Kingsnare Hand Made Oak Hnefatafl Viking Chess Board Game | 11 by 11 Grid with 37 Turned Pieces | Burned Celtic Knotwork Border and Canvas Pouch | Norse Family Gift | RK-1752

The Kingsnare is a full hnefatafl set: an eleven by eleven playing grid cut into a solid oak board, a burned Celtic knotwork border running around all four edges, and thirty seven turned wooden pieces that split into twenty four pale attackers, twelve dark defenders and one taller king. The whole set drops into a cotton canvas drawstring pouch so the pieces travel with the board rather than rattling loose in a drawer.

Hnefatafl is older in Scandinavia than chess is. Boards and pieces turn up in graves from the fourth century onward, the Ockelbo runestone in Sweden shows two men bent over a tafl board, and the game is named in the Norse riddle poems as something a well brought up person was expected to know. It is deliberately unfair by design, which is the interesting part: one side has twice the men, the other has the king and only has to get him out. Every Kingsnare board is cut, engraved, sanded and oiled by hand in the Czech Republic, and each set is checked piece by piece before it is bagged.

Specifications

How hnefatafl is actually played

The king starts on the centre square, the throne, with his twelve defenders packed around him in a cross. The twenty four attackers sit in four groups of six against the middle of each edge. Everything moves like a rook in chess, any number of empty squares along a rank or a file, and nothing jumps anything. Only the king may stand on the throne square, and in most rule sets only the king may stand on the four corners.

Capture is by sandwich, not by landing on. Move a piece so that an enemy piece is caught between yours and another of yours along a straight line and the enemy comes off the board. A piece that moves into a gap between two enemies is safe, so you cannot lose a man by walking him into a trap. The king is captured by surrounding him on all four sides, and he wins if he reaches one of the four corner squares.

That asymmetry is what keeps the game alive after fifteen hundred years. The attackers have numbers and want to build a ring. The defenders have the initiative and want to open a lane. Good attacking play is patient and looks nothing like good defending play, so swapping sides between games is the normal way to play a match. The printed sheet in the box gives the Copenhagen rule set, which is the one most modern tournaments use.

The oak and the finish

The board is cut from solid oak rather than veneered plywood, which matters for a piece that gets handled and leaned on. Oak is hard enough to take an engraved grid without the lines fuzzing at the edges, and open enough in the grain that the burned knotwork border sits into the surface instead of floating on top of it. The grid lines are cut, not printed, so they will not wear away under thirty seven wooden bases sliding over them.

Everything is finished with a hardwax oil that cures in the wood rather than sitting on it as a film. That keeps the surface matte, keeps the grain readable, and means a scuff can be spot repaired with a rag and a little more oil instead of needing the whole board stripped. The playing pieces are turned from close grained hardwood, the dark defenders from a naturally darker timber rather than stain, so the colour goes all the way through and a chipped edge does not show pale underneath.

Engraving, runes and your own design

Use the rune converter on this page to turn a name, a date or a short phrase into Elder Futhark and we will cut it into the steel, the leather or the wood. If you would rather have a Viking pattern than a rune line, choose your own design in the engraving option above the add to cart button and tell us where it goes. Where a piece already carries an engraved design, your chosen engraving replaces it rather than sitting alongside it. On the Kingsnare the usual place for a personal line is the border on one edge of the board, which reads well when the board is set down for play and turns the set into a dated gift. See the engraving page for what fits.

Setting up and storing the board

Lay the board flat on a table rather than across a lap, because a solid oak panel wants even support. The starting position is printed on the rule sheet and takes about a minute to set: king on the throne, twelve defenders in a cross around him, six attackers against the middle of each edge in the T shape shown. The pieces are turned with a flat base and stand on their own, so a bumped table costs you a few seconds rather than the whole game.

Between games the pieces go in the canvas pouch and the pouch sits on the board. Store the board flat or standing on edge in a rack, not leaning at an angle against a wall, because a wide oak panel left leaning for months can take a slight bow. Keep it out of direct sun on a windowsill, which will lighten the burned border faster than anything else will.

Care

Wipe the board with a barely damp cloth and dry it straight away. Never soak it and never put anything from this set near a dishwasher. Once or twice a year, or whenever the surface starts to look dry and pale, rub a small amount of hardwax oil or plain food safe mineral oil into the wood with a lint free cloth, leave it twenty minutes and buff off what has not soaked in. The pieces can be given the same treatment tipped out onto a towel. If a piece picks up a sticky mark, fine steel wool along the grain and then oil will take it out.

Made in the Czech Republic

Every piece we sell is made by hand in the Czech Republic. The smiths there work the way the trade has been worked for a long time, heating and hammering the steel, taking the bevels down by eye, and fitting the handle and the leather one at a time. There is no automated line anywhere in it, so small differences from one piece to the next are normal and expected.

Ransack Viking is a United States company based in Memphis, Tennessee. We bring the pieces in ourselves, inspect them on arrival and ship them from our own warehouse. If you add engraving, that is carried out here in the United States before your order goes out.

A note on handmade variation

This set is made by hand and not machine produced in bulk, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph. Oak grain is never the same twice and the figure running across your board will be its own. The burned knotwork is drawn by hand along the border, so the line weight varies slightly from corner to corner. The turned pieces come out of natural timber and the pale ones in particular will range from cream to warm honey within one set. The board size, the grid, the piece count and the build are the same every time. The character is not.

Frequently asked questions

Is this hard to learn

No. The movement rule is one sentence and the capture rule is one more. Most people are playing properly inside five minutes and thinking properly about it somewhere around game four. The rule sheet in the box covers setup, movement, capture, the corner squares and the two ways the game ends.

How many people can play

Two. One takes the attackers and one takes the king and his defenders. Because the two sides play so differently, the usual habit is to play a pair of games and swap sides, then compare how each of you did with the same job.

Are the pieces safe for a food table

The oil finish we use is food safe once cured, so the board is fine on a dining table and a piece that ends up in a child hand is not a chemical worry. The pieces are small and turned, so keep them away from anyone young enough to put one in a mouth.

Will my board look like the photograph

Close, but the grain will be its own. Oak varies from board to board and the burned border is drawn by hand. The size, the grid and the piece count are identical every time.

Can I have a name burned into it

Yes. The rune converter on this page turns a name or a date into Elder Futhark for the border, or you can send a Viking pattern of your own instead. A dated line on the edge is the most popular version of this as a wedding or anniversary gift.

How long does shipping take

Processing is one to two weeks because the board is made rather than picked off a shelf, and engraving adds a few days. Shipping within the United States is free and returns are accepted within seven days.

What is in the box

• Kingsnare hnefatafl board in solid oak with an engraved eleven by eleven grid
• 37 turned playing pieces: 24 attackers, 12 defenders and 1 king
• Cotton canvas drawstring pouch
• Printed rule sheet with the Copenhagen rule set
• Lifetime warranty against defects in the board, the pieces and the finish
• Made and finished in the Czech Republic

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