Fire & Ice®

Fire & Ice commences with the board vacant of counters.

No. of Players

Two

Equipment

A Fire & Ice board and twenty-five each of black and white counters (or red and aqua counters, holding more true to the original publication) are required for play. A unique feature of this game is that a player’s counters are placed on the board by his opponent. The board is made up of seven triangular “islands” and each island in turn has seven positions for counters.

Note: The pattern of seven points, which are connected in triplets in seven ways, is called a Fano Plane, an example of the mathematical structure known as a "finite plane." Each point on the plane is mathematically identical to the others.

History

Fire & Ice was designed by Jens-Peter Schliemann and Published by Out of the Box Pin International.

Objective

The first player to control three islands connected by a line or circle wins the game.

Play

The game commences with the board empty of counters. Players then choose which color of counters will be theirs. One player will be “fire” and the other player will be “ice”. As stated above, a unique feature of this game is that a player’s counters are placed on the board by his opponent. Thus, a player will want to have his opponent’s on-hand stock of counters near him.

The fire player commences the game by placing one of his own counters in the middle position of the center island. Turns will alternate for the entire game. Each turn consists of two parts. In the first part of a turn, a player moves one of his own counters already on the board to any vacant position on the same island or to a vacant position on another island. If moving to another island, however, the position moved into must be the same position in relation to its island as the position the counter just left. For example, a counter positioned at the center of any island may then move to the center position of any other island provided that position is vacant. In the second part of a turn, a player places an enemy counter at the position her counter just vacated. Passing is not allowed.

A player gains control of an island when, on that island, three of that player’s counters are connected by a line or circle. This is done with one of seven configurations. Note that counters aligned along a circle are just as valid as counters aligned on a line.

Incomplete

Here, red counters demonstrate all of the seven methods that a player may use to gain control of an island.

Note that only one player may control an island at a time. If one player has three counters controlling an island, the other player may not simultaneously form a controlling triplet there. If you have additional counters on an island that you control, you may safely move them to another island knowing that you will remain in control of that original island.

A player wins when they gain control of three islands connected by a line or circle. The board is won with any of the seven formations shown above for gaining control of an island.

Strategy

The following strategy tips are given in the official rules for the game.

You generally want to control an island whenever you can, but controlling the right islands is just as important as controlling the most islands. Often, the critical island is one both players need to gain the upper hand. It is usually at the intersection of lines extending from the most strongly held pairs of islands.

You must balance gains and losses in contested areas. If an island is not yet controlled, the player with the majority of pegs on that island usually has a sizable advantage there. If you are at a big disadvantage on one island, you likely will be better off conceding control there so that you can make gains in other areas of the board.

Sometimes you can get an advantage by giving up control of an island, even allowing your opponent to gain control there. You may find it more important to gain control of a different island, and may need to move a peg away from an island you already control in order to do so.

Always consider how any move will shift the focus of the game. You must balance your strategy between attack and defense, and keep alert to the situations all over the board. The advantage can change quickly.

Variations

If one player is better than the other, you can place a few of the weaker player's counters on the board at the beginning of the game as a handicap. (No more than one per island.)

Sources