Undaunted Board Game and Expansion Buying Guide

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When Undaunted: Normandy deed the shelves successful 2019, it was an instant smash hit. It's a deck-building game, a genre wherever you commencement with a tiny platform of anemic cards that you tin upgrade and tweak during play until you’ve got a overmuch much powerful, reliable engine. But its genius is to duplicate these mechanics with a squad-level tactical warfare committee game.

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Soldier cards fto you determination and occurrence with the matching portion connected the modular committee successful pursuit of script goals, portion serviceman cards fine-tune your deck, allowing you to absorption connected peculiar squads. It's a matrimony made successful heaven, giving you strategical levers successful platform construction, tactical thrills arsenic you maneuver for presumption connected the board, portion inactive fundamentally feeling similar a elemental simulation of combat wherever officers bolster the morale and constitution of squads nether their command.

Undaunted: Normandy's occurrence has led to a slew of games utilizing the aforesaid basal system, which present ranges crossed a overmuch wider assortment of settings and complexity levels - adjacent into outer abstraction with a sci-fi variant. Undaunted is simply a large franchise, and this buying usher is present to assistance you determine which of its galore titles is close for you.

Undaunted: Normandy

 Normandy

Undaunted: Normandy

Best for: People who privation the simplest, fastest mentation and don’t entity to the subject theme.

The archetypal crippled successful the bid sets the enactment successful the days aft the allied penetration of Normandy during World War 2. While nary of its predecessors are peculiarly complex, it is nevertheless the astir accessible crippled successful the series, focusing wholly connected antithetic types of infantry units and with a constricted scope of quick-playing maps. While that has an evident attraction for casual play, it tin consciousness a spot repetitive if you privation to perpetrate to playing each the scenarios successful the box. It besides has the astir realistic humanities bent isolated from Undaunted: Stalingrad which mightiness entreaty to those funny successful the subject aspects of the series, but which immoderate whitethorn find disconnected putting.

Undaunted: North Africa

 North Africa

Undaunted: North Africa

Best for: Players who privation to spot vehicles successful their wargames, oregon who similar cinematic action.

One of the astir predominant asks from fans of the archetypal was the summation of vehicles, and steadfast Osprey Games delivered successful this sequel, adding armored cars and tiny tanks to the mix. While these are governed by the aforesaid elemental paper play that drives each the units, they bash necessitate a grade of other rules overhead to screen the quality betwixt anti-armor and tiny arms fire. As good arsenic moving the mounting to the North African theater, this besides turns down the standard with the squad-level counters of the archetypal turning into idiosyncratic combatants. This gives the crippled a much gung-ho, cinematic feel, heightened by the prime to diagnostic the allied troops arsenic the Long Range Desert Group, the forerunner to Britain’s celebrated SAS.

Undaunted: Reinforcements

 Reinforcements

Undaunted: Reinforcements

Best for: Hardcore fans, gamers who privation to solo Normandy oregon North Africa.

Many fans of subject games similar to beryllium capable to play solo, adjacent if it means playing some sides themselves, but Undaunted’s tense inaugural bid strategy made this difficult. As a result, a cardinal gully for this expansion, which – unusually – besides supports some the archetypal 2 games, is the summation of a analyzable but precise effectual acceptable of AI routines to let challenging solo committee crippled play. Each script successful some the archetypal boxes has unsocial routines tailored for each unit, meaning the automated absorption is precise effective.

There are besides caller units and scenarios for some of the archetypal games, arsenic good arsenic an expanded container that allows you to store some of those titles together. As bully arsenic each these features are, however, they’re lone truly for hardcore fans. You person to ain some of the erstwhile games and beryllium funny successful solo play to get the astir retired of this expansion.

Undaunted: Stalingrad

 Stalingrad

Undaunted: Stalingrad

Best for: Those consenting to enactment successful repetition plays for the champion Undaunted experience.

Both of the archetypal games could beryllium played successful a escaped signifier of campaign, progressing done the scenarios and keeping a tally of who won what. But Stalingrad kicks things up a notch, featuring a branching run with communicative elements and successful which the results of each script transportation into the next. Soldiers summation experience, oregon transportation injuries, portion the metropolis itself is dilatory reduced to rubble successful which troops tin find screen oregon physique fortifications. The effect is an implicit triumph, earning a 10/10 successful our Undaunted: Stalingrad reappraisal by retaining each the large things that made those archetypal 2 games specified hits, portion adding yet different strategical furniture to ponder and wrapping the full happening successful a dramatic, unfolding story.

While this is the champion crippled successful the series, beware: you and an hostile volition request to perpetrate to a batch of repetition games to get the astir retired of it.

Undaunted: Battle of Britain

 Battle of Britain

Undaunted: Battle of Britain

Best for: Undaunted veterans who privation a caller instrumentality connected acquainted mechanics.

In a large departure from the infantry combat that characterizes astir of the Undaunted games, Battle of Britain takes the enactment to the skies. While the halfway platform gathering remains unchanged, the mode units behave connected the committee is precise different, reflecting the information that airplanes tin fly! Most notably, units present person a facing and they person to determination each clip their paper comes up, meaning you person to program much carefully, trying to acceptable up traps for your hostile successful the apt absorption of travel, conscionable similar a existent dogfight. However, platform operation conscionable doesn’t acceptable the taxable rather arsenic good arsenic it does successful presumption of having serviceman cards nonstop the combat connected the crushed but, contempt that shortcoming, the crippled is inactive amusive and afloat of thrills and, astir importantly, feels caller and antithetic compared to its peers successful the franchise.

Undaunted 2200: Callisto

 Callisto

Undaunted 2200: Callisto

Best for: People who privation the enactment and strategy, but not the humanities subject theme

Following the occurrence of the archetypal game, a increasing assemblage of gamers started asking the designers for a mentation that didn’t glory successful the horrors of real-world warfare. Their reply was to determination the crippled to outer abstraction successful this sci-fi version. It’s a fantastic translation arsenic we explained successful our Undaunted 2200 review: capturing each the large worldly that person made the franchise specified a hit, but besides learning lessons to amended connected the erstwhile entries. There are vehicles to pilot, greater asymmetry betwixt the 2 factions, and a much varied premix of scenarios to enjoy. So if the subject absorption of the erstwhile titles enactment you off, this is simply a fantastic alternative, and adjacent if you’re not bothered by the taxable then, mechanically speaking, it's the champion of the bid aft Stalingrad.

Undaunted Promo Scenarios

Fans of the bid mightiness beryllium funny to larn that, successful the years since its release, determination person been a fig of further scenarios published successful magazines and fixed distant astatine conventions. Over clip the steadfast has made astir of these disposable to download for escaped connected its website, truthful capable your combat boots.

Matt Thrower is simply a contributing freelance writer for IGN, specializing successful tabletop games. You tin scope him connected BlueSky astatine @mattthr.bsky.social.

Originally posted:

May 16, 2025 1:55 pm

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