Phantom Division Info

Not all Phantoms are human, correct. He's not the "leader" so much as he's the one who looks the coolest.

I'll observe it says "Squad Commander" on his card.

Do your characters advance in rank in a similar way as they do in Seal Team Flix? I found myself oddly excited about that.

lol, the publisher added those "titles" against my wishes. They mean nothing.

The ranks in STF siloed you into certain gear sets and to some degree the difficulty of the mission. Phantom Division is much more open. Anyone can use any piece of equipment they can get their hands on, or equip any Augment that is unlocked. Each mission completed grants XP which you can spend to unlock augments that let you break rules / gain powers. You can change them at will in between missions.

Fully loaded, the game is technically easier since you can do more with the time you have. But controlling difficulty is easy to do by adding more enemies into the enemy bag, or even reducing the number of rounds you have. We had to make judgment calls on difficulty tuning to hit the most common gameplay situations. The game has Easy and Hard difficulty, but coming up with Xtreme would be pretty easy to do.

Wait? Wut? Just got an email from Gamefound saying Phantom Division has been canceled. Wha' happen'?

Ugh. What a shit show. They launched with no gameplay video, and apparently people REALLY wanted a gameplay video. They are going to get one produced and re-launch, but I'm sure it will be 3 months before the fucking thing gets back on there.

The factory fucked us. A prototype was ordered. Like a legit one. They sent all of the paper components, as in tokens, player boards, etc. But no wooden components, of which Phantom Division features several.

I am... frustrated to put it mildly. I have poured so much into this, for so long. None of this current disaster is my fault, and I have no control over any of it. Times like this... I keep wondering why I do this at all.

Thanks to all of you who attempted to support it. It will be back, hopefully done correctly this time.

fwiw, my sympathies go out to the position you as the designers were in. You can't really say it for obvious reasons but this is all publisher fuck up and you're sitting there being asked to handle questions/concerns about decisions that have nothing to do with decisions you've made or the design you put together.

Sucks man.

Some day I might write a tell-all, and it will be a scorched earth tale for the ages.

Presumably to be manufactured in China? Makes it harder when you have to work halfway around the world.

Yes, China, although I'm not 100% sure the neoprene mats are done there.

So Very Wrong About Games is going to have a field day with this...

Sucks that things got messed up, but it sounds like it still has an opportunity to have a good campaign.

I think it can work. Also now due to the timing, the prototype will be at Gen Con (August 4 only) so people can check it out.

Man I can only imagine how frustrating this is. Sorry to you and Pete.

I am still a bit concerned on the art front but I won't relitigate that here, the BGG thread was a shitshow.

I played two full rounds of Phantom Division at Gen Con and thought I'd talk about it for a second.

I forgot to include this in my Patreon Gen Con post, as it slipped my mind in my hazy recollection of the convention.

Pete was demoing in the large open gaming area of the JW, which was the hotel I was crashing at, so that worked out well.

Just as a general disclaimer, I've had many friendly interactions with Mark on this site and on Twitter. He responds to my Tweets with my reviews and we have some similar tastes which helps conversations about gaming.

I've met Mark and Pete in person prior to this. One of the years they went to Origins to show Zev the early version of STF, I met up with them and we played Spartacus. It was a great time. Pete ended up leaving a voice text on my phone with vaguely profane references to the game.

I'm trying to lay out my biases since I consider myself a critic in the industry, even if I'm a small timer.

Anyway, I'm a big fan of STF. It's been in my top 50 games the past few years. I wish I got to play it more often.

My impression is that the core systems of Phantom Division are better. Sound is much improved, the weapons and gear seem much more diversified, and operators are more interesting because of it. There are more enemy types and more mini games (the best part of the experience IMO).

The components are much better. The walls are great and the doors improved.

The marble game to disarm the bomb is ridiculous. Pete demonstrated success, but none of us could manage it. I fear it will be the equivalent of the scenario 2 lobby. Still a hilarious exercise though.

I didn't see enough to say much more. It's a very unpopular opinion, but I personally prefer the modern warfare setting. I do recognize there are moral issues there and it's better that the game is a sci-fi setting.

Overall, without seeing all of the scenarios or options, it feels broadly very similar. Definitely a 2.0 revision where everything was overhauled. It's much more similar to STF than say Blood Rage is to Chaos in the Old World.

Thanks for your thoughts, Charlie! I look forward to you getting your hands on the full game. You probably didn't get to see the Reaction fire card deck, which is another nice innovation. As in STF, enemies are always on overwatch, and if you complete an action in their LOS, they conduct reaction fire, for which there is a special die. The reaction die is very close to the regular enemy attack die, but one face indicates that you draw a reaction fire card. These do all sorts of things that can lead to diverse, and usually hilarious, outcomes.

The Mercury bomb defusal (the marble bomb) is very difficult. I have succeeded many times, but it takes practice and a steady hand. For that reason, we added the rule that if another Phantom is adjacent during the defusal, one person can hold the board / balance the marble, while the other person places the blocks.

Yes, Pete mentioned the helper rule with that, which sounded neat and a good reason to coordinate movement.

I did not see any reaction fire. I'm sure there are many things I didn't discover.

We did very well clearing the front two rooms and someone had a wicked gun which allowed him multiple flicks of the same projectile, scooting it around corners like a guided missile. I think we would have gotten into some trouble in the next chokepoint, but I had a game of Cosmic Encounter setup and waiting for me so I had to bail on the demo after two rounds. I wanted to keep playing.

I am curious about the neoprene mat and walls, particularly concerning setup time. Of course, that's not something I will really know until I perform the setup. I don't expect it to be egregious or anything, but that is one of the advantages of the cheaper quality Wizkids boards.

The other guy from my group who demo'd the game loved it as well, for what it's worth.