How to play Fire Tower, a game about fighting fire…with fire!
Watch the Video
Read the Rules
The aim of the game
To win, burn down your friend’s towers by spreading flames into their corner, while keeping yours safe from the inferno.
To set up
- Layout the board and place 4 fire gems onto the central squares, this is the eternal flame.
- Place the remaining fire gems and purple firebreak tokens within easy reach.
- Choose a tower each, in a 2 player game, pick ones diagonally opposite.
- Cover any empty towers with forest cards.
- Place the weathervane next to the board, aligning it with the compass points.
- Give each player a bucket/reckless abandon card, with the bucket side face up. Put the rest away.
- Remove the firestorm, mutual aid, shadow of the wood and champion of the wood cards from the action deck, shuffle it and deal 5 cards facedown to each player. Place the firestorm card back into the deck at random and put the other 3 away.
- You can look at your cards, but keep them secret.
- Roll the dice to determine the wind direction and place the wooden flame onto that side of the compass.
To play the game
The player whose tower is closest to the wind direction begins. If it blows towards 2 players, the player to the left goes first. For example if the wind blows west, green will start.
Now, players take it in turns in a clockwise order to both spread the blaze and then take an action.
First spread the blaze, by choosing any empty square orthogonally adjacent to a fire gem, in the direction the wind is blowing and place another gem next to it.
Next, take action from your tower, either by playing a card from your hand, OR discarding as many cards as you like and drawing new ones.
There’s 4 types of action cards:
- Grey are wind cards. These give you a choice between changing the wind direction as indicated, rolling the dice to set a new direction at random, or placing another gem in the stated direction.
- Orange are fire cards, allowing you to spread the blaze in the pattern shown. Fire cards do not have to be played in the wind direction. At least one gem in the pattern must be orthogonally adjacent to a gem on the board. If there’s not space for the pattern, you can place part of it.
- Purple cards let you place firebreak tokens on the board as shown. You must place ALL the indicated tokens. You cannot place firebreaks orthogonally adjacent to existing ones, or in your fire tower area. Firebreaks stop fire from being placed on the squares they occupy, or from jumping over them. The only exception to this is the burning snag and explosion cards, check the rule book for examples.
- Blue cards remove fire from the board. You don't have to remove the full pattern if you don’t want to. Water can pass over fire breaks, but can’t be used to remove flames from your tower area. The only card that can is your bucket.
You can never put out or move fire from your fire tower area, apart from with your bucket.
You can only use your bucket once per game, as an additional action to your normal turn. Your bucket must remove at least 1 gem from your fire tower, but can extend beyond it. After using your bucket, flip it to the reckless abandon side.
Reckless abandon is a new ability that can be used once per turn instead of your action step. It allows you to discard either 3 blue or 3 purple cards from your hand, to place 2 gems on the board, before drawing back up to 5. These gems do not have to be next to each other, just adjacent to existing gems.
Finally, if ever you draw the firestorm card, play it immediately:
- First, Roll the dice for a new wind direction.
- Then place a gem on EVERY available space, orthogonally adjacent to an existing gem in that direction!
- Next roll for a new wind direction.
- Finally, each player may discard and re-draw as many cards as they wish from their hand.
- Afterwards, the player that drew firestorm continues their turn as normal.
Take it in turns, spreading the fire in the wind's direction, playing a card, or drawing new ones until the fire occupies the highlighted corner on a player’s tower.
When it does, place a tower ablaze card on it - they’re out and flames can now extend from their tower!
Game end, extra cards + team mode
Keep playing until just one tower remains - they win!
But what about those other cards? They can be added in for extra variation.
- Mutual aid is another one-off event card that can be shuffled into the deck.
- Shadow of the wood lets players whose towers have been burnt down return to seek vengeance.
- And champion of the wood is awarded to the winner of the game, to give them a new ability in the next one!
You can also play in teams.
Team members occupy towers diagonally across from one another. If your tower is incinerated, continue playing. A team wins when both their opponents' towers are burnt down.
That’s Fire Tower, a game about shiny gems and fiery friendships.
Enjoy!