Bagh Chal

And so we come to the final of four games from Lemery Games' Ludos Asia.

Bagh Chal is a hunt game from Nepal, and an example of the many 'tiger games' from this part of the world. In Bagh Chal, four tigers are pitched against 20 goats. The aim of the tigers is to capture goats (by jumping over them), whereas the goats aim to block the tigers' movement (similar to Fox & Geese). As a typical traditional folk game, its origin and history is hidden in the mists of time, but it's surely centuries old.

The game from Lemery Games comes as the usual cardboard box, inside of which is the little pouch containing the cloth board and wooden pieces.

The reverse of the board allows playing of another 'tiger game': Pulijudam, from India. 

In Pulijudam, three tigers face 15 goats, and the aims for both sides are the same as for Bagh Chal.

Bagh Chal is, like the other three games in this Asian volume (Yut, Hasami Shogi, and Jarmo), beautifully produced, with lots of attention to detail. Taking this and the price for each game into account, these games are really excellent value for money. 

Watch this space for the games in the next volume (Africa) ....

Jarmo

Jarmo is the third of the four games in the Asia volume from Lemery Games. 

Jarmo is claimed to be a game of Mongolian or Tatar origin, which allegedly dates back to at least the 13th century. According to legend, the grandson of Ghengis Khan always carried a version of the game with him on military campaigns and brought it to eastern Europe during the Mongol invasion. I haven't been able to find any hard evidence for the game's origin and age beyond this often-repeated claim. Interestingly, Jarmo isn't mentioned in the key board game books by Bell, Murray and Parlett ...

The aim of the game is to occupy the opponent's starting row, capturing pieces (through displacement) along the way. As such is is basically a hybrid between a positional game and a war game. Interestingly, the layout of the board is slightly asymmetrical in terms of the paths that the pieces can move on.

As with all Ludos Ancient games from Lemery Games, Jarmo comes in a nice pouch in a sturdy little cardboard box.

The board is printed cloth ...

... and this shows the pieces in their starting positions. 

As I've gotten used to by now, a very nicely produced game!

Hasami Shogi

The second game in the Asia volume from Lemery Games.

Hasami Shogi is from Japan, and is traditionally played with Shogi pawns on a 9 x 9 Shogi board. It appears to be a game of recent origin, taking the board and pawns from Shogi for a different kind of game.

Hasami Shogi actually comes in two quite different play versions, though both use custodian capture (pieces are captured by being surrounded by two enemy pieces on either side). One version is a war game, where the aim is to capture all enemy pieces. This version is pretty much identical to the Roman game Ludus Latrunculorum (which raises the interesting question as to whether it is somehow based on or inspired by the Roman game, or whether the similarity is purely coincidental). The aim of the other version (played with double the number of pieces, and sometimes referred to as Dai Hashami Shogi) is to be the first to get five pieces in a row either horizontally or vertically. As such, it is a positional game.

The game from Lemery Games comes in a little cardboard box ... 

... which contains a small pouch ...

... which contains the cloth board and wooden pieces. 

The cloth board is printed differently on both sides, allowing play of both versions of Hashami Shogi, and there are enough pieces to play the larger version.

Here is the board and initial set-up for the 'war game' version:

And this is the board and initial set-up for 'Dai Hashami Shogi':

As I've mentioned before, the game is beautifully produced, in every aspect. 

Yut

Ludos Asia is the first volume from Lemery Games, containing four traditional games from, as you might expect, Asia. The four games are kept together in a very nice and sturdy box, and slide in and out of the box as required. 

Yut (or Niyout) is a race game from Korea, possibly going back a few thousand years. Each player has three pieces to get home, and movement is determined by dice throws. As such, game play is a mixture of chance and strategy.

The game comes in its own small box.

Open that box and you find a small pouch which contains all you need to play the game.

The board is a colourful cloth board ... 

... and the pieces and semi-circular stick dice are made of wood.

My first impression of these games from Lemery Games was spot on: they look gorgeous, lots of attention to detail, and, generally, a really high production quality. The other volumes, Africa and America, will definitely be added to the collection!

Hnefatafl, etc

Hnefatafl is a game from the Scandinavian parts of Europe, with variants known from Celtic regions. Its origin is hidden in the mists of time, but it must be at least a millennium and a half old, if not older. It was mostly supplanted by chess when that game spread over Europe in the 12th century.

Hnefatafl is a hunt game due to it being asymmetric, but it is also a war game as pieces can be captured, and the ultimate aim is for the sole king in the game to either be captured or escape. It's probably best to consider it a hybrid hunt-war game, and one possibility as to its origin is as a combination of Ludus Latrunculorum and Fox & Geese (or similar). 

I already have a blog detailing my collection of bought and self-made sets for Hnefatafl and its many historical and modern variants, and I don't intend to add all these to this blog on traditional board games. Anyone interested to see all, simply check out Hnefatafl Collection. But Hnefatafl does obviously belong in a collection of traditional board games, so in this post, I'll present a few sets from my Hnefatafl collection, each bought (rather than self-made) and each of a traditional variant (rather than modern variants).

Here goes!

The very first Hnefatafl set I got was one marketed by Past Times. Cloth 11 x 11 board, and resin pieces in the style of Viking warriors.

A more modern wooden set was sold as 'Viking Chess', even though it has nothing to do with chess, of course. I see this set as representing the 'Copenhagen rules', used in current world championships.

A version of Hnefatafl survived in Saami regions until the 18th century, as a 9 x 9 game under the name Tablut. I got myself a replica Tablut set, with glass pieces based on archaeological finds of Hnefatafl pieces.

Hnefatafl variants were also played in Celtic regions. A 7 x 7 version called Brandubh is known from Ireland, and I recently found a nice Brandubh set on Etsy

A 11 x 11 version, called Tawlbwrdd, is known from Wales, and sold as 'The Celtic Game'.

If this has got you interested in learning a bit more about Hnefatafl, its variants, and its history, click on to my Hnefatafl blog.

Nine Men's Morris

Nine Men's Morris is one of a family of positional games, found around the world and going back at least to ancient Egypt. The aim of all these games, also referred to as 'mills' or 'merels' games, is to get your pieces into rows. In all merels games, this is achieved by placement and movement; no dice are involved, so the games are all purely strategic.

Got my copy of Nine Men's Morris off eBay. Nowadays, the game is often produced with marbles for pieces, but I preferred the vintage look of this one.

Simple cardboard board ...

... and wooden 'men' for pieces.

Ludos Ancient Games

While surfing the interwebs for traditional board games, I stumbled across Lemery Games, run by Krisztina and Tamas. They have designed and marketed a number of traditional board games from around the world in a series of continental 'volumes', all funded via Kickstarter.

Volume I is Ludos Ancient Games - Asia.

The four games included are Yut (from Korea), Hasami Shogi (from Japan), Bagh Chal (from Nepal), and Jarmo (from Mongolia).

Volume II is Ludos Ancient Games - Africa.

The games included in this volume are Yoté (from Mali), Oware (from Ghana), Dara (from Nigeria), and Fanorona (from Madagascar).

Volume III is Ludos Ancient Games - America.

This volume includes Kōnane (from Hawaii), Komikan (from Chili), Puluc (from Guatemala), and Awithlaknannai (from New Mexico).

Judging from the pictures on their web-site, the individual games as well as the packaged volumes all look gorgeous, and I really like the entire ethos of their approach. I'll be sure to seek out these games for inclusion in my collection of traditional board games, so watch this space!

And there is more! Or, rather, there soon will be .... Volume IV, Ludos Ancient Games - Europe, has been launched on Kickstarter!

Royal Game of Ur

The 'Royal Game of Ur' is the name currently used for a roughly 4500 year old board game from Mesopotamia. What the game was actually called in about 2500 BC is unknown, but its rules have been pretty much worked out thanks to a chance discovery of Sumerian text on a clay tablet (more on that later in this post). 

The game is basically a race game, and can be considered an ancient ancestor of backgammon and earlier games in that tables family. As both players have multiple pieces to move, like backgammon, game play is a mix between chance and strategy.

My 'Royal Game of Ur' set is a 3D-printed copy, with markings very similar to actual Mesopotamian boards.

Note the tetrahedral dice that were used in the original game!

The one person responsible for the discovery and interpretation of the rules of this game is Irving Finkel. Over to him to tell you more ...

And if you want to see the game 'in action', here is Irving Finkel again, playing the game!