1. To start you need a Tablan game board. It's a board of four rows of twelve squares. A standard 12x4 gridboard can be used. Each player begins the game with 12 pieces of his colour.

2. Four casting sticks are used in the game, each having one side marked and the other plain.

3. Players sit opposite each other, each taking the row of squares closest to him as his home row. The game starts with all pieces on the board, each player having his 12 pieces lined up, one in each square of his home row.

4. Players throw the casting sticks alternately, counting the plain sides showing - the player who throws a one starts the game.

1. The sticks are scored according to the number of plain sides showing: one side up scores 2 points, two or three score nothing, four score 8 and none (when all marked sides are up) score twelve.

2. When you don't score anything, a player ends his turn and passes the casting sticks to his opponent.

3. On any other score, a player has to do one of the following:

4. 1.) Move a single piece along the course by the number of squares equal to his score - 2, 8 or 12.

5. 2.) Move two pieces along the course, each by half his score - 1, 4 or 6.

6. Only one piece may be placed in one square.

7. A throw has to be used in full except if there is no way of doing so. Otherwise the throw is lost.

8. The player cannot capture an enemy piece on his home row, however, his own pieces on that row may be captured by the enemy.

9. The Tablan gameboard.

1. The goal of the game is to get your pieces to the enemy's home row.

2. The game is finished when one of the players has moved all of his remaining pieces to the last row of the board.

3. Each player scores points equal to the number of pieces he has moved onto the last row.

4. The winner of the game is the player with the most amount of game pieces in his enemy's home row.

1. Pieces are moved according to the throw of the casting sticks, along a set course.

2. For each player the course starts at the left of his home row, moving right along it, progressing to the second row then moving left, then moving right again along the third row, and left again on to the furthest row.

3. The courses of the 2 players follow slightly different lines, and opposing pieces therefore move alongside each other in the same direction on each row of the board.

4. The player who threw a 1 at the start of the game makes his first move according to this throw - the following moves by either player require a further throw of the casting sticks.

5. A piece that has moved to any square on the last row ends its journey and cannot move any further.

6. Having moved a piece, the player throws again and moves or passes the game piece.

7. If a piece lands on an enemy, the enemy piece is captured and removed from the game.

1. Tablan is a "running fight" game coming from Mysore in India. This is a class of games , in which two players advance towards each other on a straight course according to the throw of dice or casting sticks. But instead of being a race, the winner of a running fight game is decided by the capture of pieces when the game ends.

2. This game is a traditional one from India, it's age and history is mostly not known. It is apparently related to a smaller, but more complex, game called tab, which was first described in the west in 1694. Whether tablan is the ancestor or a descendant of tab is not yet known.