Sea Battle board, aagenielsen.dk.

Summary on the Sea Battle Tafl.

1811 James Edward Smith, UK, translated the Latin parts of the Linné diary, like the Tablut rules, into English.
The Smith translation introduced some errors, which are in contradiction with the Linné description:

• The friendly throne square; the Linné throne square is hostile.
• The king being captured from 4 sides everywhere on the board (and this has, in some later attempts of reconstruction, led to another error, the unarmed king, to keep up the game balance). The Linné king is armed and is captured from four sides in the centre of the board and from two sides everywhere else.

1855 Jaques of London, UK, produced the commercial game Imperial Contest, based on the Smith translation. It is identical to our Sea Battle 9x9, except that the king is limited to moving four squares at a time (Hat tip Damian Walker.)

1913 H. J. R. Murray, UK, identified the game described by Linné to be Hnefatafl, based on the Smith translation.

(This pathway is well described by John C. Ashton, Chicago, USA.)

1980 David Brown, UK, made a reconstruction including the errors of the aforementioned works:

• King unarmed and captured from 4 sides.
• Throne square friendly.

In September 2011, Adam Bartley of Norway proposed a Sea Battle Tafl, which is a simplified version of David Brown's game:

• No throne square, i.e. no forbidden squares at all on the board.
• Board size 9x9.