Game #12 ; Alea Evangelii board

Time period: From 10th Century

Players: 2.

Materials: Leather.

Product Dimensions: 50.8 cm width x 50.8 cm length.

Further details:

Meaning ‘Game of the Gospels’ and documented in a 10th C English/Irish manuscript, this is the Anglo-Saxon member of the tafl family of games. It is played on a 19x19 board with forty-eight attackers and twenty-four defenders and the king. The men are set out at the start of play in a very different manner to the other games of the tafl family. Because of this and the size of the board some have said that it might represent a sea battle rather than the land battle of the other tafl games.

The game though follows the rules of the other tafl games - pieces may move orthogonally as far as they wish on an unobstructed route. However due to the size of the board, and the distribution of the pieces, local skirmishes are frequent as the king tries to escape. Of all the tafl games Alea Evangelii takes longest to set up and longest to play but is possibly the most interesting and certainly the most tactical.

Please note; To play, the game also requires a set of 72 pieces ( forty-eight pieces of one type, twenty-four of type 2 and a king). A set of wooden pieces in a leather drawstring bag is available which can also be redeployed for any of the Tafl games.

Alea Evangelii board: $47.50

Tafl Playing pieces with bag: $47.50

Alea Evangelii board + Tafl pieces = $90.00

Suggested age: 8 and above