Undaunted: Stalingrad

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Bella recensione, non ho capito però se è un gioco rigiocabile una volta finita la campagna, oppure no. Magari da diverse persone, non necessariamente gli stessi. It’s astonishing to me how the layers of additional systems never topple it all. Branching scenarios, rolling content, permanent casualties, and an evolving board never stray from the restrained design principles of the core game. There are many paths and even wholesale units you will never see in a particular campaign play. Some scenarios have hidden information and huge dramatic surprises that are hidden from one side. It all feels well-honed as if the designers are in complete control of their work. It comes across a natural evolution. Lead your stalwart troops to victory in this epic two-player campaign, played out in the war's most infamous city. Between late August 1942 and February 1943, as the Wehrmacht focused its formidable artillery and air force on the Volga-hugging industrial hub named after the Soviet leader, more than 2 million people perished (both civilians and combatants) in a critical struggle characterised by brutal close-quarters clashes and urban devastation. It was the turning point of the entire war.

It’s a system that forces you into endless awkward compromises. Riflemen, for example, are the only cards that can control tiles. But unless you have multiple matching cards you can’t both move and take control in the same turn. Instead, you have to risk them creeping forward, closing range and making them an easier target while allowing the enemy the chance to move up and contest the tile themselves. Most units have special actions, like engineers launching smoke or machine gunners laying suppressing fire, that you’ll have to balance with the need to move, shoot, and complete objectives. It’s an ongoing, fraught series of tough trade-offs. Undaunted: Stalingrad takes everything Osprey Games have done with the series so far and turns it up to the max (no offence, Herr Schroder). We have a compelling branching storyline that will take us across 15 scenarios to a final, climactic battle for control of the Volga hub that gave access to the Caucasian oilfields. There are 375 soldier cards to not only represent the Platoons that face each other and all their support specialists and weaponry but also the Reserves that will replace casualties and the Upgraded versions of the soldiers as they gain experience. For those who’ve not played the Undaunted series, here’s a brief overview of what you do on your turn: you play cards to send soldiers to their doom, repeatedly. That’s true, but everything is based on card play. During a turn, players draw four cards and determine one to use for initiative. Each card has an initiative value and whichever faction chooses the highest number goes first. The remaining three cards determine which units can perform a single-card action, flip from suppressed to ready, or hunker down (return to supply). The player with initiative plays all cards first, then the other player plays their cards. After this, the cycle continues with card draw and sacrificing one card to bid for initiative. The Soviet supply is looking rather healthy. This won’t last. Stalingrad, 1942. Before you awaits a gruelling conflict in this cornerstone battleground. As the bullets and bombs tear the city asunder, only through wits and valour can you seize the cornerstone of the entire Eastern Front and change the course of history. While giving Stalingrad a distinct ‘next-level’ feel, this is entirely in keeping with the weight and grit of its setting. After all, the real battle stretched over months during a gruelling winter and saw the city reduced largely to rubble by the German onslaught; a tragedy that the Soviets turned to their advantage, as the shattered husks of buildings provided the ideal battleground in which to resist and pin down their overconfident invaders. That said, it’s hard not to lament the permanent destruction of your strongholds during a battle. Even if you don’t ultimately lose the territory, it will never again provide the same degree of protection from the enemy snipers.

io volevo iniziare con UN per il solo play, poi in Tana ho letto una discussione che mi ha fatto conoscere Warfighter e ho virato su quello. Devo dire che WF mi sta soddisfando al 110%, però ogni volta che leggo di UN mi attira sempre. Prima o poi... gli scenari conducono a diversi bivi, a seconda della vittoria sovietica o tedesca. Ci sono delle sovrapposizioni, ma sicuramente è possibile rigiocare la campagna più volte e approdare a differenti epiloghi;

Turns continue until one side has met its victory conditions and then we move on through the Campaign steps. Counting The CostOne of those clever turns, and the second impressive achievement of the campaign system, is the personality imbued in the setting. I’m not talking about the moderate quantity of script that precedes each scenario and offers context to the battles. That stuff is adequate military fiction that doesn’t quite standout. What I’m talking about is in how the mechanisms afford a charisma to the city of Stalingrad. As you might expect from previous Undaunteds, the gameplay is finely tuned, perfectly balanced and appropriately nuanced, and its transposition to an even more epic arena makes Stalingrad feel like the series at its peak, particularly when the unfolding campaign throws some surprises – both narrative and mechanical – at you. This is, without a doubt, one of the most thrilling tabletop gaming experiences of 2022. Our only complaint is, due to its two-player/long campaign nature, it’s not easier to share with more people. Alternatively, two of the combatants on each side are Upgraded to give them new abilities gained through their battle experience.