Description

Tablut is an abstract tactical game for 2 players.

It is played on a 9 per 9 tiled board. There are 16 black pawns, called Muscovites, 8 white pawns, the Swedes, and a special white pawn, the Swedish king.

Players take turns, moving a single pawn of their color each time.

The initial setup looks like this:

Objective of the game

For the player with the black pawns, the Muscovites, the goal is to make encircle the king in order to capture him.

For the player with the white pawns, the Swedes, the goal his to bring the king on any tile of the corner of the board.

Moves

All pawns move like the tower in chess: horizontally or vertically of any number of tiles.

Fortresses

The Muscovites and the king starting positions are fortresses: as long as they do not leave those tiles, pawns can freely move inside them.

However, any pawn at a stop outside a fortress cannot enter nor pass through those tiles.

Captures

A pawn is captured, and hence removed from the board, when surrounded by 2 enemy pawns on opposite neighbour tiles :

However, a pawn willingly moving between 2 enemy pawns does not get captured.

The king is special in regard to capture: 2 Muscovites are not enough to eliminate him, he must be encircled on all his 4 neighbour tiles, by Muscovites or fortress squares :

Variant: King in the corners

Like all tafl games, tablut has many variants.

In this variant, the goal of the king is now to reach one of the 4 corners. He cannot capture any enemy pawn but be can captured by 3 Muscovites when he is on a board edge. Finally, the Muscovites starting positions are no more impassable.