Flamme Rouge
Pedal to Victory
- Designer: Asger Harding Granerud
- Publisher: Lautapelit
- Players: 2 to 4
- Ages: 8+
- Time: 3- to 45 mins
Flamme Rouge is a card-driven cycling game that sees players take charge of a team of two riders and try to guide them to victory over a gruelling road race stage. Mountain climbs and descents challenge riders to conserve their energy and avoid taking exhaustion cards. The game takes its name from the red flag that is flown over the road one kilometre before the end of a race.
Components
The game includes eight rider miniatures, two in each of four colours. One rider is a sprint specialist, the other a generalist (the so-called rouleur). Each of the four sprinters has an identical set of cards, and the generalists also have a common set of cards in their respective colours. The course comes in the form of jigsaw-style tiles. The game provides a set of predesigned courses, but players can also easily create their own. Finally, there are two decks of exhaustion cards: one for the sprinters and the other for the generalists.
Gameplay
On each turn, players deal themselves four cards from each of their two decks: sprinter and generalist. In secret, players choose one of the four cards for each of their riders. The remaining three unchosen cards are placed face up at the bottom of their respective decks. Then, players simultaneously reveal their cards. Each card has a number and this represents the number of spaces that rider will try to move. In turn, starting from the head of the race, each rider will move. After moving, the cards just played are discarded. Then the next turn starts. The game proceeds in this way until the riders have crossed the finish line.
Play is enriched by slipstreaming and exhaustion. Riders finishing a turn at the head of a group have to take an exhaustion card; after all, it is harder pedalling into the wind if you’re in the lead. These cards only have a movement value of two, so players will want to avoid these as it may be that a hand of four cards with a value of two are drawn and your rider is going to fall behind. Slipstreaming, on the other hand, is something a player wants to exploit. Finish a turn with only one empty space between your rider and the next group and then your rider moves one extra space and catches up. Thus, Flamme Rouge is a game of second-guessing: what cards are my opponents going to play?
Impressions
The mechanics of Flamme Rouge are gloriously simple. Choose a card and move that number of spaces. But then what happens if your rider is blocked and can’t use all those movement points? Is it better to choose a low-value card in the hope of catching the slipstream of a faster rider or should I go out hard and risk being at the head of a group of riders and so pick up an exhaustion card? These are just some of the decisions that spice up this game without risking analysis paralysis.
Flamme Rouge is fast-paced, as befits a cycling game. Replayability is built in as each rider’s deck is constantly shuffled and reshuffled. The symmetry provided by the identical rider decks adds to the tension on in-game decisions and this is comfortingly balanced by the asymmetry to be found in the differences between the sprinter and rouleur decks. The savvy team-leader is able to exploit these differences to enable the two team mates to complement one another. In this way, riders can move extra spaces due to slipstreaming and avoid exhaustion cards by not finishing a turn at the end of a group. As a result, each player is presented with an interesting tactical decision every time cards are drawn. Play low-value cards to save ‘energy’ for a final sprint or go high and be at the head of the pack and potentially risk collecting low-value exhaustion cards.
This is one of my all-time favourite games. The components are well made and the rulebook clear and concise. The artwork on the cards and player boards is clean and reminiscent of the 1920s. This all adds to the charm of the game.
Although this is a game for two to four players, it can easily work solo and can also be extended to eight if each player controls just one rider. In addition, the base game can be extended with two expansions (Peloton and Meteo) and there is also a companion app. I will review these in the future.