shown as small blue pieces)
* Players move alternately, with the Muscovites moving first.
* All pieces move along a rank or file any number of vacant squares, the same as
the Rook in Chess (see fig 1). However, only the King can occupy the central
square (called the Konakis, or throne)
fig 1 - Movement of Pieces
* Any piece, except the King, is captured if an enemy piece occupies the square
to either side of it (see fig. 2 - here the blue piece would be captured by the
red move).
fig 2 - Capture
* The King is captured if (a) it is surrounded by enemies on all four sides, or (b) it is surrounded on three sides and the fourth side is the Konakis (central square).
* The Swedes win if the King makes it to any edge square. If there is a route to
the edge, the Swedish player must warn their opponent.
Download Files
The board can be downloaded from below. It should be printed out at 110dpi, which will give a board about 19.5cm square - this should fit on a piece of A4 paper.
Right click the link below, then choose "Save As..." to download the file to your computer
