How to Play Hnefatafl

To play hnefatafl, one player moves a king and his defenders, the other a larger attacking army. All pieces slide like rooks. You capture by sandwiching an enemy between two of your pieces. The defenders win when the king reaches a corner square; the attackers win by capturing him. This page walks you through learning it properly.

The interactive tutorial on this page teaches each rule on a live board. The text below follows the same path, so you can read ahead, or come back when something in the tutorial didn’t click.

Step 1: Understand the two sides

Forget chess symmetry. In hnefatafl the sides are different armies with different jobs.

The defenders start in the middle of the board, clustered around their king on the central throne square. Their only goal is to get the king to safety on a corner square. Nothing else matters. They can lose every single soldier and still win if the king walks out.

The attackers start around the edges, split into four groups. In Copenhagen Hnefatafl they field 24 soldiers against 12 defenders plus the king. That two-to-one advantage isn’t a design flaw. The attackers need every piece, because their job, sealing off the whole board and then trapping one highly mobile piece, is harder than it looks.

The attackers move first. Always. (There’s a short page on who goes first if you want the reasoning.)

Step 2: Learn the one movement rule

Every piece, king included, moves the same way: any number of empty squares in a straight line, along a row or a column. Never diagonally. No jumping over pieces.

If you know how a rook moves in chess, you already know how everything moves in hnefatafl. That’s the entire movement chapter.

One wrinkle: the five marked squares (the central throne and the four corners) are restricted. Only the king may stop on them. Other pieces may pass over the empty throne but can’t land on it. These squares matter enormously for captures, which brings us to the interesting part.

Step 3: Learn the capture

You capture an enemy soldier by closing a sandwich: your move traps their piece between two of yours, on opposite sides, along a row or column.

Two things about this rule surprise new players, and both will cost you pieces until they sink in.

First, the sandwich must close on your turn. Moving your piece into a gap between two enemies is safe. The trap only springs shut when the aggressor moves. Beginners lose games by refusing perfectly safe squares, and lose pieces by assuming a square between two enemies is obviously suicide. It isn’t.

Second, the restricted squares are hostile. An enemy soldier standing next to a corner square can be captured by a single one of your pieces, because the corner counts as the second jaw of the sandwich. The empty throne works the same way.

Captures can be multiple: one move can close two or three sandwiches at once. The capturing guide covers every case, including the shieldwall capture along the board edge.

Step 4: Learn the king’s rules

The king is where hnefatafl variants differ most, so learn the Copenhagen version first and adjust later.

The Copenhagen king is armed, meaning he can serve as one jaw of a capturing sandwich just like a soldier. He is also hard to kill: capturing him takes attackers on all four sides (or three sides plus the throne when he stands beside it). Two pieces aren’t enough, and he can never be captured on the board edge.

His escape squares are the four corners, so the attackers’ real job is to build a wall sealing all four corners off. Everything about attacker strategy flows from that fact. The king guide has the full details, including how other variants handle him differently.

Step 5: Play Brandubh first

Copenhagen is the standard, but I’d genuinely start with Brandubh, the Irish game on a 7×7 board. With only 13 pieces in play, games finish fast, mistakes get punished quickly, and you’ll internalize the capture rules in two or three games instead of ten. Every habit transfers to the bigger boards.

Play the defenders first. One goal, one piece that matters, easier to think about. Then switch and feel how different the attacking side is.

Step 6: Your first game plan

You don’t need real strategy yet, but you need a direction, or your first games will feel like wandering.

As the defenders: pick a corner, preferably one the attackers have weakened, and drive toward it. Open a lane for the king before committing him. The king moving early to a spot where he threatens two corners at once is often decisive, because the attackers can’t seal both.

As the attackers: ignore the king-hunting instinct at first. Build. Your opening moves should strengthen the ring around the defenders and cover the corner approaches. Captures are nice; containment wins games. When the ring is tight, squeeze.

When those two plans start feeling too simple, the strategy hub is the next step, and the full rules reference settles any dispute. Or just keep playing: the board is on the homepage.