This is a descendant of tafl (hnefatafl).

[from the box]
Free the King before invading forces block your get-away! Handy portable case!

The Blue Challenge — maneuver the King to safety past Ivory's forces. The Ivory Mission — foil blue's plans by surrounding the King on four sides, preventing his escape. It's anyone's game until the last move!

One of the simplest, yet most challenging games ever developed, BREAK AWAY is also one of the oldest. The game was already being played in Scandinavia well before 400 A.D. where it was called tafl (pronounced "tab-l"), from the Latin word tabula, meaning "board game." As new games were introduced, the name was modified to hnefatafl to distinguish it from other board games. The Norsemen carried the game to Iceland, Britain and Ireland — from whence it spread to Wales. In Britain it was the only game played by the Saxons until the Norman conquest. By the twelfth century, however, the game had been largely eclipsed by chess, although evidence shows it enjoyed a following in Wales well into the sixteenth century. The Lapps of northern Sweden named it tablut and played it into the eighteenth century. In their version, the king and his defenders were Swedes, while the invaders were the oppressive Muscovites. It is from this incarnation that BREAK AWAY has been developed as a modern game of classic strategic objectives.