Battleship

01Discover the game

The Naval Battle opposes two hidden fleets. You know the position of your ships and the results of your shots, but not those of the adversary. Each announced coordinate brings information: water or a part of a boat. The previous shots gradually allow to reconstitute the enemy fleet.

This chapter explains the classic mode with a round shot of Battleship Hasbro A3264, on grids of ten in ten. The overall difficulty is Medium: you have to organize your research and exploit the clues. Salve mode, Power cards and electronic editions are excluded from this initiation. The official PDF A3264 was inaccessible during this search; the material is confirmed by the Hasbro sheet and the basic rules are those of the Classical Naval Battle. must remain visible until the corresponding booklet has been reread.

02Equipment

The A3264 sheet shows two boxes, ten plastic ships, 84 red "touched" sheets, 168 white "missed" sheets, a sticker sheet and the record. Each player uses an ocean grid for his fleet and a shooting grid for his attacks. The coordinates range from A to J and from 1 to 10.

Each fleet has five ships of lengths 5, 4, 3, 3 and 2 boxes. Their names vary according to language and edition: to play, the length is the indispensable information. If there is no housing, each can draw two grids 10 × 10 and use a hidden sheet as an ocean grid; it is a material adaptation, not a new shooting rule.

03The goal

The first to sink the five opposing ships. A ship is sunk when all its cells have been affected. A single impact does not destroy it, even if it is a small ship. The entire fleet occupies 17 boxes: 5 + 4 + 3 + 3 + 2.

04Preparing the fleets

Sit down so that each can read its two grids without seeing the opposing ocean grid. Secretly place your five ships, horizontally or vertically. They can neither overlap, nor get out of the grid, nor be placed diagonally. The ships no longer change places once the part starts.

Their contact on board is not prohibited in the classic variant retained; do not spontaneously add a mandatory space rule from another game. Check the five lengths before closing the preparation. Decide the first player, then alternate the shots. Both shooting grids are empty at the start.

05Advertise, respond and rate

One shot in turn

Announce a letter and then a number, for example "D7". Your opponent looks at box D7 of his ocean grid and answers "missed" if it is empty or "touched" if it belongs to a ship. The answer must be correct. You place on your shooting grid a blank sheet for a failure or red for an impact.

The owner of the boat also marks the impact on his ship. This makes it possible to check when all his boxes have been reached. After this single attack, the turn passes to the other player, even if you have touched. The custom "touched, replay" is not used here.

Couler a ship

When all the boxes of a vessel have been affected, its owner announces that it is sunk, specifying which vessel it is or its length. Impacts remain noted. A sunken vessel is not moved and its cells are not returned to the water. The rest of the fleet continues to receive fire normally.

Use both grids correctly

Your ocean grid shows what your camp has. Your shooting grid shows only what your attacks revealed on the opposing camp. Do not report an adverse shot on your search grid: the same coordinates exist on both sides, but do not describe the same fleet.

Avoid shooting a second time on a co-ordinate already played. If you're wrong when announcing it, the educational convention is to check the card and choose a still unknown box before continuing; announce this tolerance before the game. A regulated party must follow its own notice to deal with an error of co-ordination.

What's secret

Your opponent must give the desired result, but does not have to immediately reveal the direction of the vessel or all its boxes. An impact in D7 does not say whether the vessel continues towards C7, E7, D6 or D8. A diagonal box, like C6, cannot belong to the same adjacent segment of the vessel: the ships are straight.

06An example search

Alice shoots at D7: "touched". In turn, she tries D8: still hit. The two neighbouring impacts suggest an orientation to explore, without proving that they belong to the same ship: two boats can be in contact. Alice can continue in D9. If D9 is missed, she can try D6 instead of blindly continuing towards D10; it will always be necessary to retain the possibility of two different ships.

Assume that a ship of three cells is hidden in D6, D7 and D8. When D6 is finally reached, its owner announces "ship of three cast cells". Alice keeps the three red marks and can go back in search of the other ships. This exercise situation does not allow to say that all the boxes around are empty: two ships can touch each other in the explained variant.

To learn how to distinguish the two grids, draw the complete boat only on the defender's grid and only the known impacts on the attacker's grid. The drawing must not give the reader information that the player does not yet have.

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07End of game

The game stops immediately when a player has sunk his opponent's five ships. There is no revenge shot to equalize. The number of his own ships still at sea does not change the victory.

A single round does not have a score in points. You can note one win per game and alternate the first shooter for a revenge. If inconsistencies appear when revealing the grids, reconstitute the shots from the marks instead of discreetly moving the boats. The hidden information requires trust and careful answers.

08Frequent errors

• Place a boat diagonally or make an angle with a long boat.
• Move his fleet after the first shots.
• Replay automatically after impact.
• Consolidate the grid of its ships with that of its attacks.
• Declare a ship sunk whose box has not yet been reached.
• Suppose that one vessel cannot touch another without choosing this variant.

09Tips for starting

Starts with an organized search rather than a succession of forgotten boxes. Once an impact has been achieved, explore horizontal and vertical neighbours to find the direction. Note each result immediately: an unlisted index quickly becomes an error.

During the preparation, avoid reproducing exactly the same fleet to each game. But do not look for an allegedly invincible placement: the chance of the first shots remains important. After the game, compare the two grids and explain how a series of impacts allowed to understand the length of a ship.