A siege upon the board. Thirteen defenders shield their king and seek the open gate; the besiegers close like a tightening fist. One side runs. One side hunts.
Your allegiance
Move like the longship — straight and far. Capture by the shieldwall.
Choose Your Foe
Each fallen warlord summons a fiercer one. Begin with the untested; end against the Jarl of the North.
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the jarl is plotting
Besiegers 24Defenders 12
The Rite of the Board
How to Play
The board. An 11×11 field. At its heart sits the throne. At its four corners stand the rune-gates. Only the king may rest upon throne or gate.
The sides.Defenders — the king and twelve guards, in a diamond at the center. Besiegers — twenty-four warriors massed on the four edges.
Movement
Every piece moves like a rook: any number of empty squares, straight along a row or column. None may leap over another.
No piece but the king may stop on the throne or a corner gate. Other pieces may pass over the empty throne but never the gates.
Capture — the shieldwall
Trap an enemy between two of your own pieces (or against a gate / the empty throne) along a line, and it is slain.
Capture happens only on your move, by stepping in to complete the trap. You may safely move into a gap between two enemies — only the mover captures.
A single move may slay several pieces at once if it closes several traps.
Winning
Defenders win by walking the king onto any corner rune-gate — escape.
Besiegers win by surrounding the king on all four sides (an attacker or the throne counts on each side). In these rules, a king against the board's edge cannot be fully surrounded — and so is safe there. (Some tafl variants allow capture against the edge; this game does not.)
A side with no legal move is defeated.
Hard-won wisdom
Saga of Tactics
For the Defenders (the King's flight)
Your goal is a corner, not a slaughter. Open two routes to two different gates at once — the besiegers cannot block both.
Don't send the king out naked. Move guards first to clear lanes and screen him from ambush.
The king fights too — he can complete a capture. Use him when the field is safe.
Beware lone guards beside an enemy with an open square behind them; that's a free kill for the foe.
For the Besiegers (the hunt)
Numbers are your weapon. Form walls; advance in pairs so a guard can never be sandwiched against you.
Guard the four gates and the lanes feeding them above all else — a sealed corner is a king who cannot escape.
Press the king toward the center and the throne, where you can surround on four sides. Edges keep him safe.
Never leave a single warrior touching a guard with empty ground beyond it.
For all
The throne and gates are silent allies — they act as a wall on one side of a capture.
Think a move ahead: after you move, can the enemy spring a trap you just walked into?