Undaunted: Normandy Review - An Accessible Western Front

[@zacmackey]

I love this game. And the randomness makes sense to me in the context of war. But I totally agree with your score and criticisms. It’s not a game I’ll play forever, but it’s a game I love when I do feel like jumping into a thematic, and random, head to head war game.

[@Cheddarific]

Thank you for telling us how many times you’ve played!! I wish all reviewers would do that!

[@VeeeeryyyFaaaastSlooooth]

Great review as always, I'm glad you liked it as I was one of those who recommended it to you for review in the comments. Personally I prefer U:North Africa, scenarios end much quicker because it's smaller scale with no respawning, every unit is just a single guy with 4 HP max basically, so dice rolls get crazily tense and missions can end in few turn if opponent makes the mistake of leaving critical unit exposed. Every mission is usually a rush to objective while trying to hamstring your opponent at the same time, no digging in with endless rolling like in Normandy. Also NA has vehicles and I love how they are implemented, very thematic and adds a lot of variation to the game.

[@Shelfside]

Awesome to see ya here mate! Yeah, I looked a bit into North Africa too, and those vehicles make me very excited :) -Ashton

[@meathir4921]

My favourite deckbuilder boardgame. It maintains the "midgame" of a deckbuilder arc where your deck has good cards and each card you add is a huge decision, thanks to small decks and each card being vital to winning the game. Compared to most engine deckbuilders where you start with a bad deck where deckbuilding is easy and end with a strong deck where deckbuilding stagnates. Undaunted never leaves the most fun middle part imo. Also, the theme of cards being named soldiers is so cool. I'm not sure how you misread the rules on stuff like Guide; they're pretty explicit in the back page (which acts as a good rules reference, so whilst there isn't an actual reference, I usually play with that page out for my opponent).

[@RanwulfMaxwell]

That game is so awesome, I just played this weekened with a few friends, and while at first they weren't instered much (our plans for another game died, so lucky I brought this one), after playing it they loved it. Its awesome.

[@jameskillala2713]

The "reinforcement" expansion adds an official solo mode if you can get hold of it (a reprint coming apparently.....) A nice in-depth 👍

[@RoNPlayer]

The Reprint is out now. It fixes some printing errors, sadly the box is now smaller. In the past you could put Normandy+Africa+Reinforcements all in the Reinforcements box. This won't work with the new print.

[@pierrecuomo9207]

Thanks for your video. I like what you add to make a thematic presentation and the way you analyse the game.

[@Theboardbro]

Such a great vid!!

[@Bearbok]

Great review! Really well done

[@CardGameCourier]

Great Video! Thanks for the showcase of this game:)

[@robertthurman9866]

Great video as usual. I think of this game like Wingspan. Simple mechanics with deep strategy offset by luck. Undaunted and Memoir 44 are two wargames that attract a lot of women gamers. Over all a great system that is constantly being expanded and improved.

[@Spoutnicks]

How would you say this compares to Memoir 44? I'm surprised you didn't mention this comparison in the review as they both very similar and M44 is very well renowned.

[@Shelfside]

Good question! I only played Memoir 44 once, and thought it was too much dice rolling for my tastes actually. Also the card system wasn't quite there yet. Can definitely see the huge appeal though! PErhaps one day I can play again -Ashton

[@bearhustler]

This game is so good, drama and narrative with very little rules overhead. My favourite wargame apart from COIN games and Pax Pamir.

[@stanky9lax]

19:17 "Saving Ryans privates" heh

[@paulhamrick3943]

Has he ever given a really good explanation of the difference between the recommender score vs his personal score?

[@parkla4098]

The fact your board tiles are not aligned is highly triggering! :p

[@lastburning]

I would like to recommend checking out "Band of Brothers" from Worthington Games. (It has the same name as the TV series.) Its greatest achievement is how it encourages realistic WW2 tactics based around suppression, while being a relatively simple system. I think it's the most realistic (but not the most complex) tactical WW2 game when it comes to the tactics being used and how it plays out.

[@RandomPerson-nd2ey]

Does the insert fit sleeved cards? I sleeve *everything* and it drives me nuts when things don't fit right anymore. Parks and Raccoon Tycoon for example.

[@sebastianmuller3461]

It does not. However if you can find Reinforcements, the sleeved cards do fit.

[@BrianMarcus-nz7cs]

Good post budd 👍

[@bradleyjones1515]

Ryan's privates cracked me up so much

[@TotallyBoard]

I put this in S tier myself. Do you guys plan on trying Stalingrad?

[@Shelfside]

I really don't think so, at least not anytime soon haha! If I do, it might just be a quick impressions :) -Ashton

[@viktorkm]

You really need go review Combat Commander Europe! Best WW2 games ever made. Best narrative creating game I habe ever played! Also if you review it, make sure to test the Random Scenario Generator! The best tool a in any boardgame ever created, by a long shot! Check out R.S. from Watch it played comments on his reacent game of it! Its a epic game!

[@yrusomad6]

Or More likely Company of Heroes The Board Game 2nd edition. :)

[@viktorkm]

@@yrusomad6Nooooo 😅

[@Shelfside]

oooh, I've wanted to cover combat commander for quite some time! Excited to see when I can find time haha. -Ashton

[@viktorkm]

@@ShelfsideCant wait! Just played a game yesterday with my friend, it was nice!

[@metalrock720]

Out of curiosity - you mentioned that you dislike the randomness in this sometimes and that is fair to say but you also mentioned the TI4 was your favorite game of all time. To me - in addition to game being so long - the reason I have a hard time liking TI4 as much is because you need to spend half the game building your forces up and all of a sudden dice rolls can completely slaughter the fleet you just spent 5 hours building and that can be pretty devastating. I figure the politics and other aspects of the game make up for that but it is pretty darn devastating when you no longer have anything to defend yourself with and get steamrolled so wondering why that works for you there.

[@Shelfside]

I'll defend him on this for Ti4, the game is a lot less random than it seems, especially for bigger fights with bigger fleets which tends to average out the expected outcome. If I go in with a war sun, a dreadnought, 2 cruisers and 2 fighters, I'll expect to do 4 hits in the first roll, which I then predict how my opponent will assign hits and see if I'll win on average. Not to mention that retreating is an option if the first roll ends up being really off expectations. There'll be a super wacky roll maybe like a handful of times per game, but across dozens of fights it doesn't ultimately cause that much of a swing. -Daniel

[@aminzarei8078]

Combat commander for life

[@viktorkm]

💪

[@satnemip]

Hi, I’m really curious to know what you think of Inis. Would you be up to review it some time soon?

[@Madgaar]

played 3 scenarios with a friend and 2 times the win came down to one of the players drawing 2 cards for the same unit. for us it had to much randomness to be enjoyable. immediatly went to likely to sell pile ;)

[@BrianMarcus-nz7cs]

Yea I'm giving und/stgrad a miss too , u might like the heroes system, shadows over , loads of maps 90+ , and they are double sided u can even play out with warhammer black reach against a ww2 squad , what's not to like , cheers 😮

[@anab0lic]

Advanced squad leader review when?

[@moltenbullet]

Comment for the algorithm gods!

[@Shelfside]

cheers man!

[@nin_4_me58]

Where be Daniel? One wonders…

[@nin_4_me58]

Frosthaven

[@TabletopTurtle]

Babies first Grognard game. I thought for sure this would get a higher score from you.

[@Shelfside]

bahaha, if it was just my impressions after playing twice, I think this would be a 9/10. -Ashton

[@ergolindt7299]

Yeah.. NO! Box is good quality, other components are really horrible, tiles are okaish. Havent seen so bad cards for some time, so thin and can see through, tokens are glossy, so they mark very easly. Lots of room in a box but no room for sleeved cards. Was taken back by quality. Critisicm for quality and maybe somebody wont be in shock if they buy it

[@Shelfside]

hmm that's odd. Perhaps you got a fake version? Our cards were totally fine. We didn't have room for sleeved cards though as you said. Tokens were totally ok. -Ashton

[@ergolindt7299]

@@Shelfside dont want to believe it. Its from a good shop. And yes i have heard about fake board games, but still i belive there Are better things to counterfeit. Now watching no pun included Stalingrad review and using google i see i am not the only one with such a problem

[@kylehenry6096]

Memoir is better

[@BrianMarcus-nz7cs]

Is it? Wot about heroes/ shadows of Normandy?