Review: Undaunted: Battle of Britain

 

 

 

Nominated for the Charles S. Roberts Award for Best World War II Game, 2023

 

Since the release of Undaunted: Normandy (Osprey Games, 2019), David Thompson and Trevor Benjamin’s Undaunted system has proven to be a robust and adaptable framework for presenting tactical combat situations in a playable form, using unconventional mechanics that, either by accident or design, appeal to non-wargamers. Who knew deck-building and action restriction could work in a wargame? Obviously, a lot of people think they do, otherwise the Undaunted series would never have made it to series-status, and Undaunted: Normandy wouldn’t still be in print five years after its initial release.

Undaunted: Battle of Britain (Osprey Games, 2023) is the latest iteration of the essential system*, but it’s also something of a departure from the close combat of the earlier games. The canvas is broader – the skies over the English Channel and the eastern coast of England – and instead of sections of troops or a support weapon squad, each token represents a group or staffel of fighters or a handful of bombers, and conversely the stakes are higher. The field of battle is still somewhat abstracted but is granted a more familiar hex-grid; the game still uses a series of compatible map-sections to create unique altercation spaces over coastal regions of open ocean. There are differences in the way the cards work in Battle of Britain compared to the other land-based games, but the essentials of the mechanics are the same; you still work through and build a deck of command cards (and some filler cards, but we’ll come back to those), and the command cards for the units in play still act as hit-points or step-losses when that unit takes a hit. In most of the scenarios the goals of the two sides are different and their strengths asymmetric. And, as with the previous games, every turn presents challenging decisions for both players. 

The game's stack of large terrain tiles (26 in all). There are also three-hex extension
 tiles and single hex markers for things like cloud cover and barrage balloons.

Appearance

Like its predecessors, Undaunted: Battle of Britain is a visually stunning and decidedly tactile experience. If there’s one thing that Osprey Games does well (though I truth, there are several things they do exceptionally well), it’s their presentation, making a game look and feel not just gorgeous, but right. There is a weight to the board pieces and the components that conveys the seriousness of the venture. The game’s Battle of Britain incarnation dispenses with the four-inch square terrain tiles for a hex-grid format, but a morphic one created from sections that combine more neatly than the square pieces, creating an assortment of Channel and coastal backdrops for the aerial action. The plane pieces are top-down views of these familiar planes.

Sample hand for the Commonwealth player.

Like its stable-mates, Undaunted: BoB is a card-driven game, and the cards are where the game really shines. Each boasts a picture appropriate to the role that card fills; pilots and navigators for the aircraft, a view of the planes for the section command, a radio operator for squadron command, a destroyer for the Ship activation card, and a Bofors gun for the Anti-Aircraft artillery.

Osprey always spends time working out the best way to
store the games components, not just ship them.

As with the other volumes in the series, all of the art is provided by Roland MacDonald. I’ve heard some complain about the cartoon-iness of the art in the Undaunted games, but for me it harks back to the Commando comics of my childhood. There’s a heroic-realist quality to the work particularly in the portraits of flyers on the aircraft activation cards.

Set-up for scenario 8: 

As with the other Undaunted games, considerable thought has been put into the housing of the various components that make up Undaunted: BoB. It took a little while to work out, but the smaller three-hex board tiles and the single-hex object-overlay pieces (ships, barrage balloons, cloud banks, etc.) all fit perfectly into the space underneath the larger map-tiles. The aircraft tokens fit in the recesses under their own card decks, and the dice and target markers have their own places in between these. It’s all quite elegant.

Undaunted: Battle of Britain rulebook and scenario book.

That clarity of design carries over to the Rules and Scenario books. These are presented with wide margins and lots of space. The Rulebook covers the concepts and idiosyncrasies of the game in broad brushstrokes, then explains through examples how the elements work together in the context of play. To be honest, coming from a more traditional wargaming sensibility, it was a little jarring to be confronted with rules I didn’t have to wrestle with, and I kept thinking I was missing something crucial. There were instances during play that I simply couldn’t find a rule clarification for, in which case we’d muddle through with what seemed the most logical approach, and then going over the rules again after the game, I’d find that we had done what was intended. So, while the rulebook itself can be difficult at times (or maybe that’s just me), the rules, once you get into the cadence of the game, are quite intuitive and sensible.

Rulebook: sample page.

The Scenario Book is where the game shines, though. Two-page spreads offer a historical context for the situation, a breakdown of the materials needed, a visual aid for the placement of map tiles and starting locations of pieces, and short note addressing new rules incorporated into the scenario. The scenarios have some programmed learning built into them. They are however all interesting and challenging enough in their own right to warrant repeat play. As in other Undaunted games, they also appear in chronological order, lending a verisimilitude to the pay of the game when running through the scenarios consecutively.

Scenario 1: Battle of France.

Play

In Undaunted: Battle of Britain, the player takes the part of either the Royal Air Force (RAF) defending the central and south-east counties of England, or the Luftwaffe – the German Air Force – bent of destroying the industrial and defensive infrastructure of Britain and gain air superiority ahead of a planned amphibious invasion, Operation Sealion. Through the mission briefings and notes, the game conveys the sense of desperation on both sides of the English Channel.

The game is purely tactical. In a scenario, each player will operate a handful of planes and sometimes other resources. The German player has fighters (single seat Bf109s and two-seater Bf110s which serve double-duty as bombers) and dedicated bombers (Ju87 Stukas in the earlier scenarios, then later Heinkel 111s). The British player begins the game with just Hawker Hurricane IIs and Boulton Paul Defiants, with the Supermarine Spitfire (everyone’s favourite) coming into the game in the later scenarios, but they also have Anti-Aircraft Artillery (AAA) and barrage balloons to give the invaders pause. The game comes with eleven scenarios, all of which are eminently replayable.

Spitfires, Ack-Ack, and barrage balloons - oh my!

The game plays similarly to the others in the series, but not exactly the same. The system’s DNA is in evidence from the start. Each resource has a small set of cards, of which one will begin in your starting deck, with the others make a bank of cards you can draw to include in your deck, to be able to better – or at lease more frequently – utilise that resource. You may start with four or six fighter units, grouped into two sections (colour coded); in this case you will being with a deck comprised of one card for each plane (with another two available for drafting for each plane), one Section Comms card for each pair’s section, and a Squadron Comms card. You’ll also begin with two or more Discord cards. These serve the same function as Fog of War cards in the land-based Undaunted games – limiting your options in a given turn when drawn – but you will take another Discord card into your deck each time an ordered fighter finishes its movement more than two hexes from its partner unit.

Some elements in the game have a single action; when the AAA card is played, the anti-aircraft artillery can have a shot at any enemy plane in range, and drawing the Ships card will allow the destroyers to move a space in their indicated direction. Aircraft, however, are a different beast in this iteration of Undaunted.

Fly the (un)friendly skies.

When an aircraft is activated (a Command Card is played), it must move (at least one space) and may also commit one other action. A fighter will have a maximum movement of two or three spaces, while the bombers will move just one space. Fighters have the option of manoeuvring or firing, while bombers have the option of manoeuvre, shooting (usually in a choice of directions), or – like it says on the label – bombing. On an activation you must move, but you only get to commit one other action.  

The thing is, when a plane is activated, it has to move at least one space in the direction it’s facing before it does anything else, so sometimes the action has already been decided for you by the circumstances you find yourself in, like flying into barrage balloons or off the board in your next activation unless you take the Manoeuvre option to avoid said fate. fly off the board. The plane pieces on the board are cut in a teardrop shape that indicates the direction it’s going to be travelling in when it next moves. And this is the tantalisingly frustrating core of the action. It’s a game of positioning.

Aerial combat much more immediately dynamic than ground combat. For pilots and gunners, the hardest lesson to learn was diffraction fire, the discipline calculating the relative movement and speed and direction of your aircraft and the target’s and firing into the space where the target is going to be when the bullets or shells reach that point. It’s the same in Undaunted: BoB. To achieve your goals in the game, you must anticipate where the target, be it another plane, a ship, or a static ground target, will be during your plane’s next activation, and use your available speed and manoeuvre values to position your plane to put the target front of (or below) you on your next activation after you’ve moved at least one space. It’s tricky, and it’s never guaranteed to come off.

Shooting in Undaunted: BoB is handled in the same manner as the previous games; an aircraft will have a set number of dice to roll (indicated on the plane’s Activation card, usually two to three for fighters, one for bombers). The player has to roll a number higher than the target’s defensive rating the number in the shield on the counter plus the shooter’s distance from the target, adding any obstacles to the number (firing into or through a cloud-bank will add 2 to the difficulty of the shot). Sometimes you simply won’t be able to make the shot, but it’s the complications that make the game a rewarding challenge.

When it does come off, you then have to roll the designated number of dice and hope to roll a number higher than the target’s defensive value plus the shooter’s distance from the target. At the beginning of the Battle of Britain, the RAF combat doctrine called for a fighter’s armament to have a 250 yard focal range (meaning, for example, the bullets fired by all eight .303 calibre machine guns in a Hurricane would converge to a point a few inches across at 250 yard to maximise the damage caused), but within a few weeks of actual combat, the pilots would instruct their ground crews to set the focal range to around 150 yards to effect damage more reliably.

A lucky drop: The BF110 (top corner) claimed the third ship of the game for the win.
If it had missed, it would have been out of the game on it's next activation.

Similarly, the closer to your target when you do fire, the more likely it is to take a hit. The Heinkels in the game are particularly difficult to bring down (defensive value of 7), so you must be right on top of it (that is, an adjacent hex) to have a 20% chance of a hit. The bombers in Undaunted: BoB have four activation cards per counter, whereas the fighters (including the Bf110 fighter-bomber) only possess three cards at most. And the bombers can fire back when not engaged in manoeuvring or bombing. Protecting ground targets or ships from aerial assault is a tough gig for the Commonwealth player. But who doesn’t like a challenge.

In my experience a scenario will usually be resolved in between one and two hours, plus set up time. Set up is a lot easier and quicker if you put the map tiles back in their alphabetical order when you’re packing up a game (something I learned the hard way). There is a tally at the bottom of the Scenario Map page what indicates which tiles will be requited for that scenario. Similarly, the card chart will spell out not only which sets of cards will be required for the scenario, but how many of each should go into a side’s starting deck. Like all Undaunted games, a lot of care has been taken to make the game as easy to set up and play as possible.

German casualties at end of game. Still wasn't enough to save the ships.

Appraisal

I’m under no illusions that the Undaunted system wouldn’t be every wargamer’s idea of fun (or, indeed, every wargamer’s idea of a wargame), but I think there is clearly a place for them in the broad church of our shared hobby. I’ve enjoyed Undaunted: Normandy (you can read my review of the game here), and Undaunted: North Africa (Osprey Games, 2020) even more so. I have a copy of Undaunted: Stalingrad (Osprey Games, 2022), as yet unpunched, that I tell myself I must get to some time. But for my money, Undaunted: Battle of Britain is probably my favourite of the series. Stalingrad is probably the most complex and fully realised of the games, with its cascading narrative mechanics allowing the results of one scenario to influence the situation of the next, but the tweaks to the system, combined with the subject matter, make for a more satisfying play experience.

Messerschmitts negotiating the Barrage balloons to engage the Spitfires of Red section
in an attempt to keep them away from the bombers.

For a tactical air warfare game, Undaunted: BoB will feel clunky at first, given the random nature of the card activation, and operations can take on a staccato feel, quite alien to what one is used to playing a wargame. It doesn’t bear comparison to a more technically simulative game like Wings of War/Wings of Glory (Ares Games) or Age of Dogfights (Forsage Games), but neither is it purely a logic puzzle, though it has elements of such. There is a rhythm that starts to appear in the game, the more you play it. And like the two aforementioned games, much energy will be devoted to flying around in circles trying to gain the advantage over your foe. But I don’t think this is a valid criticism of the game; it simply mimics the reality of aerial combat for much of the discipline’s history.

Undaunted: Battle of Britain feels like the purest implementation of the design philosophy behind the Undaunted system thus far. The game that rewards careful planning and consideration of exigencies. Each player has a clear set of victory conditions in each scenario, and the player who can best adhere to those priorities will have a greater chance at victory, but as in all things, success is not guaranteed. The draw of a new hand each round brings uncertainty to the mix, though this can be somewhat mitigated by an awareness of how your deck is built (not card-counting per se, but knowing what is left to come out before the next reshuffle), but the requirement to bid for the Initiative with each round means that you may have to sacrifice a useful card to gain a useful position. 

Crowded airspace. A Bf110 and Heinkel jockey for a run at the fleeing destroyer (left).

Subtle adjustments in the mechanical aspects of the game reflect real aspects of the battle. Stukas are relatively easy to shoot down (Goering pulled them out of service in the Channel only weeks into the battle to preserve their numbers for the planned incursion into the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa), but the Heinkel 111 medium bombers were better armoured (as reflected in their defensive rating of 7 and four command cards instead of the fighters' three) and bristled with defensive weapons. Allied pilots soon learned the most effective attacks were to run in from behind and target the engines or brave the frontal defenses in a head-on attack, firing into the cockpit. The Hurricane was only armed with Browning machine guns, compared to the Spitfire's and Bf109's cannons, and had to put a sustained dose of fire into a target to effect damage (rolling two dice in attacking to the three dice of the Spitfire and 109). And ace pilots receive four command cards instead of three, to reflect the likelihood of them lasting longer in combat. The average life expectancy of a newly minted RAF pilot during the battle of Britain was just two weeks (about ten missions).

The Discord cards in Undaunted: BoB feel more visceral than the Fog of War cards in the land-conflict versions of the game. In the earlier iterations, Fog of War always felt like a mere hinderance, a speed-hump slowing the execution of your plans. The two flights of a Section operate best co-operatively, flying in unison. Sometimes it will be necessary to split the team to gain the advantage against the opponent, but that will come at a cost, and it’s not always a simple thing to bring them back into radio contact. Too many Discord cards can slow your response to immediate threats, leaving your aircraft hanging out in the open, easy prey for an opportunistic foe. Like the previous games, there are ways of mitigating the Discord in your hand, but that will come at the cost of not being able to do something more proactive in your turn. Again, difficult choices have to me made with every new hand.

As I said earlier, Undaunted: Battle of Britain isn’t going to be a game for everyone, that goes for the whole series. Some will look at the gorgeous production and components and the easy to read and understand rules, decide that it’s a child’s game (or, ye gods, a Euro) and dismiss it without further consideration. I was guilty of this when I first heard about Undaunted: Normandy. But this series isn’t just a teaser to get non-wargamers into the hobby. The Undaunted games offer a challenging wargame experience requiring a much shorter span of time to achieve a resolution than, say, Wacht Am Rhein (Decision Games, 2005). While shorter translates to simpler, it doesn’t mean easy or unengaging. Far from it.

Having played Undaunted: Normandy, I can now say I enjoy it (though I think I like Undaunted: North Africa a little better), but in Undaunted: Battle of Britain I have found a new favourite. Growing up, I was obsessed with World War II planes – mostly from the European theatre - and would save up my meagre pocket money to buy Airfix and Matchbox model airplane kits. This would account, at least in part, for my affection for Undaunted: Battle of Britain. But there’s also a greater sense of the historicity of the events portrayed. In this game more than the others there is present a sense of what is at stake, no less than the preservation or the extinction of the last defiant glimmer of Democracy in Europe.

 

 

* Yes, I know about Undaunted 2200: Calisto (Osprey Games, 2024), but being such a departure from the earlier games in the series, and with all the extra chrome built into the game, it feels like the start of a separate series. Related, but more cousins than siblings. I mean, the new game even has its own trade dress.

 

 

State of Play: Great War Commander (1/6), and Undaunted: Normandy

 

 

So, I was able to catch up with our Wednesday night host, B, on Monday last week for a couple of games in a kind of reciprocal assistance gaming session. Great War Commander (Hexasim, 2018) was one of the first games I put on to my 6x6 list for 2023. I’ve had it for, I think, about two years or may a tad longer. I’d punched it, read through the rules when I bought it and again around March last year, but had never managed to field this visually splendid game. Its mechanics are based on Chad Jensen’s Combat Commander: Europe (GMT Games, 2006), which I also own, and have similarly never actually played (in spite of also possessing several expansions – that would be the completist gene expressing itself), which is set in the Western and Eastern fronts of the European theatre during World War II. Great War Commander shifts the action – as the name would suggest – from the Second to the First World War, making a few minor changes, but keeping true to the mission of the first game.

B Offered a tutorial game of Great War Commander, but in return, I was to give hm a refresher in the Undaunted system. B and I had played two scenarios of Undaunted: Normandy (Osprey Games, 2019) a back in July of 2023. On the strength of that, he’d bought Undaunted: Stalingrad (Osprey, 2022) for him and his son to play, but life had managed to put the breaks on that. The Undaunted system is a neat, reasonably simple system that nonetheless provides a much more immersive experience than I anticipated, and Undaunted: Stalingrad builds kind of legacy-style narrative development into the mix; scenarios are played sequentially, but the success of failure in one scenario will affect the set-up of the next and the resources available or denied to the combatants. What’s not to like?

We stuck to the first scenario, La Reye. It’s a straight capture-the-flag set-up that has balanced forces and objectives, though may be skewed a little in the American’s favour. Or that could just be sour grapes; I played the Germans, and though we gave each other some blows, B romped it in six points to three (full disclosure, the Germans start with three points).

After grabbing some lunch, we went straight into my first real game of Great War Commander. The scenario is historically based (as, I believe, they are all) a dawn raid by the Germans on a little Belgian town, where a young Lt. Erwin Rommel made a name for himself as an on-the-ground tactician. As the game played out, art imitated life.

The action, and to a degree the level of player agency, in the Combat Commander/Great War Commander system is driven by the two players’ Action Decks. Each aide has a deck of 72 cards which serve in a host of rolls. Each card has an Order and an Action, and these will dictate what options are available to the player in a given turn. In this role, they also help to mimic the fog-of-war aspect of tactical fighting in a dynamic environment, limiting the player’s options using several mechanisms (more on these later).

The Germans start on the edge of fairly open terrain, with a tree-lined road leading up to the town. The French formation guarding the town were caught napping. It felt over before it began for the French (me) when I drew my starting hand of an Offensive order (which requires adjacency, when all of my units were spread across the town), two Artillery Request Orders and an Artillery Denied, which would have been great since the Germans were probably in view, except for the fact that only an officer of a forward observer (I think they’re called Spotters in GWC) can call in an artillery barrage, and neither of mine had line of sight my commanding officer didn't even have line of sight to another of his own units).

The dispositions of the antagonists, and my sorry opening hand.

A big part of GWC is the attitude of the belligerents, indicated in the scenario details. Each side is either attacking, defending or on patrol, and this will dictate how big a hand you draw. The scenario will also state the parameters for how many orders a side can declare in a turn and how many cards they can discard if no orders are given. The Germans (attackers) in Scenario 1 have a hand of six cards and can give up to two orders or discard three cards, while the French (asleep-at-the-wheel defenders) have a hand size of four cards, and the player can give two orders, or a discard a mere one card from their hand. If that sounds like a disadvantage, you don’t know how much of one until you don’t draw a move or a fire card in the first four rounds.

B, playing the Germans, had a full three rounds to advance and get some of them into defensible positions – ge still has his heavy machine gun out in the open, but that was to offer the best coverage, and actually fire on two of my positions, and I still couldn’t respond because of my less-than-spectacular card draws.

An orderly (unchallenged) German advance.

I thought I’d address this in a later GWC game report, but I did so spectacularly bad early on that I should take this opportunity. Gary Mengle on YouTube at Ardwulf’s Lair has gone on record several times about why he doesn't enjoy playing Combat Commander; this is why. The deck is made up of 72 cards, and among those are around a dozen or so each of Move and Fire commands. Not until my fifth draw did I see a Fire command, and on the sixth I pulled a Move. That’s round five and round six. In those first four rounds, B was able to steadily move his units up and place them in good positions for an attack. He even got some shooting in. Sometimes you’re just going to pull a crappy hand. Sometimes you’re going to pull three or four crappy hands in a row. It may even cost you the game. This is where Ardy and I disagree. Ardwulf argues that this is a failure of player agency. He goes to great lengths to make it clear it’s a personal preference, that he simply doesn’t enjoy not being able to do something for three or four rounds in a row. I choose to see this as one of the virtues of the game, or at least something like a virtue. Troops in small being out of command and paralysed by indecision is probably the norm rather than an anomaly. Research has shown that when people are put in a situation of high stress and limited information, roughly 75% of them will freeze up, waiting for more information before they will act, with the remaining fairly evenly split between breaking down emotionally or acting on the available limited information.*

To me, this amounts to the tactical equivalent of what a chit-pull mechanic does in an operational game. In some chit-pull situations, the last chit or two in the cup don’t get pulled. The drawn chits are returned to the receptacle, and a new turn begins. It’s possible for a regiment or a corps to remain inactive to two or even three turns. Or perhaps, it’s closer to the orders cards in the Commands and Colors games, where, like me a couple of weeks ago in our Austerlitz La Grande Battle game, I simply couldn’t seem to draw an order for one whole flank and had to watch the French troops draw dangerously close to my side of the board, taking pot-shots at my forward-most troops.

To me, this is a similar thing to the inclusion of combat dice in the Conquerors series of games (Napoleon 1806 (Shakos, 2019) and its sister games); Like Combat Commander/Great War Commander, the system is designed around the drawing cards for all the game’s randomised functions, including allocating damage in combat. Apparently, some people don’t like leaving their chance to cards, and insist they have dice instead, so special dice with the same statistical rage of results as the cards – separate sets reflecting the variations between the two sides – are included in every copy of a Conquerors series game. I don’t know how many people use them, but to me it feels like a departure from the intention of the designer. And it’s giving in to misguided notions of player agency.

If the game was significantly longer (a bigger time-investment), or I was more invested in the competition than in the narrative or the experience of playing, I might feel more strongly about it. But to me it’s an artefact of the game that doesn’t really occur that often (though it will feel like it sometimes) and creates something like real-life experience rather than the cinematic experience some people expect. Here the rant endeth. For now.

French line falling back.

As you might imagine, it was difficult to come back from a beginning like that. The Germans swept into the town, checking the French units as they went. I did manage to call down an artillery barrage on top of several German sections (in a departure from Combat Commander, four-figure units in Great War Commander represent around 20 men), and a handful of suppressed French survivors managed to hold their own in a melee assault on a position that happened to also have (thanks to a timely card with a Hidden Position (Scenario Defender Only) Action) a 75mm gun – when opposing nits end up in the same hex an all-or-nothing fight breaks out and the loser is eliminated. And I knocked B’s communications out, so the Germans couldn’t call in their own artillery support.

But the day belonged to the Kaiser’s soldiers, many of whom managed to achieve the stated goal of the scenario and leave the map intact via the roads leading out of the town on the far side from their entrance. I think the final tally was four or maybe five points for the French to more than 20 for the Germans, who had also managed to take most of the French victory point locations as well. All in all, it was a tough lesson, but a worthwhile one, and an early loss hasn’t dampened my consideration of the game. I’ll admit, I’m looking forward to more fire and movement orders.

 

* This is getting off-topic, but there is an excellent short piece on this very psychological phenomenon I recommend everybody read (link here). It's an excerpt from an excellent book by psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz, called The ExaminedLife: how we lose and find ourselves. The excerpt is confronting – I used to send it to the people and insist they read it when I was a fire warden – but the whole book is worth a read if you’re interested in why people behave the way they do (including those across the table from you, and of course, yourself).

 

 

Review: Undaunted: Normandy

 

 

 

Deck-building is one of the greatest innovations in family games in the last twenty years. Dominion is a staple for the wife and me, as well as the broader family.* Other games have gone with this model with varying degrees of success. I’m not here to talk about those.

I’ve had some experience in conflict simulation games using a deck-building mechanic with Time of Crisis (GMT Games, When I first heard about Undaunted: Normandy (Osprey Games, 2019), I was conflicted. I’m a big fan of Osprey – both their books (not cheap but, in my experience, good value every time), and more recently, their games (both board games and RPGs – but I’m not here to talk about those). Osprey have consistently produced thoughtful, well-designed, and very well produced games, since Osprey Games became a thing. So, when I heard the company was bringing out a deck-building wargame, I didn’t know what to think. I leant into, “It might be interesting, but do I really need another D-Day game?”**

Try as I might, I couldn’t see how a deck-building game could bring to the table the visceral tension of squad-level combat, like Band of Brothers: Screaming Eagles (Worthington Publishing, 2011), Conflict of Heroes (Academy Games, 2008), or The Last Hundred Yards (GMT Games, 2019). Even learning it was a David Thompson / Trevor Benjamin co-design wasn’t enough to shift me on it. Even the ridiculously good price of the game (under $50 in Australia if you shopped around), wasn’t quite enough to make me budge (nearly, though).

What did it was two things. Firstly, the release of Undaunted: North Africa (Osprey, 2020). I’d just read Gavin Mortimer’s The Men Who Made the SAS: the history of the Long Range Desert Group (Constable, 2015), and the chance to game-out some of the incidents described in that book proved too great to resist. Still, I would have been happy to stick to just the North Africa game, were it not for the promise of Undaunted: Reinforcements (Osprey Games, 2021), the third release in the series. While not a game in itself, Reinforcements brings new scenarios and a solitaire gaming option for both Normandy and North Africa, as well as vehicles for Normandy (absent from the original game).

One of the selling points of Undaunted: Reinforcements was that the slightly deeper box was designed to house not only the new materials for the two games, but also all the components from the two previous titles. I have more than a little of the completist instinct, so this made the purchase of Undaunted: Normandy unavoidable and inevitable.

In this review. I’ll be sticking to Undaunted: Normandy; I’ll probably get to the other games in the series in due course, but Normandy is the one that started it all, so it makes sense to begin here.

Neat and tidy.

 

Appearance

The first thing you notice when you open the box is how well everything fits. Actually, the first thing I noticed was that the box was smaller than what is generally considered “standard” in wargames (the Compass/GMT-sized box designed to accommodate letter-sized print, or the closer to foolscap-accommodating boxes of European publishers like Hexasim and Nuts!). Osprey put a lot of thought into both the physical design and the packaging of all their games, and this is evident in the details. The box has been designed to fit the game*, rather than the other way around. A plastic blister insert accommodates the map tiles, counters, cards, and dice, with a recess at the top for the two booklets (rules and scenarios). Because there are two sets of cards in the one recess, a cardboard card the same weight as the map tiles is provided as a divider to separate the decks.

Sample scenario.

The components are all quality stuff. The cards are on good card stock, the map tiles are nice and thick, double sided, and well-produced, even the black ten-sided dice feel nice to use (although from my rolls, I must check periodically that they still have faces above a 6). Undaunted: Normandy is rules-light. That’s not to say it’s an easy game. I think someone coming to it without a wargaming background might have an easier time of it in some ways, but more on that later. The rulebook is easy to navigate, with clear examples and helpful illustrations. They are an exercise in economy of words, and for the most part they work well. The scenario book, too, is clear and well-presented; each scenario has a list of the tiles needed (in numerical order) and a map-illustration of how to configure them. Each scenario also has a complete list of the component cards for each side, with circles indicating which unit cards and how many of them will be required for that set-up; one or more of these circles will be filled in – these indicate the cards that make up that side’s starting deck.

Scenario map sample (note the tile list at the bottom).

Each scenario also includes a map of how to lay out the files, and a list of the tiles running along the bottom of the page with the ones you’ll need for that scenario highlighted in bold type (a nod to obsessives like me who sort the tiles into ascending order before putting them away).

Set-up for solo playthrough of Scenario 8: Battle for Tessy-sur-Vire

I should also note the illustrative work in the game. All the art in Undaunted: Normandy was created by Roland MacDonald, map tiles, card and counter graphics, cover illustration, the lot. It’s interesting work; simple without looking cartoony (like, say, Heroes of Normandie). The characters represented capture types we’re all familiar with, the hard-bitten sergeant, the G.I.s there to do a job and try to make it home again, the truculent German soldiers and their urbane officers. Even within the sets of unit cards, every character is different, with a different name, and each bears an expression of grim determination. When a unit suffers attrition, it feels like you’re losing a soldier, not just a strength factor. In short, the art really helps the story of the scenarios come to life, and it has informed the whole series. The tiles are where the story unfolds, and these are gorgeous as well. The forests, fields, towns, farmhouses, and bocage all have an element of realism while still maintaining the quality of artistry. The greens are lush, the rivers are convincing, the buildings look like French farmers may be hiding their families in the cellars. And casting back to the quality of the components, the tiles all match up together beautifully; there is no jarring sense of shifting from one terrain-type to the next – everything it seamless. And while no roads appear on the tiles, the river segments match up perfectly. That speaks to the eye for detail that’s been applied to the production of Undaunted: Normandy.

 

Play

The basic format of Undaunted: Normandy should be familiar to anyone who has played a tactical simulation game, from original Squad Leader (Avalon Hill, 1977) on up. It has a geomorphic play area, units in play represented by cardboard tokens, and a set or parameters for victory, usually the seizure and holding of one location or a few separate locations. The first variation from this theme is the fact that instead of placing a few map-sections together, you will create the whole play area from the map tiles. Each map tile is a location, and most units can only move one tile per activation. The map tiles are staggered, so they behave like hexes; from a tile in the centre, it’s possible to move in six different directions to another tile.

The unit tiles are forgivingly large, with clearly readable information. Each tile is double-sided, so each side is discretely marked in the bottom right-hand corner with the tile number and an A or B, and a shield bottom-centre with a number. This number details the cover value of the tile (more on this in a minute). Each unit is represented by a round token with some details on it about the type of unit (Rifleman, Scout, Sniper), the section to which it’s attached (A, B, or C), and its base defence number (4 for Riflemen and Machine Gun crews, 7 for Snipers). These units are also represented by cards. Initially, you’ll have starting deck one card for each of your units starting on the board. The unit cards tell you what orders you can give that unit by using that card, and these, along with some support cards (officers who allow you to draw or activate cards from your draw decks) and a couple of Fog of War cards that represent the confusion of a dynamic combat situation, limiting your tactical options even further.

The cards are the engine of the game; they offer the player limited tactical options and, consequently, difficult decision-points with each hand. With every round, each player draws four cards, then immediately chooses one of the cards in their hand to bid for initiative that turn (using the value marked in the top-left hand corner of the card). If both players bid the same value, Initiative remains with whoever held it the previous round. The bidding card is sacrificed; you don’t get to use that until it comes up again in the next deck cycle. That’s your first difficult choice, and you must make that choice on every draw. Whoever wins or retains the Initiative goes first for the round, using each of their cards to their best advantage. When they have used all their cards, the other player uses their three remaining cards. The unit cards allow you to perform one of a selection of actions printed on the card. This will usually include moving, shooting at an enemy unit, or some specialised task associated with the unit in question. The goal in a scenario may be to capture (control) selected positions (such as the two bridges crossing the Vere River in Scenario 6), or some of a selection of positions adding up to a points-total (such as a controlling a selection of 1- and 2-point positions on the play area adding to a value 6 points total in the introductory scenario). Riflemen are the only units on the board who can Control (secure) a position (game tile), but they cannot go just anywhere; the area must be scouted first, and the only unit that can pave the way for the Riflemen and other units are Scouts. Scouts can also remove a Fog of War card from the player’s hand (Recon), or add a new Fog of War card to the opponent’s discards (Evade). Other units have various specialised skills; e.g., Machine Gunners can lay suppression fire on a unit (Suppress), which, if successful, flips that enemy unit’s counter over to its suppressed side. Your opponent will now need to spend the next card he draws for that unit to flip it back to active before it can undertake any more orders, buying you time to get one of your units into place for the next stage of the operation.

The fact that each unit has a discrete set of functions forces the player to consider all the units at their disposal as parts of a cohesive, organic structure. You can’t neglect any part or your force development; some units are more crucial than others, but every part plays a role in the mission.

Other cards will allow you to draw cards from the selection of cards not yet incorporated into your deck (Bolster), activate a single card to use immediately (Inspire), or draw two more cards from your draw-deck to play this turn (Command).

There are two ways of winning a scenario in Undaunted: Normandy (although in some scenarios the second way to win is actually the first way); achieve the victory conditions as detailed in the scenario (usually gaining control of a location or locations on the board) or making it impossible for your opponent to complete their objective by destroying their Rifleman units. Nearly all units have the ability to attack other units, sometimes (Snipers, Mortars) with more than one dice.

To try to hit an enemy unit, you check the number in the shield at the bottom at the bottom of the unit’s token. That’s their base protection. To this number you add the number of tiles distance, and the ambient protection offered by the terrain they’re located in (e.g., your Scout is taking a shot at an enemy Rifleman unit, who are located in a field hedged with bocage two tiles distant; the Rifleman’s native protection is 4, plus 2 for the distance, and an extra 1 for the cover of the bocage – 7 in total, so the Scout will need to roll an 8 or higher to hit). A successful hit will remove one of the unit’s cards from the play-deck; the owning player will first check their hand, then their discards, then the draw deck. That card is removed from play. When all the cards are discarded, the unit comes off the board.

This sounds like a lot of fuss, and I’m not sure I’ve explained it all that clearly (there are lots of Undaunted playthroughs and tutorials on YouTube, some better than others), but once you understand how the moving parts of the game interact, it runs quite quickly. Even the most involved scenarios I’ve played could be played through in eighty minutes. I did struggle with the terminology when I first started playing the Undaunted system (wiping out a unit – making your opponent discard all of that unit’s order cards – is called pinning, which seems counterintuitive to an old grognard; how can someone be pinned if they’re already dead?). For the people I’ve introduced the game to, it seems to have clicked for all of them part-way through the second game. I suppose it was the same for me when I learned it playing two-handed.

I found the card play became second nature after a few games, though the tough decisions haven’t got easier. Play is usually tense, but the fact of only having a maximum of three actions to a turn keeps the game moving forward at a good clip and maintains a high level of engagement. Who holds the upper hand in a game can literally change on the turn of a card, And the fate of the game can rely on a couple of dice rolls.

 

Appraisal

Before I’d played Undaunted: North Africa, the card-drafting and deck building elements of the system seemed to me a bit of a gimmick, something to lure regular family- or euro-gamers into the wargaming fold; a laudable ambition, to be sure, but not something I needed to engage with. Since playing North Africa and Normandy, I’ve come around to the thinking that this is Not only a valid way to approach wargaming (at least at a tactical level), but one that well captures the contingencies and sporadic nature of warfighting at the most rudimentary level; the limited orders for units approximates the on-the-ground command difficulties, with its incomplete intelligence and the to-and-thro of initiative. It’s not a perfect reflection of squad-level combat, but neither is ASL. It does accomplish what it sets out to do; it’s a fun, relatively fast-playing game that reflects some of the aspects of infantry fighting during the invasion of France by the allies in June and July 1944, and does so in an engaging and diverting way that is accessible to people who haven’t necessarily spent years or decades playing wargames.

Some may no doubt complain about the coarseness of the detail in the make-up of the two combatant sides. The parameters, strengths and weaknesses of the German Riflemen, Scouts, Snipers, Machine Gunners, and other units are all duplicated in their American counterparts. There is no granularity to capture the variances between types of troops (such as battle-hardened Eastern front veterans and Polish conscripts), or the vicissitudes of close combat in an unfamiliar environment. I’d argue that this is a game, not a simulation, and shouldn’t be judged as such. As an approximation of combat, I believe it’s a good one. And at the same time, it manages to be fun, and potentially educational for some. Each scenario is based on a reported action recorded in the annals of the 30^th Infantry Division – they are not just made up – and a brief note is included in the scenario explaining what the American forces aimed to accomplish with the action.

The scenarios are designed to be played sequentially, each introducing new units and elements to the game, much like most multi-scenario games these days. I would recommend starting at the first scenario if coming to the game with no previous experience (I say this as someone who began with the second scenario of Undaunted: North Africa and struggled a little; there’s a reason why the scenarios are in the order they appear). The first game I’m aware of to do this was Avalon Hill’s Squad Leader. Unlike that and other games, where the experienced player finds the opening couple of scenarios a little pedestrian, I’ve played the Le Reye scenario of Undaunted: Normandy maybe six times now, and each time I’ve found it both engaging and challenging.

In my experience, Undaunted: Normandy is best as a two-player game. I’ve played several scenarios by myself, two-handed, mostly to get to know the game, but the experience is much more satisfying playing against another player. I haven’t tried the solitaire mechanism introduced in Reinforcements yet, so I can’t speak to that (although the consensus on the Internet seems generally positive), but I wouldn’t get any of the Undaunted system with the intention of playing solo. Having said that, I think Undaunted: Normandy has enough game elements to it to make it a less daunting (sorry) to a gamer new to wargaming.

In short, Undaunted: Normandy is a lot of fun. It takes a little time to set up, but no more than most games and decidedly less time than some. And it does have a lot of moving parts, but, as I said, these become somewhat intuitive, the rules are straight forward and easy to assimilate, and all the information you need to play is either on the cards, the tokens, or the map tiles. I’m glad I finally gave in and bought it.

 

* Actually, anything that allows me to say, “Well, sure – I suppose we could play Monopoly… or we could play THIS!” is a winner in my book.

** I currently own (at last count) seven games covering either the Normandy landings or the broader Western Front campaign, and I have Carl Paradis’s No Retreat!: the Western Front (GMT Games, 2023?) on P500 order.

State of Play: Undaunted conclusion, more Bolt Action, and Caesar!

   

 

It’s been a good week for gaming. On Monday T and I were slated to play the third of our French and Indian War games. That evening I got a late text from T saying he was still at work, but nonetheless keen for a game, and would be around closer to 10:00pm. I’d already set up F&IW, but which the best will in the world, could not see us finishing a game starting that late (unless by some miracle of the dice I could pull a points victory in the first year; doubtful at best).

Postponing another 6x6 game to an undetermined future date, I broke F&IW down again, and set up a very recent acquisition, Caesar! (PSC Games, 2022). On the box, it boasts “Seize Rome in 20 minutes!” It didn’t disappoint.

I’d only read the rules that afternoon, and decided to shoot it for a “Stripped Down for Parts” post, so the game hadn’t as yet even made it into the Wardrobe of Regret. It just took a few minutes to punch (very good, if simple, components), and set up the board. The game is all about placing influence to gain favours and control territories. The players take turns placing influence tokens on the borders separating provinces. The tokens have a symbol that has to match the type of symbol (crossed spears, Sword, Shield or Ship) on that place on the board, with the line across the token matching the line of the border. The two values affect influence on each of the provinces on either side of that border (a province will have three to six such token places.

When a province is closed off by influence at every shared border, whoever placed the last token claims the yellow which will give you an extra benefit of some kind (a third token in your draw, an immediate second go, etc.). The winner of the contest for the province (whomever has the most points accrued on the inside of the borders) places one of their markers onto the space vacated by the Province Bonus token. The game ends when all of the provinces have been claimed or one player is out of their coloured markers. Whoever has the most markers on the board wins.

Pompey victorious

In spite of being relatively simple and fast-playing – seriously, even counting the rules explanation before we began, the whole game still came in at under half an hour – Caesar! is a challenging puzzle of a game. I understand that this won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but it you like this kind of game, it’s a perfect palate-cleanser for between more serious games or a neat little filler game for those early finishes.

I like to think that I have a good brain for these kinds of games, but after my two-minute run-through of how it works, T proceeded to wipe the floor with me, handed me my hat, then did a little dance on my freshly-filled grave (see photo for the sad end of Caesar and the shrouding glory of Pompey). I think a rematch will be required in the near future.

 

I had some time on Wednesday and so did B, so we caught up for a tutorial game – two games actually – of Undaunted: Normandy. B was new to the series but recently acquired Undaunted: Stalingrad (Osprey Games, 2022). B has a good mind for rules,  and I don’t think he would have had any problems diving into Stalingrad on his own, but having said that, I struggled a little with the concepts and terminology of the Undaunted series on my first excursion, so I was happy to help him out. As a bonus, the game would count as a 6x6 tick and my sixth Normandy game (closing out my first chosen game, only half-way through the year).

We actually played two games; Scenario 1: Le Reye, which is the perfect introduction to the basics of the game, how pieces move and interact, scouting and the importance of drawing new cards, shedding Fog of War cards where you can, and maintaining Rifleman squad cohesion. Needless to say, B won his first outing quite handily by pinning my second Rifleman squad before I could secure one last point.

A close-run thing.

We broke for lunch, then I set up Scenario 5: Crossing the Vere. This is interesting because I think it’s the first scenario where not all your assets appear on the board (or in your deck) from the get-go. And there is some true asymmetry to the scenario with each side having differing objectives. B’s GIs had to take (control) the two bridges crossing the Vere River, but first they had to scout all the way up to the river, then get their Riflemen across a coverless stretch, all the time taking fire from my Riflemen and whatever else I could bring to bear (did I mention my German forces had a mortar?). It’s a good combined arms scenario for both sides, and became a gruelling slug-fest as we each managed to take out (pin) one of the other’s Riflemen squads, but ultimately B, managed to get his surviving squad to the second bridge and used an inspire action to flip the tile from Scouted to Controlled, taking the bridge and the game. Nonetheless a satisfying game.

That night I was back again at B’s for kind of a re-run of last week’s Bolt Action (Osprey Games, 2012) scenario; same set-up of terrain, but different troop dispositions. The Americans, played by K, H and D, had between them three rifle squads with attached LMG teams (one held in reserve), a bazooka team, a single Sherman, and an armoured car (a Greyhound, I think) for their platoon command. The Germans (B and myself) had an anti-tank gun sighted for the main road into the town, two MMG crews, and a sniper team in the belfry of the Church, all set up on the table already (in defensive posture), with two rifle squads, our platoon command in a staff car, and, in place of the lethal Panther from last week, a rather under-armoured open-back Marder self-propelled anti-tank gun (potentially lethal, but unlikely to survive a real exchange). The snipers and two MMGs were already in place as provisional defensive measures, while everything else was set up to come on as reserve units

Suppling suppression fire.

The Americans called in an artillery barrage to “soften up” their target. The barrage took out the MMG team holding the German’s right flank right off the bat. The GIs then concentrated their attack on that flank, bringing the majority of their forces over the now covering-fire clear field as quickly as possible to try to take that objective (the stout red building on the outskirts of the town, and hereto the German force’s defensive anchor-point).

It took some time for the German reserves to make their way up to where they could do any good. One squad edged their way up to the red building, hoping to gain occupancy before the Amerikanisch soldaten could arrive. The other squad cautiously made their way straight up to the hedgerow opposite the church (centre), and began laying grazing fire on the GIs near the red building, who were being supported by the light cover of the Greyhound. The brave Marder crew brought their machine around into the open, putting a round through the Greyhound’s thin armour, only for it to explode harmlessly some distance away, but shaking the crew terribly.

Just another manic Marder.

Meanwhile, the German command group brought the staff car to a row of houses marking the as-yet undisturbed left flank of the German defence and entered the furthest-most house, the one with a view of the road leading into the town, and, having committed all their resources to the present altercation at the other end of the town prepared to make a desperate stand against the anticipated flanking attack from that direction.

The two American squads moved quickly to secure the church and the red building, their respective targets for the action. Before they could secure the red building, the seasoned soldiers of the second German rifle squad launched a melee attack. Taking some losses, they nonetheless overwhelmed the American invaders (in Bolt Action, a melee action is an all-or-nothing affair, with the laurels going to whomever has the most hits; at three-to-two the Germans lost a couple of men, while the whole US squad was either killed or captured). The other American squad had also reached their objective, the church, and secured the chapel. At this point the anti-tank gun – which had yet to see action – sprang to life, its crew swinging the gun around and firing into the church. The high-explosive shell penetrated the building before exploding, sending shards of pews and soldiers flying, and killing three instantly (and collecting a couple of pins). The German squad behind the hedgerow, then opened-up with small arms, taking down another two. As the light was failing (and the hour at the table was getting late), the game was called at that turn, the last action being the American reserve squad entering the town at the end of the street from the desperate command group, laying in ambush. B adjudicated a marginal victory for the Germans; the Americans in the chapel were in no state to hold on to their prize, and while the fresh Reserve section would likely have been able to wrest control of the brown house at the far end of town from the command group (outnumbering them five-to-one), it would have been too little, too late.

There are no atheists in a foxhole.

Another satisfying game, although it didn’t feel quite like a victory. There are a lot of pluses to the Bolt Action system, though. I like the activation mechanic of drawing a marker cube from a container (in our case, an oversized coffee mug) containing one such cube for each of the units of both sides. The cube drawn activates a unit of that side, then at the end of their activation, the cube is placed with the order played face-up, filling its second roll as a reminder which units have acted that turn (run, advance), or if they are on a reactive stance (ambush). Osprey Games cut their teeth on miniatures rules before branching out into board and card games, and their experience shows in games like this.

All in all, a good week for gaming. After missing out on a 6x6 game on Monday, I was good to get a game slot ticked off with Undaunted: Normandy, and I got to play a brand-new game – Caesar! – in record time from receiving it in the mail. It was a week of losses and near-defeats, but it was a lot of fun. Life is good.