KuBB

May 1.2009-

One very busy work day in early May (actually it was May 1st, international Labor day except for in U.S. most people were in the park drinking, but we 'dedicated folk' were at still at work) we decided to learn an important Swedish game. Its called Kubb. Kubb is played like every other BBQ game where you underhand lob an object at a marker and hope to get your object in/closest/or past the target (cornhole/horseshoes/wiffleball respectively). Kubb however is a rudimentary game with an old conquering the kingdom feel. Here Basia explains the rules:

The game pieces are blocks of wood. The stick you throw is a dowel. The only fancy piece is the King in the center (presumably the center of his Kingdom).

You have to throw like this or Basia WILL yell at you. (Apparently I was trying to softball pitch the stick which was not acceptable. I did have some accurate throws though!)

Then the playing field is setup like this:

Your 5 soldiers (handsome blocks of wood) are set up in army formation at the back line. The opposing team stands at their nearest soldier (at the start the back line) and throws the stick (riffle?) at your men. If they succeed in knocking down one of your soldiers they get to keep it. In order to find a position for it however, the team that just lost a soldier has to "set" it in the other teams territory. At the center of it all, watching, is the King.

To set the soldier on the other side YOu get to throw it. Same throwing rules apply (Barbara would be proud.) The goal is the throw your man as close to the center line as possible because on your next turn (which happens right after you set your soldier fortunately) you have to kill that soldier first. If there is just one man down, its not too hard to get it. If the other team hits 3 or 4, its very difficult. Here are men being tossed around:

The King has the pretty crown here you see.

Well what happens if you toss a soldier and then can't kill him to win him back to your side? The other team gets to move up to the position you tossed him at and throw from there. It is very fun and the game goes back and forth very quickly.

In fact at the end, which my team unfortunately learned the hard way, once you have conquered the entire Army and are now going for the King the other team can declare a mutiny and go for the King as well. Ah, alas, we had all our men fighting for us but could not save our King.. which is also the King we were going for? Hm, quite confusing. Point is we lost. But we had a lot of fun trying!

Occassionally I got picture hungry also~