Overview

Be the last Captain standing

Turn

First draw cards equal to 5 minus active ships, so if you have three active ships you will draw 2 cards

You then take 0-4 actions and can repeat the same action

Afterwards, discard cards so your hand size is player count +1 (so in a three player game, hand size is 4)

Actions

The actions are: Add, Shoot, Draw, Board

Add - add a ship facedown to your area so the colour and strength is secret, you cannot take this action if you already have 4 ships

Shoot - Pick a Cannonade card and declare an opponent ship card to attack, flip the opponent ship faceup and if the symbols match it is sunk otherwise it just remains faceup for a future attack by you or someone else

Draw - Reveal and discard a card from your hand to draw a replacement, if the discarded card had a Grin value, add this to the amount drawn, e.g. discard 1 card with 2 Grins, gain 3 cards in return

Board - This follows similar rules to Shoot, except using one of your faceup deployed Ships instead of a Cannonade card (This may be useful if you want to get rid of an opponent ship before a cannonade card is used on you) However, Ships only have one colour, Cannonades have two, so limits options

Grin

As mentioned, Grin can be used too boost the effect of the Draw action

Deployed Ships also use Grin when damaged or sunk

Single Grin causes 1 effect to happen, Double Grin causes two effects

The Grin effects are:

Draw a card

Cause the attacker to discard a card

Cause the attacker to reveal a ship (with the same rules for damaging a ship, which could cause that player to trigger Grin effects of their own)

Special Cases

On first round, no Shoot action can occur

If starting hand only has 1 or no Ship cards, a player can reveal them, discard all, and draw 5 new ones, this can be repeated if again they have 1 or no ship cards

When a player's final ship is destroyed, they are eliminated, in games of 3+ the attacker takes a card randomly from the hand of the eliminated player (or doesn't if the player had no cards)

As mentioned, hand limit is player count + 1, however this is active player count, so as players are eliminated the hand allowance will decrease (any amendments are made at the end of each player's turn if they hold too many cards, NOT at the point of player elimination)

Game End

The game can end in two ways

If you are the last player with at least a single ship deployed, you win!

If the deck runs out before this, a final stand off occurs

Whoever caused deck depletion looks through the discards and takes a single Cannonade of their choice

If deck depletion happened part way through a turn, that player ends their turn early

The next player in turn order takes a turn, but first they too get to take a cannonade of their choice from discard pile

This continues round the table until we reach the player who caused the depletion

When it reaches them, they also get a turn, but do NOT draw a cannonade card from the discard

If the player who drew the last card of the deck was NOT the active player (due to a Grin Effect) both player turns end prematurely and start the standoff from the player who triggered it

If the standoff causes a normal win, that player wins!

Otherwise, whoever has the most deployed ships wins!

If tied, the tied player with the most different ship symbols wins!

If tied, the tied player with most ships facing the same direction wins!

If tied, the tied player with the most hand cards wins!

If tied, the player who started the standoff (who may NOT be one of the tied players) wins!