Member introductions

hrafnblod
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Feb 23, 2016 3:35 pm

New member greet/introduction section

Post by hrafnblod » Sun Feb 28, 2016 1:36 pm

Fassail,
Just wondering if there is, or should be, maybe a new member thread, were new members can introduce them selves if they want, or just give a little info about them selves.
It might make for a little more interaction between members.

Also is there a junior section?

Its just my son, 7, has joined the site to better his game of tafl (been playing mainly fetlar and copenhagen rules 11x11). He really enjoys it, can beat most tafl apps/programmes, but really is just learning.
His handle is Rolf_Ioansson.

Skal

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Hagbard
Posts: 688
Joined: Sat Mar 14, 2015 6:07 pm
Location: Copenhagen
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Re: New member greet/introduction section

Post by Hagbard » Wed Mar 02, 2016 8:44 am

hrafnblod wrote:Also is there a junior section?
There's no junior section, unfortunately. The youngest tafl player of known age here, besides your son, is 19 years old.

Xerxes
Posts: 19
Joined: Sat Mar 21, 2015 12:48 pm

Re: Member introductions

Post by Xerxes » Sat Mar 05, 2016 1:43 pm

I'm Steve Lonsdale, using the handle 'xerxes' on this site. Started playing Tafl in the autumn of 2014, after seeing something about it on a trip to Norway a couple of years before that. I have recently moved from Derby in the UK, to Maxey, near Peterborough, also in the UK, so am now closer to my brother, who also plays on this site.

I don't know the age profile for this site, but I'm probably one of the older players - 60 next birthday. I took early retirement in 2008, having worked in Information Technology for Rolls-Royce Aero Engines and then EDS (who were taken over by HP soon after I left). I've had positions as a Systems Programmer, Systems Analyst, Project Management, Quality Management and ISO Certification, and Service Level Management.

I now live a life of leisure, main interests being natural history (birds, mammals, butterflies, dragonflies, etc). I'm also a keen walker and cyclist, and my wife and I have a motorhome (RV) which use extensively in the summer, mainly in the UK, particularly Scotland, but also Ireland too.

My wife says I'm very competitive, and who am I to argue, but of course that is not the same as being very good.

Tuireann
Posts: 30
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2016 8:44 pm

Re: Member introductions

Post by Tuireann » Sun Mar 06, 2016 7:31 pm

I am Alex. I have been playing Tafl for about a month. I came across references to the game years ago and finally started to play.

Systems Administrator by day and an aspiring Indie game dev by night. Sporadically 3D printing things.

Yep.

Fairland
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2016 3:06 pm

Re: Member introductions

Post by Fairland » Mon Mar 07, 2016 5:53 pm

My name is J. Levi White. I first learned about tafl while studying Old Norse. My study of the language, as often does a linguistic study, lead me to a cultural study about Viking-Age Scandinavia. I am a High School teacher of history, government, economics, and Spanish.

Experience with tafl for me has lead to the creation of the first WTF-recognized High School Hnefatafl Club. my students are obsessed with the game and the expansion of the sport to other high schools as well.

I am 28, so not the oldest member, nor the youngest. I am married with two children and we are Christian.

I love any Copenhägen tafl or Brandubh game that is proposed to me at any time. I can get a little sick of Brandubh every once in a while if I play too many games. But that is because I have never been able to pin down the intricacies of Brandubh strategy. If Copenhägen tafl is the greater militant power of two generals in Athenian combat (Athenian as in, goddess of intelligent warfare, from a historical standpoint.) then Brandubh is definitely the Aries, or the Berserkr battle that springs up on a dark, rainy night. Either way. Challenge me and we will have a game!

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Hagbard
Posts: 688
Joined: Sat Mar 14, 2015 6:07 pm
Location: Copenhagen
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Re: Member introductions

Post by Hagbard » Sun Mar 13, 2016 9:03 pm

I am Aage Nielsen; a work career of scientific work, project management, systems programming and systems administration. Born into interest for history in the countryside Lejre, the cradle of Denmark; when we worked in the fields we would find Stone Age tools in the soil.

I accidentally met the board game hnefatafl at the Roskilde Viking Ship Museum in 1992. This game combines the interest for history and an interest for classic board game, having enjoyed chess also, not club, just for fun. I believe that the classic board game is an excellent and fun way for anybody to excercise the brain logic, and it should be practised more in today's society.

I wrote the present site and told more about it here:
http://aagenielsen.dk/site_history.php
Last edited by Hagbard on Sat Apr 08, 2023 9:44 am, edited 2 times in total.

cyningstan
Posts: 38
Joined: Sun Mar 15, 2015 8:22 am

Re: Member introductions

Post by cyningstan » Thu Mar 24, 2016 7:46 pm

I'm Damian Walker, from Hull in England. By day I'm a web developer. By night I try not to be, but often fail miserably.

I discovered hnefatafl in about 2002, along with a lot of other interesting traditional board games, in a 1989 book by Jack Botermans, The World of Games. While I'm interested in a lot of old board games, hnefatafl is my favourite. I've built a web site about the game, and written two books about it too. I'm organising a live tournament for the game next year in Hull.

I haven't played regularly on here for a little while as I can't keep up with the daily move schedule. But I do follow the discussions on the forums here. When I do play, I prefer the historic variants like tablut, brandub and tawlbwrdd. Due to lack of practice I'm a very mediocre player.

Fishbreath
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Apr 24, 2016 12:13 am

Re: Member introductions

Post by Fishbreath » Mon Apr 25, 2016 6:05 pm

I'm Jay Slater, a software engineer by day and author by night, from Pennsylvania in the US.

In looking at my email history, I found that I discovered the tafl games a few years earlier than I thought—I played for the first time in 2006. I believe it was in the context of a Viking-flavored writing project I was involved in at the time. I introduced some college friends to it a few years later, and in the last two years or so, I've been playing on a semi-regular basis with a friend of mine; neither of us are very good, but it's good social time, and the tactical challenges of tafl games have not even begun to grow old.

For the past year and a half on and off, and the past six months or so with greater intensity, I've been working on an open-source tafl engine called OpenTafl. I'm hoping it becomes as much a tool for AI research as a tool used to play tafl games; the AI tournament I'm running this winter has three or four entrants already, and OpenTafl will provide interoperability.

Ironically, since I've begun heavier work on tafl research, I've had a lot less time to play here; when I do, it's as 'Fishbreath', but I don't get through very many games.

crust
Posts: 127
Joined: Sat Mar 21, 2015 9:29 am

Re: Member introductions

Post by crust » Sun Oct 16, 2016 11:45 am

Hey folks,
Tim Millar from UK here, I play under the name of "Crust" (long story, but let's just say it's a character in a cheesy videogame).

I was introduced to hnefatafl by Adam Bartley (known here as "Adam") whom I met at art school way back in the last millennium; you can see his sculptural tafl set in the gallery here. At the time we knew it only as "the Viking game" or "Vikings". A few years later we shared a flat in London and started playing the game intensively, still using the rules that came with that Viking Game set. I think we realized fairly quickly that the game possessed depth and subtlety, as well as the fascinating asymmetry which sets it apart from other games of its kind. Then, by chance I saw our "Vikings" game on the front of a history magazine... with this strange word "hnefatafl"... Google was kind of a new thing back then, at least to me, but thanks to google and that lucky magazine I found my way to the island of Fetlar, Shetland in 2009 for the second World Quickplay Hnefatafl Championship. I started playing here in about 2010, since which time the site has changed and grown, new and exciting players and tafl-variants have come, and gone... (somehow I'm still here, sorry Aage, you don't get rid of me that easily!) and an unprecedented research programme has been painstakingly conducted into the game balance of a multitude of tafl variants. With Aage Nielsen and Adam Bartley I helped to start the World Tafl Federation and formulate the Copenhagen rules (I think my main contribution was the name; the others did all the actual work). In the last 7 years I've attended Viking and similar festivals and events around Britain, teaching people hnefatafl, running tournaments and handing out trophies, trying to spread the word about the game. And indeed there is a little bit of a renaissance of interest; it's now common to see tafl games at Viking events, and there are new websites and clubs popping up. There's a bit of wind in our sails, you might say.

Kratzer
Posts: 25
Joined: Sat Oct 03, 2015 9:28 am

Re: Member introductions

Post by Kratzer » Tue Nov 08, 2016 9:15 pm

Hello friends of tafl,
My name is Christoph Treskow. My nickname Kratzer, formerly known around here as Roderich which is the germanic variant of Rodríguez, my former surname. Kratzer is the maiden name of my grandma who is 92 years old. I was born in Dessau which is positioned quite in the middle of Germany, very close to Wittenberg where Martin Luther started the Protestant "movement" and, of course, very close to Berlin, which I don't really like by the way :).

I studied German and Spanish philology (literature and linguistics). And I read a lot: German classics like Goethe, Schiller, medieval literature like the Edda, but also authors like Cervantes, Tolkien, Hemingway, LeGuin, Murakami, Pérez-Reverte and many, many more. Right now, I work in Hamburg for an agency specialised in Annual Reports of small and medium companies. Whereas most of my colleagues are project managers or designers, I write texts for our clients. It is a lot of fun, but it also drains you. So, no more writing poems and short stories like before in my studying times. Recently, I made my driver's license for motorcycle, so I am on the street whenever the weather is good, or rather, whenever it is not raining. It is really relaxing and taking my mind off of things.

I started playing hnefatafl in 2009/10, I think. I am not sure. I don't even know how I discovered this website, but the game really caught me. Sometimes I need a break and don't play for a while, but somehow I always come back, and not only for tournaments. And for the record: I play a lot of games. modern board games (especially strategy), card games (especially Magic the Gathering), classic PC games like Baldur's Gate as well as Europa Universalis, Dragon Age or the Witcher series for PS4, and, and, and. Oh yes, and I am a big Star Wars and science fiction fan.
Someday I really would like to meet you guys in person and play some tafl. Great Britain, Denmark, or Sweden – all not so far away ...

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