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The Hantag box cover: under the arched word hantag, a red-cloaked hero steps across red flame stones toward the Hantag, a ring of six glowing colored domes around a white one, while heroes in orange, yellow, green, blue, purple and white stand on stones of their own colors, and two dice lie in the corner

Flight FBG-005 · Board game

Hantag

Six castles. One gem from each. Then the center.

Slide stones to lay paths, walk your heroes across them, and take one gem from each of the six castles. Then bring your own hero to the Hantag, at the center of the world, and claim the gem that holds the power of Peace.

  • 2 to 6 players
  • Strategy
  • Completed in 1999
  • Est. $25–40
  • Play online
  • Brennan Pope

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The quest

Bring peace to six warring castles.

Han·tag \hän-täg\ n [Am. Eng. fr. OHG hantag, origin of 'center']: a game for 2–6 players involving unique elements of strategy combined with the classic heroic quest

The land's six castles have grown so different that they stand on the brink of war. Long ago a hero built the Hantag at the center of the world, and its keep still holds a gem with the power of every castle: the power of Peace. To claim it, you'll need a gem from each castle first.

The Hantag logo: the word hantag in tall black-and-white letters over a black disc ringed with six colored circles around a central H
The hantag gem at the center, ringed by the six castle colors.

How it plays

Slide, walk, collect, claim.

  1. 01

    Slide

    Roll the stone mover die and make that many slides, 2 to 5, with your castle stones or the clear hantag stones. A sliding stone can push the stone ahead of it and pull the one behind.

  2. 02

    Walk

    Heroes don't slide: they step on and off stones, as many steps as you like, along any path of stones no more than a space apart. Move both your castle hero and the clear hantag hero, before, between and after your slides.

  3. 03

    Collect

    Step either hero into a castle courtyard to take one of its gems; your own castle's gem is the hantag hero's to collect. The focus die decides which: unless you already hold a gem of the color it shows, it has to be that castle's. Then roll it again and keep going.

  4. 04

    Claim

    With a gem from all six castles, walk your own hero into the hantag courtyard and claim the hantag gem. You've restored peace to the world, and you win.

A diagram of part of the board: the red hero can walk two different paths of red castle stones and clear hantag stones to a destination circled in yellow, and every space it can reach is shaded red
Two paths the red hero could walk to the circled space. Every space shaded red is in reach this turn.

Stones and heroes

Stones slide. Heroes walk.

Your castle stones are yours alone to slide. The six clear hantag stones and the clear hantag hero belong to everyone, so the road you build can be someone else's way in.

Before and after: a red stone slides one space to the right, pushing the blue stone ahead of it one space on and pulling the clear stone behind it into the space it left
One slide can push the stone ahead one space on and pull the stone behind along with it.
The red hero steps on to a red castle stone, on to a clear hantag stone, and off to an empty space
A hero takes as many steps as it likes, but never ends a turn standing on a stone.

Why it works

A race where every road is shared.

  • A tug of war, played backward

    Your own stones get you around your corner; the clear hantag stones are what carry you to the far castles. Push the hantag stones away from your side, and never pull them toward you.

  • One slide, three stones

    Push the stone ahead and pull the one behind as you slide, and a single slide moves three stones at once.

  • Every path is an invitation

    Anyone can walk a path of hantag stones. Build one to a castle and the next player may walk it to that gem before you do.

  • Every quest has two heroes

    Your castle hero and the clear hantag hero both move every turn, and either can collect. Only the hantag hero can bring in your own castle's gem, and only your own hero can claim the center.

  • A monolith covers your tracks

    Step on a stone, slide it, step on again: a monolith travels fast and leaves no path for anyone to follow. But it can leave you stranded, and a clear stone can be slid out from under you.

  • Heroes knock heroes home

    Walk into another hero's space and it goes back to its courtyard, bumping whoever is there, in a chain. Stranded? The Call of Home brings a hero back to its courtyard for the price of one slide.

What's in the box

A board, six castles, two dice.

The redrawn board with its tiles laid out around it: each castle's keep beside its castle with the same rune in its middle, three on each side, and below the board a row of seven tiles, the hantag keep with its wheel of six colors in the middle and three collections on either side, a rune in each colored ring
A castle in each corner, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple, clockwise from the top left, and the Hantag at the center. Each castle's keep sits beside it; below are the hantag keep and the six collections. Every house has its rune, the flame, the sun, the crown, the oak, the sea and the moon, so no castle is told by color alone.
  • 1 gameboard, a hexagon of 127 spaces with a castle in each corner and the Hantag at the center
  • 42 stones: 6 in each castle color, and 6 clear hantag stones
  • 7 heroes: one in each castle color, and the clear hantag hero
  • 37 gems: 6 in each castle color, and the clear hantag gem
  • 13 tiles: a keep for each castle's gems, the hantag keep, and a collection for each player
  • 2 dice: the focus die, in the six castle colors with their runes, and the stone mover die, numbered 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5

The story

Finished in 1999.

Hantag was completed in 1999, with an instruction booklet that opens on its own dictionary entry and closes with its strategies written as proverbs: balance the forces, try to walk another's path, and a monolith covers your tracks. The original set is still complete and playable.

Where it stands

Being restored.

Its rules have been brought up to date from an older version of the booklet, with new diagrams whose every move is checked against the rules, and its board and tiles are redrawn from the original art, as they appear on this page. Only one rule is new since 1999: no hero may collect its own castle's gem. We expect it to sell for about $25 to $40, in line with strategy games like Blokus and Hive; the final price is set at launch. Want to see it on Kickstarter first? Give it your vote.

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