Phantom Leader: The Vietnam Air War Solitaire Strategy Game (Deluxe Edition)

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Phantom Leader places you in command of a US Air Force or US Navy Tactical Fighter squadron in Vietnam between 1964 and 1972. You must not only destroy the targets but you must also balance the delicate political repercussions of your attacks. If you strike too hard, your air offensive might be put on hold, strike too light, and you’ll be blamed for losing the war.

Welcome to the Vietnam Air War!

Each of the campaigns can be played with either an Air Force or Navy squadron. The targets assigned to each service are different and change the complexion of the campaigns. Each campaign can be played with three different durations of: Skirmish, Conflict, or War.

Each mission takes roughly 30 minutes to set-up, plan, and resolve.

Each of your pilots has their own skills. Selecting the right pilots and weapons for a mission is vital to its success. As you fly missions, your pilots will gain experience and fatigue. With experience, their skills improve, but as their fatigue increases, their skills decrease and they might not be able to fly for several missions.

For those of you familiar with our modern era Hornet Leader series of games, you might be wondering what’s different about Phantom Leader…

The freedom of being able to select the best mission based on military objectives is something that is commonplace for today’s military. Back in Vietnam, the military was responsible for carrying out their orders, while at the same time being extremely limited in the weapons and tactics they were allowed to use to complete those orders. In many cases, the specific weapons, approach paths, and bombing altitudes were generated target-by-target at the White House. The mission specifics were then sent down the chain of command to the individual pilots flying the mission. As you can imagine, this was not the best way to run an air campaign.

We have expanded and updated the original Phantom Leader game to the high standard set by our Hornet Leader game.

Increase the cards from 165 to 330
- All pilots get all 6 experience levels
- Add new aircraft: Air Force F-5, Air Force A-7, Navy A-5
- Add more pilots for all aircraft types
- Add more Target cards
- Add more Special Event cards
- Revise the 6 original Campaigns to include the new Targets and Aircraft

Add Air Force and Navy Campaigns for the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis

Upgrade to a mounted 11"x17" Tactical Display.