Last night Jonathan and I met up at the nearly newly refitted The Luxe to play his latest addition to his collection Undaunted: Normandy.

This game caused a bit of shock, and banter when Jonathan said he was getting it. Mainly because it is a deckbuilder. Jonathan doesn’t do deckbuilders. More accurately it’s a mechanic that would fail to make his top 100 mechanics. But would easily make his top 5 mechanics he does not like.

But the theme and the board/missions tempted him to part with his money.

We played the introductory mission, I was the allies, while Jonathan played the axis forces.

For the history books I won. And afterwards we discussed how we felt about the game.

I felt the game was ok. It wasn’t an unpleasant experience.

The deckbuilding side was ok. But not great. I really enjoy deckbuilders, like Star Realms/Hero Realms, Valley of the Kings, Legendary Marvel. Undaunted doesn’t come close to them. It’s not as bad as the World of Tanks deckbuilder (which was dire) and I’d put it above Thunderstone. What I missed was being able to combo cards. The nearest you get really is being able to bounce a played card back to your hand to be replayed. One tactic I did like was being able to force fog of war cards into your opponents deck. They are basically dead cards. So watering down your opponent’s deck is a great way to throw a spanner in the works.

The combat element really did feel tacked on. I didn’t use it once, but Jonathan did, and the dice just made it too random. I think out of 6 or so attacks he succeeded twice.

The missions, that are area control is an interesting idea. But for me makes the game more like Memoir 44. It’s cool that there are a load of different missions for players to play, great variety.

The theme of the game could be anything really. It is literally non-existent.

I almost feel that Undaunted couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a deckbuilder or a Memoir clone. And that indecision has hurt it overall. It doesn’t achieve either.

Having played the game I don’t get all the buzz it has been getting on the Facebook groups.

Have you played it? And if so what did you think?

Game played: Undaunted: Normandy