How to play
Tablut is the best-recorded member of the tafl family, the board games the Vikings played before chess reached them. The botanist Carl Linnaeus wrote down its rules in Lapland in 1732. The two sides are unequal: a king with eight defenders in the middle of the board, and sixteen attackers lined up along the four edges.
- The defenders move first. Then the players take turns.
- Every piece moves like a rook. It slides any number of empty squares in a straight line, up, down, left or right, but never jumps over another piece.
- The throne is the king’s. Only the king may stand on the central square or pass across it. Other pieces must go around it.
- Capture by sandwiching. When you move a piece so that an enemy piece is caught between it and another of your pieces, in a straight line, the enemy piece is removed. The king helps capture, and the empty throne counts as an enemy to both sides. Moving your own piece between two enemies is safe.
- The king escapes at the edge. If the king reaches any square on the edge of the board, the defenders win.
- Capturing the king. On the throne or right next to it, the king must be surrounded on all four sides (the empty throne counts as one side). Anywhere else, two attackers on opposite sides capture him, and the attackers win.
- Other endings. A side that cannot move loses. If 100 moves pass without a capture, the game is a draw.
To move, tap one of your pieces and then a highlighted square. The edge squares are shaded, and the status line counts each side’s pieces.
At the top, choose your Opponent. Against the Computer you lead the defenders and the computer plays the attackers, at Easy, Medium or Hard. Choose Friend to play two people on one device, one with the king’s side and one with the attackers. Hint shows a good move for the player to move, and Undo takes back one move against a friend, or your move together with the computer’s answer.
Strategy
Defenders
- Open lines for the king early. The king is strongest while the attackers are still spread out. Move your defenders out of his way and look for a line to the edge.
- Make two threats at once. If the king can reach the edge in two different ways, the attackers can only block one. That double threat wins most games.
- Use the throne. An empty throne is hostile to attackers too: an attacker standing next to it can be captured with a single defender.
Attackers
- Block the edges first, capture later. Keep the king’s paths to the edge closed. Attackers placed diagonally from each other form walls that are hard to capture.
- Don’t rush in alone. A lone attacker next to the defenders is easy to sandwich.
- Tighten the ring slowly. As the ring closes, the king runs out of moves, and his defenders become easier to pick off.
In our tests between the computer’s levels, the stronger level won every game against a weaker one, whichever side it played. When both sides played at Medium, the defenders won all four games, so the attackers need careful play.
For another game of capturing by surrounding and blocking, try Fox and Geese, or play a classic king hunt in Chess.
If you enjoy Tablut, try Three Men’s Morris or Toguz Korgool next.
