A war game for board gamers. Undaunted series (Normandy, Africa and Reinforcements) is certainly an extraordinary achievement - essentially a 2 player deck builder (expandable to 4 players via the expansion), this game does not ask you to chew through pages and pages of boring textual rules, nor does it require you to decipher all the abstract chits and tokens. Nope. This is a WW2 game made for everyone - not just the fans of war gaming.
From the solo perspective (you know me by now ), a recently released Reinforcements expansion added just that - a well designed solo variant to all the scenarios, including the new ones. As a solo player, you will not lose anything from the game. All the scenarios work the same as in the competitive mode except the enemy is controlled by a set of ai cards, each one setting up a list of actions and priorities and each one different for every unit. But wait - many scenarios use a tailor-made ai cards which tweak the behavior and objectives for ai, thus making each solo game fresh and interesting. What do I mean by tailor-made ai cards? Simple example - in scenario one, enemy riflemen will chase mission objectives first, in scenario 2, enemy riflemen will chase your units as their main goal.
I have to admit, first few rounds were a bit ..ehm.. 993
daunting... and learning and understanding all the terminology on ai cards required a bit of youtubing and bgg'ing. But after a dozen or so rounds, every option on every ai card just clicked and started making sense. I just stopped having trouble finding out where to send the enemy troops. And just like that, the game just became my new addiction.
There is something truly fascinating about using just a bunch of cards to execute some pretty awesome strategic moves in this game. You never feel like the luck is defining your next play - instead, each hand gives you many opportunities on how to potentially outmaneuver your opponent. And thanks to a cleverly designed ai, every scenario will play out differently each time you try it.
Undaunted series is simply an outstanding achievement. Tactical war game for board gamers, with 30+ scenarios across several different environments and a huge variety of units to control, this one is a must for anyone who wants to try something else other than euros or ameritrash. And for a solo player, Undaunted is yet another proof that solo gaming is on a steep rise like never before... 528