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The most common way we died with multiple early plays was concentrating too much on the victims. While you need to spend some effort early to rescue victims (or at least determine where they are) at least half (if not more of the team – we usually play with 4 or 5) needs to be actively dealing with the fire. Also, when dealing with the fire try to separate it so that it doesn’t ‘blow out’ a big when the blow-outs inevitably occur.
Inadequate firefighting in favor of the glory of walking out of the house with the cat in your arms will kill everyone the same as risking the cat dying in the corner where she started.
We currently use the Family Rules but added a few extras rules to keep things interesting.
+ At the beginning of the game, we roll a d6 for how many hazmat markers and then roll for where their location. If something else is at the location, we re-roll.
+ If a fire hits one of hazmats, it causes a large explosion, causing 2 damage to walls if located next to one.
+ When a fireman is down, we don’t take them back to the ambulance either, we decided that another player has to come onto your spot to revive you. This helps you to definitely work as a team and no one goes off on their own.
+ We make it that pets can be carried for 1 AP movement, rather than 2 AP.
+ We play until all the POI markers have been used.
+ We have fun. 🙂
We play that when a fighter goes down, he stays down until another fighter gets there to revive him. If feels more real and the anxiety builds while you are waiting for someone to come and get you up again.
Sometimes it seems easier to just chop a hole into the wall to enter the house or a room. Avoid this if you can! It doesn’t take too long for the structural integrity of the building to diminish. You will be grateful later that you kept the building in tact as much as possible.
As a firefighter, I can’t stand the downed firefigher rule. Just starting over outside doesn’t work for me. If a firefigher is down, we stop all other activity and recover that firefigher. Call in another fire department for the house and other victims; our department is getting our people out.
My house rule has been that a downed firefighter has to be retrieved before that player can continue to play. Basically their character becomes a POI victim and they get skipped until they are dragged outside. That rule has made winning very difficult so we changed it a little. We now play it where another team that is staging outside are sent in. The player with the downed firefighter controls the new team, but they need to recover the downed firefighter before more POIs are added to the board. This compromise has made the game more playable while including the more realistic response to the situation.
One strategy I like to use is to start with the hazmat tech in my party. His special ability is removed hazmat markers from the board for 2 AP, rather than having to drag the marker out of the building like you would a victim. This way, you can clear out the hazmat markers early in the game and can focus on the POI markers for the rest of the game. After the hazmat markers are gone, you can always spend 2 AP to switch to another character
The Fire Captain can only give one action point to the CAFS Firefighter per turn. And APs given by the Fire Captain cannot be saved.
Yeah, I played it totally wrong the first time….
Who wants 3 times as many action points as everyone else? Who wants to squeeze through those little holes in the walls that no one else can go through? Who wants going around the edges of the house to actually be a viable action for their character?
If you answered yes to at least 2 for these questions, then the Rescue Dog should be a good choice for you.
Of course, all of these advantages come with some limitations as well:
-you can’t put out fires, or move throuh spaces with fire.
-you can’t move hazmat
-you can’t drive
-and you can’t make use of the extra actions of the Veteran or the Fire Captain.
This makes the Rescue Dog a very specialized role, and someone who benefits a lot from other people helping him. You wait for others to put out the fires, and then you rush in and find all of the victims and help drag them out. Dragging 3 spaces each turn, you are better at this than everyone except the Rescue Specialist, and everyone knows it.
Want to make it even better? Victims treated by the Paramedic only require 1 AP to lead, and since leading is different than dragging, you can lead any treated victims 12 spaces in a single turn. Take that Rescue Specialist!
The Rescue Dog is an excellent choice if the rest of your team is good with fires. Don’t underestimate his usefulness.
Good buddies for the Rescue Dog:
-Paramedic
-Anyone good at clearing a line through fires (the Generalist and CAFS Firefighter)
While playing a few games of Flash Point this week, my group decided to switch things up a bit by using a few characters that we don’t really use a lot. One of the big surprises for me was the Paramedic. Her ‘heal’ power can be quite useful as it does not cost any extra AP to have a victim move with you once the victim has been healed. Instead of carrying the victim, once the victim is healed, the victim can just follow you around. This can also allow you to carry 1 victim, while another victim follows you. Also, once a victim is healed, it can follow any other firefighter, not just the Paramedic.
A good strategy when playing the advanced version of the game where you use the Specialists is to have someone play as the Driver/Operator character and have him drive around the board trying to put out some of the major fires. Since this specialist can fire the deck gun for half of the action points as any other specialist, this specialist becomes a valuable resource to put out large fires quickly, as the deck gun not only hits it’s target area that is rolled on the dice, but also any orthogonal area around it. The Driver/Operator also has another special ability that can re-roll the dice used to fire the deck gun, on top of the ‘flipping’ dice ability that every player in the game has
At least, you wouldn’t have to spend useless movement just to discover any false alarm.
Make an agreement so a player who has this speaciality goes first.
Just spend 3 AP for flip over 3 POIs.. save the last AP for next turn.
If later you don’t enough AP to flip all POIs, just flip POI that trapped on fire or just near by the fire.
You help people. You make them feel better. You also help your team do things a lot faster because they aren’t spending double movement helping people get out.
There are two roles that are especially good at teaming up with the Paramedic. The first is the Rescue Specialist, who can move a victim 7 spaces in a single turn when they have been treated. This is almost always enough to get the victim out of danger and usually to the ambulance. The second person is the Rescue Dog–12 AP is always enough to get a victim out of the house.
The Paramedic is a nice addition to the team–one of only 3 roles that directly help you win the game by getting victims out faster.
Good buddies for the Paramedic:
-CAFS Firefighter
-Fire Captain
-Rescue Specialist
-Rescue Dog
-Verteran
With a flat 5 AP, the Generalist is more versatile than any other role–even the Fire Captain. He doesn’t do anything super-well, but he can do everything. If the group seems pretty well built, but still feels like something is missing, this is the guy you pick up.
The strategy for playing the Generalist is quite simple–you do what no one else is doing. No Hazmat Technician? Pull out the hazmats. A lot of people who aren’t good at putting out fires? Bucket duty. You’ll always be the guy who steps in when everyone else groans “why didn’t we bring ____?” And they will be grateful for it.
Good buddies for the Generalist:
-Anyone except the Driver/Operator
Not to cherrypick off the previous post, but if Family is too easy and Experienced is too hard, or you’re looking to gradually graduate to Experienced, just play the Family rules, but w/ roles enabled.
If you’re looking to continually get used to Experienced, then add the vehicles next game. Then hot spots. Then the AP moves, etc.
No one is better at putting out fires than the CAFS Firefighter. With 6 AP, any of which can be used to put out fires, you can put out more fires than anyone except the Driver/Operator–and you have a lot more control than he does. Of course, all that extra equipment you carry around makes you move slower, and you only have 3 AP that you can use to actually move around. That makes getting to the fires a little bit more difficult, and makes the CAFS Firefighter one of the most difficult to play.
There are a few different ways to negate or get around this. The first is with the help of the Fire Captain. You can ask him to use one of his command AP on you each turn, effectively bringing you up to 4 movement AP just like everyone else.
The other thing you can do is pair up with the Rescue Specialist. With her carrying a victim she will only be moving 3 or 4 spaces a turn–the same as you. You two hang out together, with you putting out the fires and her dragging the victims out. Be wary, though–if the Rescue Specialist isn’t carrying a victim, you’ll be left behind.
Overall, the CAFS Firefighter is a little bit give and take. Sometimes he saves everyone from burning to the ground, other times you really wish you had been someone else for that 1 more movement.
Good buddies for the CAFS Firefighter:
-Fire Captain
-Rescue Specialist (carrying victim)
-The Veteran
A GMT counter tray is an easy way to store components. The tokens, dice, and player markers (the wooden ones; I haven’t tried the plastic ones) from the base game will just fit. If you trim the stick out edges with scissors the tray will fit nicely inside the box.
If you want to make the game harder and add a bit competition into the field, you can compete to see who can get out of the house first.
Setup
Experience Game
All POIs
All Hazmats
4-5 Initial Explosions
Random Specialists cards
House Rules
Once you have played until you saved a minimum of 7 victims, continue to play until all the POIs are used up. Once all the POIs is completed and at least 4 victims did not die, race to see who can get to the Ambulance or Fire Engine before the building collapse. Those who are trapped in the fire will be remembered as Heroes.
-Enjoy Yourselves!
After playing a few games in coop with different characters we found that the best combinaison was the Firefighter (3 extra action point to fight fire)with the Rescue specialist (3 extra action for movement)
While most of the crew rushes into the burning building, the Driver sits back and tries to keep them all alive! His ability to shoot the deck gun twice–and to reroll if he doesn’t like what he gets–makes him one of the most powerful characters in the game. No one else can come even close to putting out potentially ten fires in one turn.
There are a couple of things you need to look out for, though. The deck gun cannot be fired into a quadrant that has another firefighter in it. This means that sometimes you’ll have to spend half of your turn–and half of your hosing power–driving around. But that’s okay: you can still shoot the gun once, which is usually enough.
If there are friendlies in every quadrant, or there isn’t much fire, try saving up for a turn until your buddies move or the fire grows. Next turn you can unleash all eight of your AP in a hydro blast of mega proportions! All of your friends will love you and be glad you picked the Driver/Operator.
Buddies for the Driver/Operator:
-None. Hang out in your truck and give them support from outside.
The strategy for the Rescue Specialist is simpler than that or any other role, except for perhaps the Rescue Dog–You run really fast and pull victims out of the building. With 7 AP, you can actually move even a little bit faster than the Rescue Dog can while carrying a victim. It’s what you do.
There is one other thing that you are good at, and that is chopping. Chopping is generally frowned upon, as those black cubes never come back and more than half of Flashpoint loses are due to the building burning down rather than 4 victims dying. It’s not safe to chop.
But sometimes it’s a choice between chopping and spending an extra dozen AP to move around the wall to the nearest door. This is the point where chopping can sometimes be okay.
For most people, this situation is still iffy. If you chop two holes in a wall to make a door, you just gave up your entire turn–but not the Rescue Specialist–with your chop ability and your extra movement, you can bust down that wall and still move another 5 spaces. Now that’s efficiency.
Good buddies for the Rescue Specialist:
-Veteran
-CAFS Firefighter
-Fire Captain
-Paramedic