Hnefatafl Board
I have started making my own Hnefatafl board (a Norse chess-like game). The board is made of Oak panels, hand-cut Stained Glass and midnight black epoxy grout.
There are 131 total Stained Glass board tiles.
Rules on how to play Hnefatafl are towards the bottom of the page.
Tools needed for this project (Stained Glass, Glass Cutter, Glass Runner Pliers, Glass Wipe Edging Stone, T-Square, Mastic tile adhesive, Sanded Grout (I used Epoxy grout), Oak wood panels, felt for the bottom of the board, wood frame, and a whole lot of PATIENCE!):
Measuring the glass for the board tiles (I made my tiles 1.25 inches):
Cutting the glass strips (notice I have one side of the T-square clamped down while I hold the other side firm with my left hand):
Using the runner pliers at the score in the glass to snap the pieces apart:
Snapping the glass after using the pliers:
Here are a bunch of the pieces cut and ready to be finished (the long strips will be the light colored tiles):
This is a rough layout of the board. I need to get all the pieces in the proper place, then I'll actually glue them to the board in their final order. You'll notice I had cut dark brown tiles for the attacker/defender squares but decided to go with the light blue.
I'm much happier with the light blue since I didn't want them to be too much different than the light squares, I just wanted them to be slightly different so even a new player would know where to setup their pieces.
Here is the board all laid out with pencil lines for me to line up all the tiles properly when I glue them down:
Here is the board with all the tiles glued down:
Amy and I applied the felt on the bottom of the board and then sandwiched the top of the felt between the frame and the oak board base.
Mixing the grout:
Applying the grout to the test tiles (since I have never used grout before!):
Finished test grout. Everything looks good with the test subject so on to the real thing!
Applying the grout to the finished piece (this was by far the scariest part of the entire project. If I messed this up, the whole thing is ruined):
Applying more grout and cutting away the excess:
Rough grout layer applied to the board (it looks awful right now, but never fear it will clean up just fine):
Rinsing out the sponge during the cleaning stage (I rinsed the sponge after each wipe):
Shaun approved clean! This was after the first clean, but before the final cleaning.
Finished Board. I'm not sure how many hours this took, but I'm sure it was well over 40 hours. It was worth every second. Now I will be working on making the playing pieces for the board.
HNEFATAFL - The Viking Board Game
Hnefi means "King" and Tafl in Old Norse means "table", so Hnefatafl means "King's Table".
COMPONENTS
BOARD
Hnefatafl was played on odd-sized boards with 11 x 11 or 13 x 13 squares. Usually wooden, they sometimes had holes drilled in the center of each playing square, the pieces being pegged -this made for easy storage or even for traveling boards. Most boards had the starting positions of the pieces marked in two distinct patterns to facilitate setting up.
PIECES
The King piece was called Hnefi ("King"); the pieces Hnappa ("knobs"). They sometimes had pegged bottoms that fit in holes drilled in the board. The King was bigger and more ornate.
Gaming pieces were often hemispherical and made of antler, amber, bone, clay, glass, horn, stone, jet, wood or even horses' teeth. Finds of several light and several dark pieces together have been made sometimes with a single piece being a different shape, like a sea urchin, in the same area.
11x11 boards had twelve dark pieces and a King facing twenty-four light pieces. The colors were often switched.
SET-UP
The King (large white piece) goes on the central square (Throne -Hásætinu in Icelandic), surrounded by his men (other white pieces). The enemy (black) pieces are set up around the edges of the board. Black moves first.
PLAYING HNEFATAFL
Turns alternate between the players.
All pieces move in the same way, like modern rooks at Chess. That is, on his turn, a player may slide a single piece of his color any number of squares in either orthogonal direction (up-down or left-right, no diagonal moves) as long as it doesn't jump over another piece of either color. The Throne and the four corner squares are off-limits to all pieces except the King.
The Black player is trying to have his King escape his assailants by reaching a corner square. If the Black player moves so that his King ends up with a clear path to any of the four corner squares, he must announce that he has an escape route open. The Lapps use the word Raichi ("Check") to announce a single route and Tuichi ("Checkmate") to announce a double route. On his next turn, if he can still do so, the King may be moved to a corner square and escape. Black then wins.
If the White player inadvertently opens an escape route for the King, the Black player may take advantage of it immediately!
If the moved piece ends up sandwiching an opposing piece between itself and another piece of the moving color or a corner square, the sandwiched piece is removed from the board. This is called custodial capture. It is possible to capture several pieces in a single move.
White captures both black pieces
The King must be sandwiched along both axes to be captured. The Throne, corners and edges count as Black pieces for purposes of sandwiching the King, so Black needs only three pieces to capture the King on the edge of the board or if he is right beside his Throne, two if the King is right beside a corner square. When the King is in danger of being captured on White's next move, he must announce "Watch your King" to the Black player (this is reminiscent of Chess' prohibition against moving one's King into check). White wins by capturing the King. The King can also be captured if he and no more than one defender are surrounded on all sides and incapable of moving.
In all cases White captures the King and wins.
A piece may safely move to place itself in sandwich between two opposing pieces (or a corner square).
White can safely move in between the black pieces
WINNER
The winner is the Black player if he manages to reach a corner square with his King, the White player if he manages to capture the King. Because the game is uneven, it is good etiquette to play two games, switching sides. Each player keeps track of how many pieces he lost or took from his opponent and this score is used to determine the ultimate winner.
Thanks to www.gamecabinet.com for the text.