Undaunted Normandy - The Campaign!

The Undaunted range of games from Osprey continues to grow and, having played the initial offering Undaunted Normandy, I can see why.  The game is a small unit combat game set in the post D-Day Normandy between the Americans (US 30th Infantry Division) and Germans.  It is a mixture of card play and a board game using a board made up of 18 separate card sections, allowing a wide variety of potential battlefields.  Cards are used to move your figures on the board and casualties are represented by removing cards for your hand.  As there are a lot of good reviews of the game on line, I'll leave off explaining the mechanics further.

The game contains 12 scenarios that start with the basic units (Infantry and Scouts) and build up complexity as you work through the games (including Machine gunners, Mortars, Snipers and Guides).  For the final battles you have a wide degree of choice in terms of units and tactics to deploy.  Eileen and I played through all 12 scenarios over a couple of weeks with her taking charge of the US forces and me playing the evil Hun.  Victory varied across the battles with the Germans winning the campaign by a small margin.  A few of the scenarios seemed to favour one side or another to a small extent but overall the campaign seemed balanced and the a couple of games came down to who achieved initiative in what became the final turn.

The end of the final campaign game with the Germans securing victory by the narrowest of margins

Overall the game is fast to learn, quick to play and presents enough tactical challenge to keep thing interesting without bogging the players down in rules complexity.  If you are looking for a game that can be played within an hour and won't cost you an small fortune I'd recommend checking this game out.  Sadly this game does not cover the use of vehicles or armour but there has been an Undaunted Reinforcements set which adds both Tanks and Solo play to both this game and North Africa.  Unfortunately it is currently unavailable from Osprey and hard to find elsewhere.  Hopefully it will be re-printed at some time in the future.

Having completed the Normandy Campaign (and knowing Phil already has Undaunted North Africa (British LRDG vs the Italians), Eileen has splashed out on Undaunted Stalingrad so the next challenge awaits.  

Chris