Undaunted: Normandy Review
An accessible Western Front.
Normandy, 1944. Fight over objectives on the Western front as the American or German armies! Featuring card play meeting deckbuilding, with positioning around a battlefield, this Undaunted box has 12 scenarios that play around an hour each. Only 2 player.
Video published May 29th, 2023
Control objectives with Rifleman around Normandy!
Super accessible, 1 hour ww2 gameplay!
Shoot each other from across the map if you want, but terrain matters.
What we played
Scenarios 1-6, meaning we’ve played with almost every mechanic in the game, except for hills and radios. We used all the units you can deploy on the board, and every card.
Need to learn how to play? Or want more reasoning for our points? Our review video’s got you!
Component/Learning Pros
Great components
Insert included
Cardboard all feels good, no unnecessary components
Nice visual design
Different faces on cards
Easy to see terrain and cards
Easy to learn with 2 good booklets
Gameplay Pros
Miscommunication of war is a great excuse to simplify hands to 3 cards
Card play meets positioning well
Must manage Fog of War ‘useless’ cards as move troops
Cards used for map advantage, OR deck advantage
Initiative System
Hits sweet spot of simplicity vs. decision space vs. handling of randomness
Allows for macro play of holding onto initiative, since that breaks ties
Healthy variety of 5 units
Gunners suppressing fire
Mortars shell to do AOE damage, but need time to reload
Riflemen are still important to control objectives
Cards that are not units are interesting to use
2 give choice to deckbuild vs. doing other stuff
1 lets you move any unit for good flexibility
All are high number to have tradeoff between playing for initiative, or having strong ability
Campaign Pros
12 scenarios all feel different
Getting objectives means much different things with different Terrain, cards (to start with or deckbuild with)
First 6 scenarios introduce 1 unit each to ease in newcomers
Asymmetry feels fair to WW2
Germans tend to be closer to better objectives
Yankees have to spread themselves out a little more thin
Ability to replay scenarios with different deckbuilding/positioning is amazing replayability
It is an accessible WW2 Story (Final Pro)
Only a single hour
Ton of historical references throughout the game
can be ignored if you want
Example: German machine gun nests camp in the woodlands, while American riflemen sprint for just 1 objective
Can use printed names to inject even more narrative
Ex: German snipers of ‘Gustar Becker’ and ‘Erwin Kruger’ are perched upon a hilltop. When ‘Gustar Becker’ dies, ‘Erwin’ picks up the rifle and keeps shooting
Names allow for cool ‘Heroic Contribution’ at end of scenario
Cons
No player aids
Confusing when first start, because actions are all jargon (ex: Recon, Suppress, Scout, etc.)
fantastic reference sheet is only on the 2nd to last page of the rulebook
Dice rolling has too much variance
D10 rolled, 10 always hits, even when shooting across map
Swingyness in deleting the matching card from an opponent’s hand. Too much card advantage.
No way to roll smaller dice, or have re-rolls
Can make the game run longer than an hour sometimes
HOUSE RULE: When lose a unit, gets deleted from hand LAST in priority
Nitpicks (Doesn’t affect scoring)
The Sniper
Feels weird to roll its 3 dice because Machine guns roll 4 dice, learn about machine gun first.
Why not give a re-roll for more thematic rolling?
Feels slightly overtuned with a defense of 6, since already has best attack in game
Some slightly confusing rules hiccups
Interacting with suppressed units
Using Platoon Guide to move other pieces can get weird
All answered cleanly on BGG, but why no FAQ or rules clarification?
Final Thoughts
Yep, it’s an excellent game!
It’s a lot of WW2 feelings where the card play and positioning meet each other very well. There’s not a lot of rules, things are generally explained cleanly, and you’re mostly just touching cards in terms of components. You can choose which scenario fits your playgroup’s preferences for complexity, and even if you just play the first couple of scenarios, there’s enough WW2 goodness to feel like you’re saving Ryan’s privates in WW2.
But before you go and just buy it, remember, Undaunted Normandy is a VERY simple system in the context of a WW2 game. And so the simplicity can sometimes be working against this game.
Like, the simple system of moving pieces with cards can be a bit of a double-edged sword when you don’t get the cards you need, or trying to imagine how a single guy’s card drop could be doing so much for a single platoon. This COULD lead to crowning an “MVP” for some scenarios a bit puzzling with the necessary abstraction. But if you’re REALLY into WW2 and/or crafting a nice narrative while playing, you won’t have an issue here, rather its both the randomness-adverse and realism sticklers that will have some reservations.
The back of the rulebook literally says this isn’t a simulator per say, rather its trying to emulate the experience of being in command of such platoons. And so the questions of should you rush forward to grab the objective or wait for supporting fire, or to get more cards, or sabotage their deck, all are real questions to ask during gameplay, with some necessary abstraction.
Undaunted Normandy still allows for thematic moments without being a long game, especially if you buy into the scenario flavor text. But like, its not for those who ‘must win’ in a war game after min-maxing, or for those who hate high variance in dice rolling, cause jeez that is really the name of the game here.
We also do have another warning that we couldn’t find a place to put anywhere else in the review: you’re actually pretty disincentivized in taking control points that are currently controlled by your opponents. Since getting closer to your opponents increases the likelihood that they’ll hit you, AND moving with a rifleman is the same action cost as attacking, you’re usually best off finding another area than running into gunfire. Is this intentional? Possibly? Just don’t expect units to be fighting hand to hand often.
But anyways, Undaunted Normandy is hitting a lot of sweet spots for a relatively quick 2 player game to just whip out. It’s so easy to learn with no nonsense components that you can buy it and pretty much start the WWII feelings right away. It has a campaign but doesn’t demand a lot from the players from components and rules. It’s abstracted to be simple, but still has theme if you really buy into it. It’s deckbuilding, but with a lot of focus on the actual Battlefield.
This is gonna be a fantastic couples game, or to just grab a buddy and just play anywhere- I mean heck we played most of our games at the park. There is also a solo variant that exists on BGG, but we haven’t tried it, because well its not official.
