Viking Chess: What It Is, Rules, and Play Online

Viking chess is hnefatafl, the strategy board game the Norse played before chess reached Scandinavia. It belongs to a family of games called tafl. One player defends a king who starts in the middle of the board and tries to escape. The other commands a larger army that starts at the edges and tries to trap him. You can play Viking chess online here, free, against the computer or a friend.

What Viking chess is

“Viking chess” is an English nickname. The Norse called the game hnefatafl, roughly “the king’s board” (say it “NEFF-ah-tah-fell”; the pronunciation guide has the details). It held the place chess holds now: the serious strategy game of its world. Boards and pieces turn up in Viking Age graves and settlements, and the game appears in Old Norse poetry. Chess arrived in Scandinavia around the twelfth century and slowly pushed it aside. The history of hnefatafl follows that story, and what is hnefatafl gives the fuller introduction.

It shares less with chess than the nickname suggests. Both have two players, a board, and a king, and that’s about it. The armies are unequal, the two sides chase different goals, and the king wins by running away rather than by checkmate. Hnefatafl vs chess compares them properly.

Viking chess rules in brief

These are the rules of Copenhagen Hnefatafl, the modern tournament standard:

1. The attackers move first. Then turns alternate, one move each.
2. Every piece, the king included, moves like a chess rook: any number of empty squares along a row or column. No diagonals, no jumping.
3. You capture an enemy soldier by sandwiching it between two of your pieces. The trap has to close on your move, so stepping between two enemies is safe.
4. Only the king may stand on the throne in the center or on the corner squares.
5. The defenders win if the king reaches a corner square. The attackers win by capturing the king, which means surrounding him on all four sides.

That covers most of what happens in a game. The full hnefatafl rules add the finer points: hostile squares, the shieldwall capture, the exit fort, repetition, and where the variants differ. If you’d rather learn on a live board, the interactive tutorial walks you through it.

The board and pieces

A Viking chess board is a square grid with an odd number of squares on each side. That gives it a single center square, the throne, where the king starts. It’s also why an ordinary 8×8 chessboard won’t work. Copenhagen uses a 11×11 board, with 24 attackers against 12 defenders and their king.

The pieces are simple: soldiers in two colors and one larger king. There are no knights, bishops, or queens. The board guide covers sizes and special squares, the pieces guide covers the armies, and there’s a printable board if you want to play on paper. If you want a physical board, the Viking chess set guide covers what to buy or make.

Variants

Viking chess is a family of games, not one fixed ruleset. As the Norse traveled, local versions grew up: Tablut from Sápmi on 9×9, Brandubh from Ireland on 7×7, Tawlbwrdd from Wales, Ard Rí from Scotland, and Alea Evangelii on a huge 19×19 board. The tafl games page explains how they differ. If you’re new, start with Brandubh. Games are short and every rule carries over to the bigger boards.

Play Viking chess online

The board on the homepage is ready to play: Copenhagen by default, with the other five variants a click away. Play the computer at one of five levels, or switch to two-player mode and share the device with a friend. There’s no account and nothing to download.

The other “Viking chess”

Kubb, a Swedish lawn game where teams throw wooden batons at wooden blocks, is also sold as “Viking chess.” It has no known Viking roots and nothing in common with the board game beyond a piece called the king. If that’s the game you meant, Viking chess vs Kubb covers it, including the Kubb rules.