![]() It also happens to be incredibly tense and atmospheric, crossing a street with a squad or assaulting a building with unknown insurgents is nail-biting stuff. For anyone who has read books like “House to House”, “We Were One”, “No True Glory” about the fighting in Fallujah, playing PF makes you feel like you’re in one of those books, and that the game plays so true to its subject. Assaulting buildings is based entirely on the actual methods used and incorporates simply and effectively the advantages and disadvantages of each method. It flows very quickly and smoothly and takes very little time to pick up. There’s lots of chrome in the design simulating many things which were occurring during the fighting – drugged insurgents, HBIEDs (House Borne Improvised Explosive Device), but at no time does the detail sacrifice playability and the tempo of the game, something a lot of designers could learn from. I won’t go into detail about the mechanics of the design and gameplay (there’s enough of that there in other reviews) but I will say that PF is almost the perfect balance of playability and detail. And that’s probably it’s first masterstroke of brilliance and this is in no small part due to the very, very, very smart thing of the designer to base the game design on a treatise that the USMC carried out specifically on MOUT (Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain) in Fallujah during Operation Phantom Fury. ![]() As someone familiar with the subject, the first thing that strikes you about PF is just how historical and true it is to what it’s attempting to simulate. The subject matter interests me and I have quite a few books on the 1st and 2nd Battles of Fallujah, and especially on Operation Phantom Fury, so it’s fair to say that I’m more than a little au fait with the topic. I first got Phantom Fury (PF from now on) in January 2012, since then I tend to pick it up every couple of years to play (which is probably a travesty but more on that later). So with that in mind, I’m coming back to Phantom Fury. I find that after a few years and plays and coming back to something over a period of time gives a better – well for me anyway – and more objective opinion. There is no “ooh shiny new box” excitement of getting a new game and a fresh and new experience, no rushing to be the first to post a review. In some ways I think this is a fairer and actually gives a far more balanced view about the game. Over the last few years I’ve found myself writing reviews on games that I’ve had for awhile and my thoughts on them after a period of time – in some cases, quite a considerable length of time. I’ve added images from the Big Board galleries. ![]() BGG User Timothy Smith, AKA LordFlasheart has agreed to share his review of Phantom Fury from nuts publishing with us! ![]()
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