The Beautiful Game of Ard Ri

Here at Brick to the Past we don't just concern ourselves with building enormous, sprawling landscapes and minifigure scale buildings. Sometimes we like to build what we refer to as 'artifacts', which are used to compliment our main builds. So we have a treat for you today because here's one of the artifacts we've created to compliment this year's big project, England 793, which is currently on display as part of the Bricks in Time exhibition at Rheged.

Ard Ri is a variant of the game Hnefatafl, or simply Tafl, which is one of the oldest games in the world and can be traced back in various forms to the Vikings, Welsh, Saxons and Irish. It is rare in that it is one of the few games that comprises of two unequal sides. Ard Ri is played on a smaller board and with fewer pieces than standard Hnefatafl and it is one of the most challenging  forms of the game.

Ard Ri is a game of two unequal sides

In Ard Ri the defending side comprises eight soldiers and a king, who start the game in the centre of the board. Their objective is for the king to escape by reaching any of the four corner squares. The attackers comprise sixteen soldiers positioned in four groups of four around the perimeter of the board. Their objective is to take the King. All pieces move like the Rook in chess and pieces are taken by "sandwiching" i.e. moving your piece so that an opponent's piece is trapped horizontally or vertically between two of yours. Unlike other versions of Hnefatafl, in Ard Ri the defending side starts first.

The defending side's aim is to get the king to one of the board's four corners

Ard Ri is associated with the Scottish Highlands with Ard Ri meaning 'High King' in Irish Gaelic. 'Irish Gaelic' you may ask? Well Scot's Gaelic is part of the same linguistic family and in fact comes from Ireland.

Ard Ri and Hnefatafl sets often contained intricately carved pieces and beautifully decorated boards and this is what we've tried to create here, taking inspiration from traditional designs and the iconic Uig Chessmen.

Boards were often decorated with naval designs and monsters from legends

The creation of this set was in fact a collaborative between our builder Dan Harris and his girlfriend, Dot Greaves. In fact it was Dot who created the intricate mosaic that decorates the playing board. The collaboration occurred by accident when Dan, having started the project, had to go away for a few nights for work. When he returned the mosaic was a lot more complete than when he left it; which just goes to show, when you leave your Lego lying around, beautiful things will happen.

We will be taking this set to The Great Western Brick Show in October, why not come along and challenge us to a game:

www.greatwesternbrickshow.com