Salvo!

Sink the Bismarck!

I had a cup of coffee this morning and instead of looking out of the window or reading the paper I played a quick game of Salvo! by Minden Games. 

Since seeing Marco Arnaudo's review of the game I picked up my copy of The Loss of the Bismarck by Graham Rhys-Jones and as a result developed a real urge to pit the Hood against the pocket battleship.

Salvo! is a neat little solitaire game by Gary Graber. I played it with the help of a nice player aid by Todd Sanders, available as a download from BGG.

Play just about to start

In this picture we see the starting positions, Bismarck at the top happily minding its own business and Hood below is on the look out. The weather is fair and Hood detects Bismarck at long range.

Hood close-up

In turn one, Hood closes the range but then finds that Bismarck turns towards her and closes down (oh dear!). Bismarck gets in the first shots, causing turret damage, but Hood has the better of it scoring flotation and speed hits.

Hood straddled!

Turn 2 sees Bismarck closing again, Hood offers broadside to get all batteries in position to fire. The exchange of fire sees further hits with Bismarck coming off slightly worse.

Both vessels are straddled

In turn 3 Bismarck closes again (ramming speed I think), Hood fires first and hits Bismarck's turrets while Bismarck's reply is no effect (twice!).

Turn 4 sees Bismarck withdraw, opening the range to medium. Hood gets in a final salvo, scoring two more hits. Bismarck fires her stern batteries, causing more damage to the Hood. At this point the end game die roll comes up and the Bismarck makes its escape.

A good little game with lots of flavour. It probably took half an hour (because I'm slow on the maths) but I actually enjoyed the contest. At the end, Bismarck suffered 8 hits and Hood 7. Still plenty of stamina left in both vessels for a longer fight but a rational outcome for a heavy unit contest.

Since my last mention of Salvo! I have come across the latest version (v2 2013) which comes as part of Panzershreck 16, a free downloadable magazine from Minden Games.