WW2 AAR: Undaunted Normandy
/Friend Neil suggested we play a game I hadn’t encountered before: Undaunted Normandy.
Undaunted Normandy from Osprey
Published by Osprey, this is a board game where the playing surface is constructed of different tiles showing terrain that are put together in different combinations in order to represent different battlefields. Specially printed cards are then used to generate the force you will use, represented by counters on the tiles, with a significant part of the game being resource allocation. Dice are then used to determine movement and combat, with different squads (Recon, Rifle, MMG etc) having different attributes.
By adding 6mm figures and terrain, Neil had rather brilliantly converted the 2D printed tiles and counters into 3D pieces that looked more like a wargame than a board game:
From 2D to 3D: how gooD is that!
We played one of the starter scenarios involving the Germans counter-attacking an American advance. The mechanics are easy to pick up, and before long I was playing without really having to ask any questions.
As noted above, combat is determined by rolling dice, and as I have vast numbers of various-sided dice and couldn’t be bothered with passing things backwards and forwards between Neil and myself, I asked him what sort of dice were used and how many you needed. Four 8-sided dice, he replied: so off I went to my storage bucket of dice and found four eight-sided dice.
We began the game, and it was only after a few turns that I realised that it’s actually four 10-sided dice that are used in the game: it being quite hard to get a ‘10’ on an eight-sided dice when Neil said that that was what I needed to roll!
Most amusing, especially as I can now claim that that was the only reason I lost the game rather than the real reason that Neil outmanoeuvred me!
How many sides on those dice? Does the man have no shame!
I enjoyed the game: not something I would necessarily want to play all the time - my bent is for large, multi-figure, tabletop games - but I can see the appeal, and it does fit into a very small area. It’s the sort of game you could take on holiday, provided you could fit the stuff in the car!
There’s a much better review of the game here: https://www.wargamer.com/undaunted-normandy/review and I’d certainly recommend having a read and giving the game a go if you get the chance.
