
A 1,600-Year-Old Viking War Game - justinzollars
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/cef088ae4e2d
======
btilly
The article is interesting in everything except using the word "Viking"
inappropriately. As someone who once was fascinated by the topic, I found that
bit frustrating.

In 400 AD, germanic people were known by names like "Goths". The viking period
started several hundred years later. The relationship of Germanic people with
England was that three groups of them, the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes,
were settling there. A few hundred years later those people united in response
to the Viking threat, then were conquered by the French duke of Normandy
(which, interestingly, had nobility of Viking descent) and country became
known as England and the people there became known as anglosaxon.

Just to give a sense of the timeline, stories of a legendary Celtic folk hero
that was part of resisting the Germanic invasion later got carried to France
in medieval times, mutated beyond belief, then reentered English as King
Arthur.

~~~
JacobAldridge
The Goths (actually two separate peoples, the Ostrogoths and later the
Visigoths) , as with the Huns moved into central and southern Europe from the
Steppe - not Germany - towards the end of the Roman Empire (the Visigoths
sacked Rome on 24 August 410). They weren't Germanic, unlike the Angles,
Saxons and Jutes that moved to / invaded the land of the Britons, and even
tribes like the Francs who moved into Gaul as the Western Roman Empire lost
influence.

I think you're right about the use of Viking being early, but some of the
other elements differ from my understanding.

Two awesome sidebars from that period - another Germanic tribe, the Vandals,
wrought havoc moving through what would become France and Spain. And a tribe
of Scots were forced from their ancestral home ... in modern day Ireland. They
replaced the earlier Picts in the land ultimately named after them.

[Edit: Corrected the Sacking of Rome date - I was out by 2 weeks. So worth
clarifying that this is from my memory of university history courses, not a
fact-checked review.]

~~~
fhars
The Goths were a germanic tribe
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goths](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goths),
speaking a germanic language
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_language](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_language),
and unlike the huns, they did not move out of the steppe into Europe, but out
of Götaland
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6taland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6taland)

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tempestn
Tafl games are indeed cool. This is just one variant of many, and we actually
don't even know what exactly the original rules were. Best guesses are
constructed largely from off-hand references made in unrelated literary works.
Lots of good info in the wikipedia page (as always):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tafl_games](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tafl_games)

~~~
gliese1337
Indeed. I have played a good number of them (although there aren't enough
people around to play with to get really good at more than one or two), and
all the variations require slightly different strategy. Changing the board
size by one unit, or the number or arrangement of starting pieces, can totally
shift the balance of the game, explaining the complementary changes to things
like who moves first, whether the king can participate in captures, and
whether the corners or the whole sides are winning spaces.

A serious omission from the article (although I suppose understandable, given
how the article is focused) is how the inherent asymmetry is accounted for;
usually, games are played either in two rounds, switching sides (so you have
to learn to be good at both halves to win the full game), or by first betting
on how many moves you think it will take you to win- lowest bet plays white
and loses if they run out of moves.

I object to the casual description of Hnefatafl being similar to chess- it's a
two-player strategy game played on a board, but it's no more similar to chess
than checkers is. Chess players (while they might have an advantage in
strategic thinking over the average person) in my experience have usually
found that their chess skills don't transfer at all.

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salgernon
This is pretty obviously where terry pratchett got his idea for, and
subsequent implementation for his (ostensibly fictional) game "thud" or
"Hnaflbaflwhiflsnifltafl" in pratchett's dwarvish.

Looks like it's wikia page needs an update.

    
    
      http://discworld.wikia.com/wiki/Thud_(game)

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kriro
I do like the idea of games/culture research. I've always wondered if the
somewhat notorious board game tradition in Germany was related to the post WW2
mindset. Especially the Prussian military tradition with a strong focus on
strategy and tactics being faded out by a general anti war sentiment and maybe
channelled into other areas. Maybe there's some transfer to business strategy
as well but I always thought the relations were a little far fetched
(Clausewitz or Art of War for business strategy etc.).

Random remark: It's often mathematically correct to go for it on 4th and 10.

~~~
eru
Modern German games are not heads-on competitive. Definitely not war games.
(On board game geek, I heard the term `parasitic conflict'. Ie you are trying
to benefit from other people's actions and make yours as unbeneficial as
possible, but you can attack them directly.)

Boardgaming does seem to help with basic arithmetic, and understanding and
playing within a set of rules seems to be the essence of programming.
(Especially once you realize that if you want to play to win, only the letter
of the rules count, not the spirit. There's no meaning.)

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krleza
This game looks really interesting. It reminds me a board game I invented when
I was a child, based on the Star Wars 1th death stars attack. There was
similarities, like the non-symmetric start positions : empire tie-fighters
were divided in four groups and rebels x-wings and y-wings where grouped
altogether in the center with Luke Skywalker as the king who had to go on a
special square. But there was a lot of complications (different speeds for
different type of star-fighters, automatic turrets which shoot only on the
rebels, the attacks were based on a dice probability depending on the type of
star-fighters, and a lot more...). The whole thing was so complicated that
nobody wanted to play more than once with me...

Simplest games are often the bests.

But I don't care, I still believe my "Death Star Attack" was one of my best
(yeah, I have invented tens of board games that nobody wanted to play with me
:) )

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mlangdon
Somebody who's good at this sort of thing want to make a webgame out of this?
It looks pretty amazing.

~~~
diziet
A couple of java based webgames based on this already exist:
[http://aagenielsen.dk/hnefatafl_online.php](http://aagenielsen.dk/hnefatafl_online.php)

A couple of apps too:

[https://sensortower.com/ios/us/risi-apps/app/kings-
table/548...](https://sensortower.com/ios/us/risi-apps/app/kings-
table/548978736) (iOS)

[https://sensortower.com/ios/us/machinecodex-
software/app/taf...](https://sensortower.com/ios/us/machinecodex-
software/app/tafl/378068778) (iOS)

[https://sensortower.com/android/us/bill-
holohan/app/hnefataf...](https://sensortower.com/android/us/bill-
holohan/app/hnefatafl/net.holohan.Hnefatafl) (Android - 2 player)

~~~
justinzollars
Just bought one. :) This dude is going to cash in tonight

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quantumpotato_
Play online: (vvs AI/2P)
[http://boardspace.net/english/about_tablut.html](http://boardspace.net/english/about_tablut.html)

~~~
mathattack
Thanks! I was wondering where I could play around with this game.

Does anyone have an idea if there's a mathematical solution to this game? Is
there an inherent advantage that one or the other should win?

~~~
quantumpotato_
I'm sure there is, even Chess has White winning by ~.5%.

Tablut is a variant which:

'The interface lets you rearrange the fleets from the standard position before
the play starts. You can also change four optional rules. First gold, then
silver can rearrange, add or remove ships, and alter the rule options. Then,
gold can either make his first move, or elect to swap and play silver. This
option assures that the forces will be evenly balanced.'

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parennoob
Bit offtopic, but I liked this game a lot, and am looking for a decently
priced (< $50 with shipping) board game version of this. Anyone have any
leads?

All I can see right now are sets imported from English gift shops, or handmade
versions, both of which exceed the $50 price point.

~~~
jgamman
make your own from bits of paper? coins? 3D printing a bunch of stylised chess
pieces? honestly, they're just symbols with a rule set...

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keammo1
Thank you for posting this. My aunt bought a variation of this game for me
(under the name "King's Table") when I was about 10 and it was one of my
favorites. One summer when a few of my friends and me spent the summer at our
college campus, we had a tradition of playing this game over breakfast. I
haven't played in many years, but I highly recommend trying it out if you have
the chance. Though I am not very well versed in old/ancient board games, but I
found this one somewhat unique since you needed a different way of thinking
depending on which side you were playing as.

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fit2rule
There has recently been a version of this game made for the Oric-1/Atmos
computer (an ancient 80's 8-bit machine which has a devoted community these
days).

You can read about it here:

[http://forum.defence-
force.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=684&star...](http://forum.defence-
force.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=684&start=240)

If you want to play it, get yourself the emulator - Oriculator:

[https://code.google.com/p/oriculator/](https://code.google.com/p/oriculator/)

.. or load it up on your own real Oric. ;)

Anyway, point is, its an interesting game indeed ..

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gweinberg
A version of the game came with the NeXT pizza box.

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m0g
I tried it for a few games with friends and I'm not sure at all that with the
standard rules defenders can win. With many rule sets you can lock the board
pretty easily and make it a draw or lose situation for defenders. I'm not
aware of any demonstration of attackers winning every time or not but it's my
strong suspicion.

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viewer5
The game pieces in the picture are stone, right? Any idea what
material/technique is used to make the dark lines on the pieces? (And how I
could learn to make pieces like this?)

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gahahaha
Has anybody found a decent single player web version?

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jnazario
thanks for this, i found a couple of versions of this on iOS. won my first two
games against a simple AI!

love learning about new games like this. great find.

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ender89
We call that "Thud" where I come from.

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JeffL
Semi off topic, but that blog that this article is from is fantastic.

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ilaksh
Warfare is a disgusting, embarrassing and outdated aspect of our culture.

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darklrd
At first glance, it seems very similar to chess.

