Salvo
Also called Battleship
Hide your fleet on a secret grid and call out shots to sink your opponent's ships before they sink yours.
the best bit: watching their face fall right before they say “hit”
- Players
- 2
- Time
- 20–40 min
- Learn in
- A minute
- Mood
- Chill
- Format
- Everyone for themselves
The 30-second version
The pencil-and-paper game that the board game came from. Each player secretly draws five ships on a grid. Take turns calling out squares like "B7", and your opponent says hit or miss. Sink every one of their ships before they sink yours.
read this, then walk through the steps below once.
Grab these
Set up
- Each player draws two grids, ten squares by ten. Label the columns A to J and the rows 1 to 10. One grid is for your ships, the other is for tracking your shots.
- Secretly draw five ships on your ship grid, each running across or down: one 5 squares long, one 4, two 3 and one 2. Ships can't overlap.
- Sit so you can't see each other's paper.
How to play
-
Call a shot
On your turn, call out one square, like "B7."
-
Hit or miss
Your opponent checks their ship grid and says "hit" or "miss". Mark it on your shots grid: an X for a hit, a dot for a miss.
-
Sink it
When every square of a ship has been hit, its owner says which one sank: "You sank my 3."
-
Take turns
Then it's their shot. One shot each, back and forth.
How to win
The first player to sink all five of the other player's ships wins.
Once you know it
- Full salvo
- The original rules. Each turn, call one shot for every ship you still have afloat, all at once. Your opponent says which ones hit.
From experience…
- Spread your ships out. Clusters get found fast.
- After a hit, try the squares next to it before guessing anywhere new.