How to play Battleship Card Game
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RULES:
The object of this 2 player card game is to sink all 5 of your opponent’s ships. Separate the cards in two colored decks and give 1 deck to each player. Each player separates out their reference card, 12 coordinate cards, and 26 battle cards, then shuffles their coordinate cards and lays them face-down in a 3×4 grid in front of them. Shuffle your own battle cards and deal 5 of them to yourself then place them in a face-down deck in front of you. Pick a player to go first, then turns alternate.
On your turn you must play 1 card from your hand. There are 2 types of cards you can play: Peg cards, and power cards. White pegs allow you to search for your opponent’s face down ships, tap one, and they flip it over. Then you discard the white peg card to your discard pile. Red pegs allow you to damage ships. Ships have a number on them that indicates how many hits they need in order to be sunk. Place the red peg card under the affected ship and that ship receives the number on the red pegs as hits. You can put multiple red pegs under a single ship. As soon as a ship has hits equal to or greater than the ship’s number, then that ship is sunk. Remove the sunk ship from the game and place all red peg cards under it in the discard pile.
You are allowed to play a red peg card on a face down card, however, if you do and the flipped card is a miss, then discard that card. If it is a ship, then the red pegs are immediate hits.
Shield Power cards play on top of your ships and the shield must be destroyed before the ship can take more damage. When a shield is destroyed, discard it. Other types of power cards allow you to pick between two options on the card. This symbol means you can discard as many white peg cards from your hand as you want. This symbol means you can more cards in the same turn as indicated by the number. The repair symbol means you can remove any 1 peg card from a ship. You may not repair shields. This symbol means to draw cards from the top of your deck as indicated by the number. If you have 2 symbols next to each other you get to perform both actions, but you may not perform actions that are separated by the “OR”.
After you play a card you end your turn by drawing back up to 5 cards. Then your opponent goes.
Each ship has a special power that you can use once that ship is revealed. The submarine can only be damaged by white peg cards instead of red ones. The PT BOAT allows you to remove 1 peg card from any of your damaged ships at the start of each of your turns. The destroyer allows your white pegs to damage ships. The battleship adds 1 red peg to each of your red peg cards in play. So a 2 peg card would now count as a 3 peg card. The aircraft carrier allows you to draw to 7 cards at the end of your turn instead of 5.
The first player to sink all 5 of their opponent’s ships, wins!
