Tawlbwrdd

One Possible Opening Position

Alternate Names

Tawlbwrdd or Dalwbwrdd translates from Welsh as "throw-board", possibly suggesting the game is played with dice. It was marketed commercially in 1997 as The Celtic Game.

No. of Players

Two

Equipment

An 11x11 tafl board

History

Tawlbwrdd is Tafl variant from Wales, mentioned in Welsh literature as early as the tenth century.

A passage in the Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales (Laws of Hywel Dda), dating before 1250, costings are given for a game with a king, eight defenders and sixteen attackers. These were given as gifts of office to civil servants, to each rank a game of a fitting value.

A manuscript of 1587 in the Welsh National Library holds a description of Tawlbwrdd by Robert ap Ifan. This game being played on a board of 11x11 squares with a king and twelve men against twenty-four attackers. Note that there are more pieces than in the description from 300 years earlier. The board is illustrated and the opening position described as "The king in the center of the board and twelve men in the places next to him, and twenty-four lie in wait to capture him. These are placed, six in the center of every end of the board and in the six central spaces."

Objective

Tawlbwrdd is certainly similar to other Tafl games and the reconstructed play of it follows that of other Tafl games. In all Tafl games, it is nearly universally accepted that the objective of the "attacker" player, with the larger force, is to capture the king and the objective of the defender is to allow for the king to escape. Even the most definite ideas concerning Tafl games, however, will eventually have some doubt cast on them by a reconstruction. Here, one of the primary questions that arise is: Where does the king escape to? Most reconstructions say that the king has escaped once it has attained any cell at the edge of the board. Sometimes this is stated as escaping "off of the board", but this is just a matter of semantics because a piece that has attained an edge square could not be impeded from further advancement off board. (Unless, of course, the reconstruction being played only allows the king a single orthogonal move per turn, rather than the generally accepted move of the rook in Orthochess. In which case the attacker would have one last chance to capture the king before it escapes off board.) There are, however, many ideas that the king should be made to escape to a corner cell. Evidence for this comes from many existing historical boards which have special markings at the corners. These specially marked squares may also designate a place that a piece may be captured against or be for simple decoration.

Questions may also arise as to how the king is captured. It is generally accepted that the king is captured exactly as other counters are captured, via double custodianship. Also known as sandwiching, this just means that if a counter has two opposing counters on either side of it, so that all three of them are now in an orthogonal line with the odd counter in the center, the central odd counter is then captured and removed from the board for the rest of the game. Again, however, some dissent arises. This dissent, however, may only arise from misinterpretations of Linnaeus' account of the related game Tablut or from misunderstandings by Linnaeus himself. It is easy to find 20th century descriptions (Murray, Bell, et al.) of this Sami Tafl game, stating that the king was captured by quadruple custodianship, or being surrounded on all four sides by opposing pieces. It is easy to see, however, that this can make the objective of the attackers very difficult to nearly impossible. It is increasingly common to interpret Tablut rules and Linnaeus' description of them as meaning that a king is captured by quadruple custodianship only when it is still at the central square (throne or "konakis") and also by triple custodianship, being surrounded by three opposing counters where the fourth vacant side is the konakis. Interestingly, this also suggests that a king can not re-enter the throne or konakis once it has left. I would personally suggest using simple double custodianship capture for all pieces in all Tafl games. This not only seems logical, but is also simple.

The standard reconstruction for most games of Tafl allots a victory to White, the King and his defenders, if the king is able to move to any square on the edge of the board. Black wins by capturing the king via double custodianship.

Play

reconstructed rules for Tawlbwrdd

These rules were taken from the account of Robert ap Ifan in 1587. There are many omissions from that source, so the gaps have been filled by borrowing rules from Tablut, a game more fully described by its contemporary observers.

1

3. The attackers make the first move.

4. In his turn a player may move a piece across the board by any number of spaces in a straight line, horizontally or vertically.

5. A piece may not land on another, nor may it leap over a piece.

6. The king moves in the same way as the other pieces.

7. An enemy piece is captured by surrounding it on two opposite sides, horizontally or vertically. That piece is removed from the board.

8. It is possible to capture two or three pieces at once by so surrounding them.

9. It is not possible to capture a row of pieces, however.

10.

The manuscript that describes the rules of tawlbwrdd makes no mention of any special uses for the central square. As the game appears to function without them, I have not included them in these rules. But it is entirely possible that this is merely an omission in the Welsh source; it could be that tawlbwrdd was played in an identical way to Tablut described elsewhere on this site.

Strategy

Strategy in Tawlbwrdd

In the rules as presented on this site, tawlbwrdd is the simplest of all hnefatafl games. It has no special squares on the board; the central "castle" on which the king begins the game offers no protection to him nor impedes the movement of any other piece.

The king being vulnerable to capture by two enemies, no matter where he is on the board, makes him a weak and vulnerable piece. Though given the same powers and defence as every other piece, his loss brings the game to an end, so he must not be exposed to danger in the same way as other pieces.

On either size of board, 9x9 or 11x11, the attackers must try to form an unbreakable blockade around the defenders. The defenders must try to prevent this blockade from forming and to break out and make a safe path for the king to escape. Much of this is common to all hnefatafl games, but in tawlbwrdd special care must be taken to provide the king with the proper protection every step of the way.

Variations

The (older) game mentioned in a passage in the Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales (Laws of Hywel Dda), dating before 1250, was played with a smaller number of pieces: a king, eight defenders and sixteen attackers and would presumably be played on a smaller board, likely 9x9 squares.

A few other theoretical opening setups are shown below:

Sources

1. Parlett, David. The Oxford History of Board Games. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999.

2. http://tafl.cyningstan.com/page/172/tawlbwrdd