HotShots is on Fire!!! - Review
Living where I live, forest fires are no surprising events, and on a yearly basis, we hear and see the heroic acts of the courageous people who jump into the center to fight off the encroaching flames as they eat everything in their path, including our homes. However, what we tend not see are the brave and incredibly well trained individuals who are dropped into the hottest part of the fire in order to direct its path and keep it at bay. These people are called "Hotshots".
When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a firefighter and now that I'm older and wiser, I know that the closest that I want to get to a fire is either on TV or in a board game. Therefore, when I first heard of the game, "Hotshots" by Fireside Games, I was sure that this had to be a part of my collection. However, is it any good? Do you feel like a "Hotshot" fire fighter, fighting a constantly losing battle to contain the flames of a raging forest fire? Once played, should we "Leave it on the Table?" Lets find out.
Hotshots is a fully cooperative push your luck fire-fighting board game where the goal is to fully remove all of the fire before it consumes, or scorches, eight of the modularly placed tile locations.
We used the recommended tile layout, but once you feel comfortable with the game, there are alternate layouts at the end of the instruction manual. We have not tried any of these other layouts.
The game starts with laying the hexagonal tiles out into a map with their colorful side facing up. Some of the tiles have a small orange circle on them. This signifies that those tiles begin the game on fire, with flames equal to half of their scorch limit. Each player chooses a hotshot fire-fighter, takes their character card, and places their corresponding standee on the fire camp tile. There is also a windsock standee which is located here, as wind-speed and direction play a large part in the movement and spreading of the fire. You are now ready to start the game.
The order of play first allows the player to move their fire-fighter up to two tiles, but not through a location which is one fire. Then the player fights the fire at their current location by rolling the fire dice. Finally, they pull one of the cards from the fire deck and do what it says.
As Hotshots is a cooperative game, players are allowed and encouraged to talk with each other and discuss strategies. This can either work for or against you as it did in one of our games. The next thing you do is roll the fire dice and try to match as many of the symbols rolled on dice to those found at the location in order to fight the fire there. Match 3 and you can lay a firebreak, which keeps the fire from spreading in a light breeze, match 4 and remove one fire from your current location, roll 5 or more and remove up to two fire tokens and receive either a firebreak or a special fire token which can be kept for use later.
As it was the first move of the game, my cooperative game-mates encouraged me to push my luck by rolling the dice a second and then final third time in order to attempt to remove 2 fire tokens from my location. They full well knew that the fire would build up in my location if I failed. Failure is when you roll the dice and can match no more symbols. This is exactly what happened to us. I pushed my luck just a little too far and failed my third roll, I should have stopped at two. The location I was at burst into further flames and we had to increase the fire by one more token. We were still okay, the scorch limit was 5 and we were still at 4, but then came the final part of the turn.
Next we needed to pull a card from the fire deck and do what it said. It could have said to change the wind direction, push the fire in a certain direction, set a certain tile on fire due to floating embers, or increase the fire at a location with a certain scorch number. That is what happened to us. I pulled a fire card which stated that we needed to increase the fire size at two locations with a scorch limit of 5. Phew, at least it was a high scorch limit, as once a location reaches of exceeds its scorch limit, it scorches and is flipped over to its gray side. All abilities granted by that site are lost to the fire team.
We needed to find two locations with a scorch limit of 5, which were already on fire, and increase the fire by one. In our game it just so happened that one of the two locations with a scorch limit of 5 to increase was the location my character was in. Adding one more fire token scorched my location during the very first turn of the game. Therefore we turned over the location which then spreads the fire to adjacent tiles. Upon flipping the tile, we realized that this was also the location which determined my character's special ability. Once the tile which controls your character's ability is scorched, your character loses their special ability for the rest of the game. This did not bear well for us, as this bad, greedy move pretty much was the theme for the rest of the game which was over for us much too quickly.
You see, this is the nature of fire fighting. It is unpredictable, and can rage out of control at a moment's notice. This is what happens in Hotshots! The players, just like a real hotshots team need to plan logistically and carefully and often make the hard choices to simply place a firebreak at a location and allow the fire to rage on in order to control its spreading. All fire-fighters want to control or put out the fire, but sometimes that is not the right call, as the team may know or assume that a wind change card is coming, or that the wind may pick up, and that a simple firebreak is what is truly needed.
Play continues until either the hotshots have completely extinguished all of the fires, in which case they win, or they lose because either they allowed 8 tiles to scorch, or there are no more fire tokens to put out. This means that the forest fire is completely out of control.
Now that I have given you an exhaustive description of the game, the big question is:
What do we think about it? Should we "Leave It on the Table"?
Let's look at the components & final thoughts:
Components:
First, the components are top notch. The tiles are beautiful and thick. And the fire tokens... Well, just look at them. tall looming 3D plastic pieces of beauty. Just looking at the game board shows you the looming threats that are to come.
Second, the theme and final thoughts:
The theme really shines through in Hotshots. Some people will not like the amount of luck which is needed in this dice driven game, but that luck plays right into the theme of fighting fires, as anything can and often does happen when fighting them. All of us who have played Hotshots really enjoyed it. The game never overstays its welcome and it really makes you feel like you are fighting the fire as a team. Yes, it can allow for an alpha player to attempt to dominate the strategies, but in the end, the dice rolls will actually dictate success, not the alpha player.
Do we: "Leave it on the Table"?
Well, lets just put it this way, I played it solo the first night, then played it with a friend the next day. Two days later, is the night where we lost horribly with friends, who upon losing told me to reset it and try it again right away. I then played it again 2 weeks later.
