Undaunted Normandy

Undaunted Normandy is a strategy card game based on World War II history. Players command infantry squads in fierce battles against the German army in Normandy, deploying various units such as scouts and riflemen at different locations to eliminate enemy forces and seize the initiative. Players must remain vigilant; casualties result in the loss of a card from your deck, gradually eroding your advantage and leading to defeat. The game supports single-player and multiplayer modes with varying difficulty levels. Teamwork with friends is essential to dominate the ever-changing battlefield and emerge victorious.

Gameplay of Undaunted Normandy:

This game takes a couple of interesting game mechanics and blends them together quite well. You have deckbuilding combined with a tactical skirmish feel on the board. Plus there is a “campaign” of progressing scenarios you can play through, although you can very easily just pick any one of them to play as nothing carries over from game to game.

The general setup has the Americans pitted against the Germans in this 1 vs 1 match-up. Each side will have a small starting deck of cards they will be drawing from to form their hands and a side “market” of cards setup which can be acquired during play to beef up your deck. On your turn you will be playing through your entire hand of cards one at a time performing the action the played card/s allow you. Doing this allows you to move your soldier tokens around on the board, make attacks, control areas, etc. Once your turn ends you place your cards into your discard pile and draw up another four cards, and once your draw pile runs out you will shuffle your discard pile to make a new draw pile adding in all the new cards you may have acquired. This is the basic idea behind deckbuilding. The big catch with this game is as your soldiers are killed, you will actually remove one of the particular cards completely from the game. Over time your deck will become thinner and thinner from lack of soldiers so you must continue bolstering up your forces.

Ultimately the goal of the scenarios is to control a certain number of control points on the board which are created during the scenario setup. This is where the game gets strategic as not just all your soldiers can take control of areas. Only your rifleman can control areas so you MUST keep them alive BUT rifleman cannot move through unexplored areas…..so you need your scouts to explore those areas first then you can move them in. But you scouts are rather weak on the attack…….better bring in the machine gunner to lay down some fire on those approaching enemies. Ugh, there is a build-up of troops planning to move in…..better unleash your mortar team.

It goes on and on with different style of soldiers that all need one another to accomplish to ultimate goal of winning. And winning is only accomplished by both capturing and controlling a certain number of control points first or if you are able to kill off all your opponents’ rifleman, which of course prevents them from “controlling” anything. That will also end the game but bringing victory to the team that currently holds the most control points. So be careful when plucking off the enemy’s rifleman, especially if they are holding more areas than you.

Useful Tips of Undaunted Normandy:

An overlooked part of the game that follows along the same principle of the Scout’s Recon ability to thin your deck and make it more likely to draw out a certain card when needed is Hunker Down. Hunker Down is a simple principle that should be used when needed. To Hunker Down, you simply choose a card in your hand that you have drawn and return it to the Supply taking it out of your deck. This card is eligible to later be Bolstered and returned to your deck but the benefit is that you remove that card now to improve your draws later after your shuffle your deck. You have to be careful when Hunkering Down though as you don’t want to return a card that has a Bolster action as this is your only way to get a card back from the Supply. This tactic shouldn’t necessarily be used during the early game either as you need all of your cards and their abilities to properly prepare the battlefield for your ultimate success and victory. This should be used nearing the end of a match when you just need that extra draw capability to get a card you really need, such as a Rifleman when you are trying to take Control of an Objective to win the game or a Command Card that you need to be able to Inspire your already utilized cards to perform their actions again, such as a devastating fire Attack with your Machine Gunners on an enemy Scout moving into new terrain to prevent them from opening the way for their Squad to move up on Objectives.

Let me give you another example of why this might be important.

In your deck, you can have up to 5 Rifleman cards from a given Squad, usually starting with two cards in the deck. If you have prepared your deck well, by getting rid of the space eating Fog of War cards, and by Bolstering all of your available Rifleman cards, you have increased your chances of drawing multiple copies of Rifleman cards from the same Squad when needed, but you need to do a bit more preparation by getting rid of units that you don’t want to draw because you don’t need them any longer. By Hunkering Down your Scout cards lets say that have already performed their Scout ability to get access to a terrain tile that contains an Objective, you have increased the odds that you will set yourself up for that amazing “lucky” draw later in the game as you move in to take that final Objective. In a deck of 20 cards, if you have 5 Rifleman you have a 1 in 4 (25% percent) chance of drawing a Rifleman card with each card draw (remember that each round you will draw 4 cards). If you are able to Hunker Down 2 Scouts and a Sniper card that you no longer need, as you have already Scouted the battlefield and aren’t planning on making any Attacks, all of a sudden you only have 17 total cards with 5 of those being Rifleman. This has now increased your odds to nearly 1 in 3 (or a 29.4%) chance for a Rifleman with each card draw.

As you can see, there are many ways to prepare your deck making it more efficient for the task that you need to accomplish at the right time in the game. Luck in Undaunted: Normandy can be defined as preparation meeting the odds of drawing cards. The harder you work to prepare, the better your chances are and I like that type of control in my games.

Player Comments of Undaunted Normandy:

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. 

Final Verdict:

Immerse yourself in the intense strategy of World War II with a game that expertly combines deck-building mechanics with tactical warfare. Set in June 1944, you take command of American or German forces as you navigate the treacherous landscapes of Normandy following the D-Day landings. The core gameplay revolves around using cards to manage troops, gain control of the battlefield, and strategically outmaneuver your opponent. With each casualty, you risk losing valuable cards from your deck, making every decision critical.