Annuvin

Opening Position

No. of Players

Two

Equipment

An Annuvin board has 4 hexagons per side. Also, six each of black and white counters are required for play.

History

Annuvin was invented by Jeff Roy in 2001. It is possibly named after the land of death from the Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander, which, in turn, is derived from Welsh mythology.

Objective

Victory is achieved by the player that eliminates all opposing counters or reduces the opposing counters to one without losing any of his own.

Play

With alternating turns, each player moves a single friendly counter orthogonally in any direction; and direction may be changed during the course of the move, in any combination. The number of cells a counter may be moved over is dictated by the number of friendly counters remaining on the board. If the number of friendly counters remaining on the board is the number C, the distance a counter may move is equal to 7 - C. For example, if there are 6 friendly counters remaining on the board as at the start of the game, the distance a counter may move is 7 - 6, or 1. If there are 2 friendly counters remaining on the board the distance is 7 - 5, or 2. A single friendly counter remaining on the board may move six cells. All of the descriptions of this game that I have witnessed leave a few questions unresolved in regards to movement:

  • Is a moving counter required to use the entirety of its move or may it stop short?

  • Can it move back over or land at the cell it started on?

  • May it move over friendly counters?

Opposing counters are captured by replacement, and if a counter makes a capture before it has used all the spaces available to it that move, it may continue to move and capture until it has moved its limit.

Strategy

Variations

Huntsmen, also by Jeff Roy, is an earlier game similar to Annuvin played on a rectangular board.

Sources

  1. Neto, Joāo Pedro and Jorge Nuno Silva. Mathematical Games, Abstract Games. Dover Publications, Inc. 2013. ISBN 978-0-486-49990-1

  2. Annuvin at BoardGame Geek. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/32595/annuvin

  3. http://www.di.fc.ul.pt/~jpn/gv/annuvin.htm

  4. Huntsmen is described here: http://www.di.fc.ul.pt/~jpn/gv/huntsmen.htm