Osprey Games are pretty synonymous now with beautiful-looking tabletop games and it was the initial look of Undaunted: Normandy that caught my eye back in 2019. David Thompson and Trevor Benjamin's World War II deck-builder/board game also happens to be an exceptionally solid set of rules too.
To that end, Undaunted had then made it pretty high up on my wishlist and although I didn't manage to pick it up myself, a friend of mine did add the game to their collection. Thankfully, a few weeks ago I managed to sit down at the table and finally play the game. Oh my, I love it.
No Shortage Of Options
Tabletop games based around World War II can be hefty affairs. You've got lots of big heavyweight games out there like Tide Of Iron and of course the billion to so hex and counter games from GMT. You also get featherweight affairs like Paolo Mori's Blitzkrieg! which allow you to play out the entire span of the war in under half an hour or Memoir '44 which sort of bridges the gap and sits in a mediumweight category.
Then you have miniature games. Bolt Action (Warlord Games) is of course a favourite for a lot of people but you also have the likes of Chain Of Command (TooFatLardies) and Flames Of War (Battlefront Miniatures). There are also hundreds of sculptors creating miniatures for the period allowing you to play out every single minute of the conflict from the first bullet through to the final one. There's no shortage of World War II games on the market.
So, why is Undaunted so good? What marks it out as different from the other games that we've mentioned above and secured it a pretty decent ranking on BoardGameGeek? It's the blending of different elements from all sorts of different games which makes Undaunted the experience I feel like playing when it comes to sitting down to play something World War II.
The Rules Of War
The first thing we're going to explore is the rules (you can download them for yourself HERE or try out Watch It Played's video tutorial). Not only are they easy to learn and at the same time easy to teach but they also don't take that long to master either. I managed to avoid that cliche!
Undaunted blends together deck-building mechanics with wargame-like action on the tabletop and a nice bit of dice-chucking chaos for good measure.
Each player takes control of either the US or the Germans as they battle through the war-torn countryside of Europe. This force is made up of an initial hand of cards but also a set of decks that represent more reinforcements that you can bring to the field.
When you set up to play the game you'll choose a scenario, prepare said decks and hands of cards and then dive straight into the action with a clear objective set for each player. This could be to hold a certain number of points on the map or suppress the enemy force entirely and force them to retreat. These scenarios range from the small and simple where you can easily focus on a handful of units, to massive where your attention is going to be dragged back and forth.
Ready to go? From that point onwards you're going to have to start making interesting choices each turn. Each card specialises in something and you'll need to tie all of that together if you want to make sure you come out on top.
Scouts lead the way for your troops with their Recon action, laying the groundwork for your Riflemen to follow in their wake. Riflemen move in and capture strategic locations and lay down fire on your opponents. Machine gunners set up and suppress the enemy, Snipers pick off key targets from afar. Squad Leaders push your men on to more feats of bravery and Platoon Sergeants draw more cards into your deck and hand.
Everything is tied into these cards and the ways you use them. Do you scout out more of the tiles on the board so that your Riflemen can move up? Sure, easy enough. BUT, you add Fog Of War cards into your deck which start gumming up your hand in future turns.
Do you use your Squad Leader to draw more cards for Squad A or B and make it so you can use them more often or do you stick with what you have and use cards already played for maximum effectiveness knowing they are in the right position?
Even the first thing you do in a turn, determining initiative, is a key decision. Do you waste one of your high-value cards for their initiative value to secure the first go? Or, do you bluff your opponent into wasting one of theirs and use going second to your advantage?
This is where a game shines. If you have to make meaningful choices every time you take a turn then the players are going to be invested from the very start right to the very end.
All of this builds and builds once you start shooting and taking casualties. Shooting someone is a simple affair, rolling a die and beating the Defence Value which is equal to their inbuilt Base Defence, Cover and distance (dictated by how many tiles you are away). You roll a d10 and if you beat that value you damage your target.
The player who controls that unit then has to remove a card from the game. This starts from your hand, then your discard pile and finally your deck. If you cannot remove a card of the given squad from the game then that unit's combat counter is removed from the board.
As you can see, getting the drop on someone and sniping a card from their hand before they activate, potentially preventing them from returning fire could be immensely useful.
Decisions, decisions, decisions. Undaunted is filled with them. The fact that the rules are so easy to get your head around (and new units are introduced incrementally over different scenarios) mean that you can really focus on the tactical decision-making turn-by-turn.
A Blend Of Tones
Another of the elements of Undaunted that sells it for me is the way they have blended together the tone throughout the game. The art by Roland MacDonald is exceptional and manages to at once look realistic and historically accurate whilst also being "Action Comic" enough to feel like it comes from a Hollywood blockbuster.
This means that if you're coming at the game from a World War II enthusiast perspective then you'll have plenty to like. If you're someone who has watched Band Of Brothers and wants to shoot guns and battle during World War II, you're also catered for.
Each of the cards in the game also features the name of a soldier. They aren't taken from real life (that would be a bit crass) but they give life to the cards in your hand and the combat counters on the tabletop. It all feels more personal and you'll have genuine moments of joy and sadness when one of your soldiers does something heroic or finally gets taken out in some unfortunate assault.
The game also takes time to explain that this is an abstraction of reality. Once again, this introduces that nice blend of tones where you have the very nitty-gritty represented in the actions of named characters whilst also being "a game" representing something larger and impersonal - like a general looking over a map.
Good For Wargamers & Board Gamers
All of this comes together to create an experience that works for those who like their board and card games and those who play games like Bolt Action or Flames Of War.
Games play in a decent time (sixty minutes or so if you know what you're doing) and can get as big or small as you like. Whilst Normandy focuses on infantry action between squads of soldiers, North Africa introduces vehicles into the equation and Reinforcements (coming November 2021) builds on both of these initial theatres of war. So, if you've played a game like Bolt Action before you'd be sorted and wargamers who prefer combined arms affairs will also be equally rewarded.
For deck-builder and traditional board game fans, Undaunted also provides a great puzzle to solve. The management of your deck and hand is a really fun one to dive into and I think there is enough strategic depth in the variety of scenarios (and fan-created ones) to make it worth coming back to repeatedly.
All of this is done without the need for plastic figures and elaborate terrain and tokens meaning no painting for those who struggle with that aspect of the wargaming hobby and just want to play some games. For board gamers, you've got beautiful artwork, well-made components and loads of detail worked into every aspect of its presentation. I think I'd recommend Undaunted to both camps, as long as they liked the idea of playing games set during World War II of course.
Final Thoughts
For me, this is going to be my "go-to" game for the period. I've always wanted to do more wargaming using the likes of Bolt Action but it comes at a fairly weighty price tag and investment. Undaunted: Normandy is £35 (or cheaper from many different retailers) and has you playing in minutes.
It's all the harder to resist picking up my own copy of the game thanks to the fact we're getting a built-in solo mode by Dávid Turczi and David Digby as part of Reinforcements. That means even if I can't get a game on with friends I could sit down and dabble in World War II on my own without much hassle.
Maybe I'm gushing too much but I think Undaunted is a solid game. It ticks all the right boxes for me and sits at just the perfect weight mechanically. It also has some of that dice-chucking randomness that I talked about earlier which scratches my wargaming itch. The more you play the game the better you'll be at it but you're still going to find yourself at the mercy of the dice! A great leveller if you are introducing someone new to the game.
There is a lot to like about Undaunted and it's no surprise it has become the hit it has. I am eager to see what the team does next. I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to see them adapting the rules for other periods of warfare like the Napoleonic period, Civil War and even as far back as the Dark Ages and Ancient times.
0 Comments