Flash Point: Fire Rescue - Tips & Strategies

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 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.

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.

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….

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.

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.

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

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

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!

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.