Its an Ill Wind...

 

Bloomsbury Publishing announced a while ago that they were winding up the boardgames part of Osprey to focus on books, RPGs and wargames.  Sad news as they've published some excellent boardgames over recent years.

The one good thing out of the sad news is that Osprey are having a big sale on lots of boardgames till the end of the month.  Inspired by my friend Andrew's recent shopping spree with them (and a very good sales pitch from him... Osprey should consider employing him on commission!!) I succumbed and ordered a couple of boxes from the Undaunted range (more on these in a separate post).

I've played a few games of Undaunted Normandy (UN from now on) and think it's an excellent and clever little board/war game.  It treads a fine line between being a deckbuilding game and a tabletop skirmish.  I have a copy of Undaunted Stalingrad which I acquired very cheaply from eBay ages ago but which has been in the loft since then and could really do with coming out to play.

Inspired by all of this we dug out Normandy for a game on Monday.  This scenario has the Germans launching a raid against a canal to take back control from the advancing Germans

UN is a deceptively simple game... players have a hand of cards to activate their squads and can use officers to add to this from a supply pile (think of this as off table reinforcements). Clever use of deckbuilding allows you to shape the deck to match your strategy (assuming you have one!)  

The rules neatly differentiate between troop types... in UN only Scouts can advance into unexplored tiles while Riflemen follow in their wake.  Riflemen can take control of tiles however which is essential for scoring VPs.  MGs are great for laying down covering fire, especially suppressive fire which was crucial in our game.  However as the Scouts move into new spaces, 'Fog of War' cards are added to the deck... these only serve to take up valuable space in your hand which nicely reflects the growing chaos as the battle expands. 

In our game I played the Germans with  Andrew taking on the US.  They begin with 2 out of the required 6 VPs already secured and have a choice between trying to hold the VPs at their board edge or preventing the Germans racing to the canal.  Andrew made good ground quickly and seized another 2 VPs before I'd reached the canal, but then became bogged down due to unlucky cards and increasing fire from the German squads.  

The pinned US riflemen... so close to seizing the last VPs

The turning point came when I was able to deploy both my MGs in a good central spot.  This was when we discovered how effective suppression fire can be... the US needed to activate 1 mote rifleman to snatch victory but he was under a constant hail of MG fire which kept his head down and allowed me to snaffle the victory from under his nose.  

For a very simple game it works really well... troops have different and complimentary roles, planning how you build your deck as the game progresses is key, and officers and NCOs (although they aren't on the table) are key in reinforcing and shaping your forces.  The more I play this, the more impressed I am.  It'll be a shame if it falls by the wayside and perhaps another company will pick it up.