Unmatched: InGen vs The Raptors

I mean this game system is so almost perfect for me. Unmatched is a quickfire card based duel to the death and it is every kind of satisfying to play. I absolutely adore the Unmatched gameplay, it’s an asymmetric battle using minis and yet it feels so accessible. Unmatched is published initially by Restoration Games and Mondo Games in the US, it’s European distribution is mostly being handled by Iello. This set plays two players in 20 minutes (there are sets that play up to four players). Now let’s get into the InGen vs Raptors chat.

Dinos & Scientists

Now as you might already know, this house is a household of scientists, myself and Marvin Marigolds himself both have PhDs in chemistry. Science is our way of life, so it comes as no surprise that the first Unmatched set we get is the one with the Ingen scientists in it. Alas being Dr Saggyhead gives my review absolutely zero more clout, but I’m going to give you my opinions nonetheless!

Each character in Unmatched comes with their own hero miniature, and in most cases between one and four sidekicks. The Jurassic Park set is a two-player only set, with a single map of the Raptor Paddock and two characters. One player plays as the Raptors, they have a pack of three Raptors who are all equal in their power and each have 7 health at the start of the game. Like in the film, the Raptors are most effective and hit hardest when hunting in packs. The other player takes on the role of Robert Muldoon and the InGen workers. These fighters are armed with traps and guns that they can use from afar to batter the dinos into submission. The Ingen player is known as a “ranged” fighter. This means that they can attack any other fighter that is standing on a spot the same colour as the one they are standing on. The Raptors on the other hand are “melée” which means they can only attack fighters in an adjacent space to them.

How To Play

Each character in Unmatched comes with their hero (heroes in the case of the dinos from InGen vs Raptors), their sidekicks if any and their own unique deck of cards that they use to batter their opponent down to zero health. Each character comes with their own unique ability which they can leverage over their opponent to try and win. These abilities vary character to character, and they add to the asymmetry that the game does so well. The Ingen workers are interesting in that they also come with a set of trap tokens. Robert Muldoon’s special ability is that at the beginning of their turn, this play may place a trap token anywhere in Muldoon’s zone. These traps if triggered are returned to the box, they deal damage to the opposing fighter who set it off and the Muldoon player draws a card. They also stop the fighter in their tracks, again quite thematic of a drop trap. So clever usage of the traps can pen opposing fighters into a zone and prevent the melée dinos from picking off your Ingen workers too quickly. These are cannon fodder as they only have a single hit point each, but some cards may bring them back from the dead for a second innings.

On your turn you must take two actions. These can be the same thing twice or two different things. You can maneuver, which allows you to draw a card and then move if you wish. This is the main way to get cards into your hand, and to run up to opponents to smash them, or run away from them to lick your wounds. You can play a scheme card and follow it’s actions, these are powerful as the defender can’t do squat about it. You get free reign. And finally you can ATTACK your opponent by playing an attack or versatile card. Your opponent is able to play a card if they wish to defend themselves. Both cards are played face down and then you both reveal at the same time, you resolve the effects and the result of the battle.

Tell Me More About Those Sweet Sweet Cards

There are four types of cards in Unmatched, regardless of the set you buy. These are red attack cards, blue defence cards, purple versatile cards which can be used as attack or defence and scheme cards. Scheme cards are usually pretty powerful in the actions they give you, and they cannot be cancelled by your opponent. Which feels more devious and fun that way. Things like letting you move 5 spaces instead of the usual 2 or 3, or drawing cards, bringing back sidekicks from the dead, lots of cool stuff.

The attack, defence and versatile cards have two numbers, one is their attack or defence value. This is pretty self explanatory really, the higher number wins. If the attacker wins then the defender takes damage. If the defender wins, then they have successfully seen off the attack and take no damage. In the case of a tie, then the defender will always win. The other value printed is the “boost value”. Movement can be boosted by discarding a card to gain its boost value on top of your base movement value. Somecards like the Ingen Second Shot will let you boost the attack by again discarding an additional card for its boost value.

Special Effects? Yeah Please

Each of the cards can have some special effects printed below the great artwork, these could be to deal additional damage or to move away after the combat, perhaps to draw more cards, boost the attack or my personal favourite cancel all the effects of your opponent’s card. The latter option is the “Feint” card which is present in every deck. Playing this at the right time is crucial, you can undo a heavy heavy hit with it. There is nothing more satisfying than weaseling your way out of a massive attack. Few things are more frustrating than having your carefully orchestrated cardplay interrupted by your opponent managing to pull off a Feint at the correct time. But you know what? That’s Unmatched!

Trapped In A Map

I’ll come clean and say that I’m not a massive Jurassic Park nut, but I have seen the film a few times so I at least knew what the significance of the movie quotes and the thematic additions. The artwork in Unmatched is great, you may find yourself staring at the cards and marvelling rather than plotting your opponent’s sticky end, but that ain’t always a bad thing. The game plays quickly anyway, and any thinking time your opponent needs is easily spent admiring the effort that has been made to make this game look as good as it does.

There is only one map available in this set, which as it was the first set we got was a little annoying. But what a battlefield it is, so thematic! The Raptor Paddock from InGen vs Raptors is the only map released so far that has a one-way system. Once you are in the enclosure, there is only one way out. You can trap your opponent in the paddock by blocking the entrance with your hero, sidekick or if you’re playing as the Ingen then traps. In Unmatched you cannot move through opponent fighter pieces, so using a piece as a meat shield is a viable strategy. Yes I said meat shield, I stand by it even though the concept does knock me sick a little.

Although this was the first set that I bought, I have since expanded my Unmatched collection pretty quickly. I would have to say that this set is not my favourite collection of characters. That is not to say that the Raptors and Ingen characters are not good, they are, but there are some since that I have liked playing more. The map in this set though, is one of my favourites. This set looks on paper like it should be unbalanced as one character is ranged and the other melée, and yet it feels like each character is as good as the other. There is no inherent advantage to playing a particular character, instead the winner is determined by your own ability to pilot the deck. I appreciate that immensely and feel like that is something Disney Villainous was unable to pull off when they created their asymmetric character system. Games where the winner is determined by who played better is exactly the kind of game I want to play.

Roundup

As a system, this game is Unmatched, ooh pun! The individual decks give you an asymmetric game which feels thematic as you play off heroes against one another. The balance between such different characters is to me the most impressive thing about this game, and I for one am going to go full Pokèmon and “gotta catch ’em all”. My bank balance will be sad, but I’ll be ecstatic!