Dreadnought: Mini

A few months ago I randomly bought a bag of second-hand pieces from the classic boardgame, Battleship. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with them until last week when I thought about making a small version of Dreadnought. So after a fun weekend project putting it together, I can report back and show you how to make your own!

You'll need some ships. As I mentioned earlier, I used a set of Battleship pieces. You can usually pick up old battleship games from your local second-hand shop. These are fit for purpose, but you can also make your own if you're keen.

First remove the pegs from the ships using a pair of clippers.

Then trim off the plastic from the bottom so that it's smooth and sits flat on the table.

At this point you'll want to make the fleets distinct from each other. I chose a simple "red vs. blue" theme that's easy to distinguish.

With the fleets assembled, you then need some damage markers. Add 1x "Hit" and 1x "Miss" marker to your pool for each point hull point in your fleets. In the case of each of my fleets I needed 40 of each. In Dreadnought: Mini, the red markers are permanent damage and the white ones are repairable damage.

Then I made a couple of measuring sticks out of bamboo skewers, each with three 1"/2.5cm segments.

I also added some tiny dice to the kit. I got these off aliexpress for super cheap. They are perfect for mini games like this one. I found a small container to keep them in so they don't go missing.

For some terrain, I used spare cardboard islands from my old collection of Pirates of the Spanish Main game, but you could easily make your own out of some card stock. I found that around 6 little islands to provide enough variety to the game.

Then I made up a PDF with a few rules and reference cards. You can download your own copy to print and play from here:

Dreadnought: Mini - Rule and Reference cards PDF...

Finally, I put it all into a mint tin. I got this idea from the Game Crafter's Mint-Tin Challenge that was held last month. It's a clever competition and I like the constraints of making the entire game fit inside a single tin.

And that's it. I can take this little game with me virtually anywhere. I really enjoyed this project, and I now want to make even more. Please let me know if you give it a try!