Fire at Sea Rules Review

 

"Fire at Sea" is a World War II Naval Combat Table Top Game developed by Marks Game Room at Fireballforward.com. "Bitter Enemies" is the additional Supplement to add more naval battles to the game.  This is the second Table Top game we played at Living Hope back in 2021.

My Reviews are going to be graded like classes in College; A,B,C,D,E.  At the end we will get a GPA which will determine if this game makes distinguished honor roll, honor roll, passes or fails.  A good game should at least pass with a C average.

The categories I will be grading are 1) Presentation/Product/Package, 2) Game Rules/Mechanics,             3) Historical/fantasy Cannon Accuracy, 4) Cost/time, 5) Good Time and Memories

1) Presentation/Product/Package. "Fire at Sea" is a free PDF to start playing and I cannot emphasize enough that for being free.  It is a pretty good package, you get printouts for 4 ships, captain cards, ship cards, and hit markers.  Everything you need to play the game.  There is one additional support item, "Bitter Enemies," that contains scenarios for every Naval Engagement in the North Atlantic Ocean during World War II.  For what it is, a PDF document, it is not bad.

C+

2) Game Rules/Mechanics.  "Fire at Sea" is one of the simplest game rule sets to learn.  You can learn it and play multiple games of it in an evening.  It is a grid based game so no tap measure is needed.  Even my 3 y/o nephew learned how to play.  All you need to play is a deck of cards a pair of dice.  My only complaint is table litter.  There are a lot of markers to keep track of on the table.  

A-

3) Historical Accuracy.  "Fire at Sea" does have great scenario design to give you accurate ship counts and stats to try to balance the ships strengths.  Where the game is lacking is all firing is simple and may not have the nuts and bolts of larger naval guns verse AA fire.  

B-

4) Cost/Time. The initial product was free!!!! Cannot get better than that.  And Time, we have played multiple scenarios over time and each one was less than 45 minutes.  Great for a quick Evening Game.  I have purchased models later from Warlord Games "Victory at Sea."

A

5) Good Times and Memories.  I have never had a bad game and each one is enjoyable and the outcome is always slightly different.  Though there are not the epic memories and that is because of the nature of the rule set.  You will not be disappointed 

A-

GPA is 3.28

Just short of Honor Roll but that doesn't mean don't try it.  You will like this game.