Being a big fan of wargames meant that I of course play them extensively and then write my impression or session reports from those experiences. Still, another large piece of my hobby – conventions – was actually pretty limited recently due to the COVID pandemic. I think we all experienced it so with even great pleasure I learned that some of cons will be held remotely! In January I had occasion to take part in the ADAC Convention and now another opportunity occurred – SDHistCon 2021.

The Convention

Before talking about the particular game which is main topic of this article – i.e. demo of “Undaunted Reinforcements” by David Thompson – couple of worlds about fantastic event our session was part of. The San Diego Historical Games Convention (SDHistCon) is an annual event hosted and coordinated by a dedicated cadre of local gamers and friends. The 2021 “Spring Deployment” event was again held virtually – and that was truly the only way for me, located in Poland/Europe to be able to attend it!

As at last year’s convention, SDHistCon 2021 featured a virtual panoply of major game designers and gaming industry professionals who were offering a host of individual events including popular game tutorials and demos. Many of the designers attending SDHistCon were showcasing their designs, providing insight into the history behind the game as well as effective playing strategies.

More about convention on its page:

https://tabletop.events/conventions/san-diego-history-con-2021-spring-deployment

After this introduction, let me now focus on the game itself.

The game

Undaunted by the duet of Trevor Benjamin & David Thompson, from Osprey Games publisher, becomes a very popular light wargames series. After the Normandy (2019) and North Africa (2020) we will pretty soon get third installment, Reinforcements (2021). All positions in that merchandise are a deck-building titles that places players in command of American or German forces, fighting through a series of missions critical to the outcome of World War II. We use the cards to seize the initiative, bolster the forces, or control the troops on the battlefield. Strong leadership can turn the tide of battle in one side’s favor, but reckless decisions could prove catastrophic as every casualty taken removes a card from the deck.

That pretty straightforward mechanics allows for countless replayability. So what we will get in the newest expansion?

Key features:

  • First and foremost, new units and vehicles, including tanks! Of course, we already had vehicles in North Africa. Here they are treated in similar way as infantry, being independent units without crew. It is really fun to plunge with your Panther or Sherman into the enemy forces and wreak a chaos!
  • Second of all, all the changes implemented in Reinforcements can be retrofired into the first two parts of the series; so you will be able to go through the missions from two first volumes once again, with some tweaks and twists. Great fo added replayability. PS. watch out for Control rule 🙂
  • Thirdly, not surprisingly, we will get also a lot of new scenarios – can’t wait to see those.
  • Last but not least – the new game modes. I could not stress this more – this is for me the biggest change which will make this game even better. First of all, we will get Solo Mode (Dávid Turczi). And on top of this Team Mode – which allows up to 4 players playing the game now!
  • One thing which we need to remember is that Reinforcements requires a copy of Undaunted: Normandy or Undaunted: North Africa to play.

Picture being worth a thousand words, let me share some pictures from our session; Tabletop Simulator was used as a main tool to present the game while Discord for online communication. Below some screenshots – with comments – from the demo (you can click on picture to see this in full resolution):

A full, 4-player set-up; the expansion very neatly handles the initiative changes between the Teams as well as who is the leading force within particular Team (and thus drawing 4 cards while his compatriot takes 3)
Close-up on the scenario; two bridge hexes will be key to victory which can be accomplished by controlling 6 points; you can see some of the tanks already on the map.
Some of the US forces units – please note Sherman and Stuart tanks
Some of the German units – please note Panzer IV and Panther tanks
The two hours demo was very exciting, with US troop pushing on their right and occupying bridge while Germans mimicking the same on their side. There were tons of ineffective fire at the beginning, but then the units started to be suppressed and removed from play. In the end, Allied troops were one control action from victory when we finished the session.

Conclusion

That would be a really great expansion – it not only brings new content but retrofits a lot of improvements to Normandy and North Africa. Possibility to play both solo and 4-player extends the game fun factor enormously. Introduction of tanks which are handled in similar fashion mechanically like infantry spice-up the game nicely. The best news? We need to wait only like 3 months more to get the game! Highly recommended!