Tabletop Simulator

Tabletop Simulator

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Ard Rí (High King) - A scottish variant of tafl almost lost to history.
   
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Game Category: Board Games
Number of Players: 2
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8 Jan, 2017 @ 7:26pm
9 Jan, 2017 @ 3:29am
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Ard Rí (High King) - A scottish variant of tafl almost lost to history.

Description
Ard Rí (Gaelic: High King) was a Scottish tafl variant played on a 7×7 board with a king and eight defenders against sixteen attackers. This is the least documented of the known tafl variants.

Rules for Ard Ri
Although this game doesn't have much documentation, it closely resembles other Tafl games, so follows most the rules of Hnefatafl.

The game is played by two players, one taking the side of the King and his eight defenders, the other taking the side of the sixteen attackers. They start the game laid out as shown in the diagram.


  1. Choose your seat, Green or Blue.
  2. Atackers go first, coin flip to find who is attacker or defender.
  3. In each turn, a player may move a piece as far as desired along a row or column.
  4. The exception to this is the king, whose move is limited to a maximum distance of four squares.
  5. Pieces may not jump over each other, nor can one piece land on a square already taken by another.
  6. The king is captured by surrounding him by attackers on all four sides along a row and column.
  7. Any other piece is captured by surrounding it on two opposite sides along a row or column by two enemies.
  8. Only one piece may be captured at a time; if two or three become separately surrounded at once, a single victim must be chosen to be taken from the board.
  9. A defender is NOT captured when sandwiched between the king and one of his armies; the king may not be used to capture attacker.
  10. The attacker wins the game when they capture the king.
  11. The defender wins by getting the king to one of the four board corners.


I would like to thank Tinfire for all the help he gave me with this!