Hit The Deck!

(Base rules)
edited by Mikaeshin

Introduction
Hit the Deck is a 2 player battle game mixing the "Battleship"
tabletop game theme with Poker elements. Players fight for territory
on a 3x3 grid by coordinating attacks or deployments. The player
who manages to conquer the entire board, or when the deck runs out,
the one who conquered the most territories.

Setup
- A 52 playing card deck;
- A 3x3 square grid (optional), or free space to arrange cards in an
imaginary 3x3 grid.
The players, nicknamed as Captains, decide the first to play by any
conventional method, then both Captains draw 7 cards each.
In every turn, players proceed as following:
1- Draw a card;
2- Choose to perform an action, maximum of only once of each:
Deployment, or Attack. Players can pass if they cannot or do not
want to perform any of both, but a player can do either in any order;
3- Draw a card and end the turn.
At the very first turn, the first Captain to play does not draw the card
as of the step 1, but all subsequent turns proceed normally.

Deployment: The player deploys a card, or a Battleship, at one of

their Portside zones. The Portside is the row of three spaces closest
to a player:

Portside

Portside
First Captain to move decides to deploy a Queen of Hearts at one of
their Portside zones.
If valid, players can deploy to cards a zone adjacent forwards to one
of their deployments, forming a Supply Chain:

Cards cannot form a supply chain if they are to be deployed to a

sideways adjacent zone, only one zone forward in a lane:
If using a regular deck of cards, it is recommended one of the
players deploy their cards sideways, to avoid confusion:

Attack: If there is an enemy battleship in an adjacent zone

(orthogonally), a player can decide to declare an attack. In other
words, a player can attack an enemy ship adjacent either vertically or
horizontally, but never diagonally:
To declare an attack, the Captain must select one of their battleships,
appoint their target and then use one card from their hand and turn it
face down. Then the defender can choose to defend, by also placing
a face down card, if not, they can also abstain from defending and
not use a card from their hand:

Let us consider Top Captain wants to attack Bottom Captain's Jack

of Spades. They select 8 of Hearts as their attacker, and place a face
down card as their attack card. The Bottom Captain decides to
defend, and also selects a face down card as their defense.

After each player decides their actions, all face down cards turn up:
The attack system in Hit The Deck uses a Poker card combination
hierarchy. Some combinations are only possible with 3 cards (more
details on Attack/Defense Support), but any amounts of cards are
valid and they will be valued accordingly. In the previous example,
the defender has a Jack pair, and the attacker only has an 8 pair,
therefore the defender won the battle.
If the defender chose not to defend, then an 8 pair would be stronger
than Jack high, and Top Captain would win the attack
If the attacker wins the battle, the defender ship gets removed from
the board, otherwise nothing happens. If a supply chain gets
compromised, multiple ships can be sank at the same time (more
details on Breaking the Supply Chain)
The Poker hierarchy is the following (weakest to strongest):
1. High Card
2. Pair
3. Flush
4. Straight
5. Three of a kind
6. Straight Flush
7. Royal Flush (either KQJ or AKQ)
From "Flush" and onwards, they can only be valued if the attack has
3 cards.
If there is a tie in the card combination value, the combination with
the highest card wins. If the cards are tied, tie break happens
comparing suits: from strongest to weakest,
Spades>Hearts>Clubs>Diamonds.
NOTE: in this game, the Ace can be used to make stronger valued
combinations (as in Royal Flush or Straight), but as a Pair, Three
of a Kind or as a high card, it is valued 1 and it is the weakest
valued card by itself.
For example: An Ace pair is weaker than a King pair, or even a
Three of a Kind of Aces is weaker than one of 2s, but a straight of
A23 is stronger than a straight of KQJ.

Attack/Defense Support
Certain board patterns will provide Attacking or Defensive support,
which will provide an opportunity to use an extra card for the battle.
Attacking maneuvers:
Ram
If the attacker has a supporting ship from behind, and it is attacking
the adjacent target on the same lane, this bottom card will be used
alongside the face down card, providing a 3 card attack.

Using the 10 of Diamonds for the attack, Bottom captain can use the
9 of Clubs as an extra card, as they are using a Ram maneuver, and
then place a face down card to proceed the attack.

Broadside Attack
If a battleship attacks a target adjacent to the same row
(horizontally), they can use a card from the top of the deck as the
extra card, alongside the face down card from the hand. To use the
extra card, the player declares they will "hit the deck".

So the Jack of Hearts will use both the extra card from the deck and
the face down card from the hand as the attacking cards. Notice that,
since it is an attack on the horizontal, the 7 of Hearts will not be used
as a Ram.

Defensive Maneuvers:

Portside Bastion
A defending ship at the Portside can use one of the adjacent friendly
battleships as their support in the defense, making a Bastion,
alongside a facedown card (if the Captain choses to use one).
The 7 of Hearts has plans to attack the Jack of Hearts with a Ram,
but the Jack of Hearts can choose either the 10 of Diamonds or the
Jack of Spades as their defensive support.

Broadside Defense
If a battleship has an adjacent friendly unit at the same row, and is
being attacked, they can use the adjancent ship as an extra card at the
defense (for reference, it is the "defensive version" of the Ram
maneuver).
If the Jack of Spades are to be attacked with a Broadside Attack, it
can call a Broadside Defense by using the Jack of Hearts as their
support card.

Breaking the Supply Chain

If a supply chain is disrupted, as in one of the ships of the chain is
removed, the reminder of the chain gets destroyed as well.
Each line of friendly ship is is connected. If the Jack of Spades is
destroyed, the Jack of Hearts will be destroyed as well, as the supply
chain for this column has been disrupted.

Likewise, if the 8 of Hearts is to be destroyed, the entire lane will be

wiped, as the supply chain for the 10 and 7 of Hearts would be
compromised.

Victory conditions

If a player manages to occupy all of the enemies Portside zones, this

is called a Blockade Victory. The enemy Captain will be unable to
deploy more ships, and all zones are occupied by the victorious
Captain.

However, if the deck runs out, the game immediately stops and
players will compare the current board and hand conditions to
determine the winner.

If a condition is tied, then the next criteria is used to break the tie,
and the order goes as:
1- Most lanes conquered;
2- Most cards in the hand;
3- Most valuable hand, either 3-hand or 5-hand poker combinations.