Steve Carey
United States
West Coast
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Introduction: I hadn't even heard of this release, until a friend showed it to me today. We played a 4-player game with colors revealed, and then a 5-player game with colors hidden. Both games had each player controlling two pawns.
Positives: I thought the game was easy to get into, especially with an experienced player teaching us (so that past mistakes were avoided).
--There are some good layers of strategy involved, but these must be balanced against whether or not you have the right card in your hand (to move the fire in the direction you want it to go).
--There is a semi-cooperative nature to play, but also some real damage that you can do to your opponents (other than moving the fire in their direction). This includes "pinning" a Trained Band on top of a fire, or blowing up someone else's Houses in order to form a fire break.
--The three escalating (2, 4, 6) Victory Point cards add a nice hidden element to play as one never knows if an opponent is protecting an area for their Houses present or to score the VP's at game's end. Since the VP cards duplicate, you and an opponent may be trying to protect the same area, but for different reasons. Since the cards dealt will vary from game to game, this really helps with replayability.
--The dual management of the Trained Bands (i.e., your Fire Brigades) and the Landowner pawns (i.e., the one who scores a VP for you when putting a fire out) with just 4 Action Points/turn provided some interesting choices. Each turn needs to be judged in light of what you stand to gain against what your opponents may do on their immediately following turns.
--The handful of three secret special action chit types (spread a fire, gun powder, or a VP) are coveted and add yet another twist to play. For example, I wanted to use gun powder to blow up a juicy area where I had no Houses, but another player came along and put out the fire first, so I couldn't do it (gun powder can only be used in an area - without a fire - that is adjacent to a fire, and with a Trained Band present). Or when a player used a spread fire chit to grab two tokens (one during his inital fire move, and then another for the special action bonus move), burning down his opponents' buildings in the process. Sneaky bugger...
--Theme is well represented here; as the fire spread and the Houses burned, the magnitude of the disaster came into my mind.
--With the option to play the colors revealed or not, this provides a different dynamic to the game and helps newbies get the hang of things (with colors revealed).
--The game flowed very well, with only some moments of analysis-paralysis (like in one game where the fire got behind our lines and the Trained Bands were way out of position, as were some of our pawns).
Negatives: The one thing that bothered me the most was that the Orange player wasn't Orange, but Red since all those bits were colored red - exactly the same as the fire cones. There is a lot of color in this game, and the red-with-red tended to bleed together at a glance. Poor production here, unless this copy was an anomaly.
--The four map directions are color coded so easy enough, but then some of the areas have a 4-directional mark which at times was hard to follow. There are some areas on the board that are simply not intuitive as being adjacent (at least to my eye), so careful study was required and potential good moves were overlooked due in part to the board's layout. Exacerbating this problem, there is map errata where a handful of arrow connections are missing - very annoying.
--Both games came to halt sooner than we wanted, like running 90 yards of a 100 yard dash. Especially in the 5-player game, it seemed like I just didn't get enough turns to fully savor the session.
--A final nit here, when playing with colors hidden you will most likely have pawns of one color and Houses of another color. As I planned my move, several times I had to remember the color separations and what colors the other players' pawns represented.
Conclusions: Overall, I liked this game very much - it is fun, flavorful, engaging, and generally fast-paced.
It's going to take some more experience I think to better learn how to spread the fire as the back rows (and the Tower of London) appeared to be relatively safe. The Green district gets hammered (as well it should), and it was a satisfying challenge to protect some of those areas (and was just as heartbreaking when they were lost) near Pudding (where the fire starts with 25 cones).
Also, the distribution of the card directions (for which way the fire spreads) are unequal, so that's another factor to consider.
This is definitely a game that I want to play again. Apologies in advance if I've made any errors as I did not read the rules (since we had a teacher at the table), and I also don't have a copy of the game to refer back to. But that's going to change soon as this one just went to the top of my wish list.
Overall, a very good game in my humble opinion.
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Steve Yates
United States
Cleveland
Ohio
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Steve Carey wrote: Introduction: I hadn't even heard of this release, until a friend showed it to me today. We played a 4-player game with colors revealed, and then a 5-player game with colors hidden. Both games had each player controlling two pawns.
Each player should control only one pawn. The second pawn should be kept in front of you to indicate which color you are moving. This is especially important when you are playing with hidden colors, because it can get confusing otherwise when the color of your pawn is different than the color of your houses. (The purpose of the second pawn is not mentioned in the manual.)
Other than that is sounds as if you played correctly.
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Steve Carey
United States
West Coast
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Thnx Steve - I think the owner did mention 2 Pawns as a variant to provide some flexibility for new players (which the rest of us were).
I certainly enjoyed the game enough to order a copy from Boards & Bits tonight. I do see this one getting a lot of table time, warts and all.
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Tim P.
United States
Thousand Oaks
California
Visit the Wargame Bootcamp guild
To mark the 60th Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and of Her other Realms and Territories, Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.
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sfglbkf wrote: Steve Carey wrote: Introduction: I hadn't even heard of this release, until a friend showed it to me today. We played a 4-player game with colors revealed, and then a 5-player game with colors hidden. Both games had each player controlling two pawns. Each player should control only one pawn. The second pawn should be kept in front of you to indicate which color you are moving. This is especially important when you are playing with hidden colors, because it can get confusing otherwise when the color of your pawn is different than the color of your houses. (The purpose of the second pawn is not mentioned in the manual.) Other than that is sounds as if you played correctly.
I was the sneaky person who introduced the game to Steve Carey 
We have been playing with two pawns in early games when people are learning to 'manage' the fire, but once people get used to the fire's tempo and movement possibilities then one pawn will make for a more tense game.
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Richard Pardoe
United States
San Ramon
California
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Steve Carey wrote: Negatives: The one thing that bothered me the most was that the Orange player wasn't Orange, but Red since all those bits were colored red - exactly the same as the fire cones.
I purchased some orange (and white) Settlers of Catan houses to replace the red (and natural) houses in the game to avoid this issue.
I also picked up some variant coloured pawns to use for the hidden colours variation lest players get confused between their pawn colour and hidden colour.
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Rick Carnagey
United States
Wake Forest
North Carolina
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RPardoe wrote: Steve Carey wrote: Negatives: The one thing that bothered me the most was that the Orange player wasn't Orange, but Red since all those bits were colored red - exactly the same as the fire cones. I purchased some orange (and white) Settlers of Catan houses to replace the red (and natural) houses in the game to avoid this issue. I also picked up some variant coloured pawns to use for the hidden colours variation lest players get confused between their pawn colour and hidden colour.
Has anyone tried painting the red houses/pawns orange? I was thinking of doing this as I have the paint on hand and it would only cost me time..
I just am not sure if painting them would make them look bad.
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Jim Sutherland
United Kingdom
(just) West of London
Middlesex
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netizen wrote: Has anyone tried painting the red houses/pawns orange? I was thinking of doing this as I have the paint on hand and it would only cost me time..
I just am not sure if painting them would make them look bad.
I am interested in the answer to this too.
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Posted Mon Dec 12, 2011 2:42 am
