by Billy Riley, 21 September 2023 ~ #UnboxingDay
I have a game on the Pacific Theatre – Empire of the Sun. However, I think it’s a bit daunting especially considering I’m not great at Grand Strategy gaming. I lack the ability to grasp “the bigger picture”.
So, I decided to plunk for another one. Fire in the Sky is a reprint by Phalanx Games of an older game, by the same name, by Multi Man Publishing.
It’s definitely lighter with a 20 page rulebook. I bought this second hand from BoardGameGeek Marketplace…so this is kind of a re-unboxing.
Here’s what’s inside.
Box Art
A Hellcat? being chased by a Zero and the back showing the map with components.
click images to enlarge
Player Aid Cards
It’s decent card stock and contains reinforcement schedule and events one side and on the other one contains some charts for combat…no CRT here.
Scenario Book
The scenario book is semi-gloss thick paper and actually 12 pages more than the rule book at 32 pages. There are 7 scenarios of varying lengths from less than 1 turn (the Battle of Midway) to a 16 turn full campaign starting from Pearl Harbor
There’s also a full colour, detailed example of play which is actually 17 pages long.
The Rule Book
There’s a decent semi-gloss manual. Well laid out and easy to read. It’s not riddled with images – but there’s enough there to assist with absorbing the rules.
Task Force Cards
There are 7 of these – 5 for the US task forces and 2 for the Commonwealth task forces. I don’t know why there are no Japanese ones.
What I do know is if you were playing this 2 player, you’d have a blast hiding from your enemy what your task forces contain.
Battle Board
You use this to fight yer battles.
Map
There’s a nice, sturdy mounted map – which will need to spend some time out to flatten properly. But it’s nice.
Counters
The counters are very nice and presented well – very functional too with large square counters for ships, hexagonal counters for air units and circular counters for land forces. IMO they look like they will aide you in glancing at the map and seeing what is where.
There are also nice game markers as well as some blocks and plenty of dice…5 blue and 5 white.
I’m hoping learning this game will get my mind into a grand strategy mode so I can be more positive about tackling the beast I really want to play – Empire of the Sun.
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In the world of wargames, a delight,
Unboxing is quite a grand sight.
With bated breath, we tear,
Through the packaging, we swear,
To unveil the fierce battles we’ll fight!
The miniatures gleam, so precise,
As we open the box, oh so nice.
With rulebooks in hand,
We’ll conquer the land,
In epic battles of strategy and fights!
