Coming to the Forgotten Games iOS app
Twenty-four attackers. One hunted king. Four corners that mean freedom.
A king stands at the centre of an eleven-by-eleven board while twenty-four attackers close in from all four edges. His twelve defenders do not need to conquer the enemy; they need to tear open one route to one corner. Every move asks the same urgent question: is that gap an escape—or the beginning of the trap?
See how the app edition plays
Beyond the board
The older tafl trail arrives in fragments: a marked board from Ballinderry, a Welsh tawlbwrdd manuscript from 1587 and Linnaeus’s 1732 notes on Tablut. No single piece gives us a complete medieval rulebook. Together, however, they reveal the enduring idea at the family’s heart: unequal forces, a central figure and a struggle over escape.
On Fetlar in Shetland, fragments became a playable modern tradition. From 2007, the Fetlar Hnefatafl Panel developed and play-tested an eleven-by-eleven ruleset; local championships followed from 2008, with an online event recorded in 2012. The edition here belongs to that deliberate revival: old questions made social and playable again.
The trail crosses Norse, Irish, Welsh, English and later Sámi contexts before reaching the modern Fetlar edition. The connections are fascinating precisely because they are not a single straight road. Fetlar names the modern rules lineage at this table, not a claimed medieval birthplace.
The turn that changes everything
The attackers have numbers, reach and the freedom to tighten the ring. The defenders have one irreplaceable piece and four distant doors to freedom. Because the goals are different, the same empty lane looks like hope from one side and danger from the other. Hnefatafl is a game about the shape of an encirclement—and the moment it breaks.
From first move to victory
This is the selected Forgotten Games app edition. Other ways of playing exist.
Twenty-four attackers surround twelve defenders and their king on an 11-by-11 board. Attackers move first.
Every piece moves any distance orthogonally through empty cells. Only the king may stop on the throne or a corner.
Ordinary pieces are captured by trapping them between two hostile sides. The armed king can help the defenders capture.
Defenders win when the king reaches a corner. Attackers seek the king’s capture, a complete encirclement or a position in which the defenders cannot move.
The version in the app
Forgotten Games presents the modern Fetlar 11-by-11 edition identified as current-2026-02-13-with-2018-threefold. It includes corner escape, throne-only assistance when capturing the king, encirclement and a third-position repetition draw. Pass & Play, Nearby and Game Center allow players to agree a draw when they believe play cannot be completed; Solo has no agreement control. These are modern rules in the tafl tradition, built for play from evidence that does not preserve one complete medieval standard.
Follow the evidence
These are the principal records and accounts reviewed for this introduction. A source can show a dated game, ruleset or practice; it cannot by itself prove a single origin or an unchanged tradition.
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The final App Store destination will be added before release.
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