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The first Undaunted game was released a few years back and it hit a lot harder than the size of the box would imply. It’s a mix of deckbuilding and dudes on a map war game set in World War 2 and made some massive waves. There were new versions, expansions and even a campaign game as well as a version about the battle of Britain. All these versions have been based on historical settings but now the Undaunted system is taking a brave step into the future and the moons of Jupiter. Let’s see how it holds up in Undaunted 2200 Callisto!
Drops of Jupiter
Here's the situation that’s going down on Callisto. There are a whole bunch of mining colonies on the moons of Jupiter. These are administered by the Lunar Frontier Authority. Relations have gone sour and now the miners are revolting and striking to try and take back the power the LFA have taken from them. The LFA don’t like that and have sent in security forces to start cracking some skulls.
Now, I have start off by saying that this is my first Undaunted game. I have watched a lot of reviews of the other games in the series over the years but for one reason or another I’ve never had the chance to play one first hand. With that being said, I am pretty familiar with what makes an Undaunted game, and I’ve talked with some of the more knowledgeable bloggers here over at Zatu about what I think makes this game unique in the series and they seem to agree. So, there is that.
Anyways, the first thing that jumps out at you that is different here is there are no map tiles. Gone are the modular maps of the previous games and here we have 4 double sided map boards for 8 maps in total. There is a bit of variety here too, you’ve got a mix of interior and exterior locations in various states of disrepair.
After that shock the rest of the game looks a little more as you’d expect. You’ve got a heap of tokens and cards that represent the various squaddies you’ll be commanding across the battlefields of Callisto. There are a few vehicles for either side as well as some tokens that get used in some of the scenarios in the rule books. The other thing you may notice are the dice. There are lots of them, and there are now 3 different types.
A new perspective
This is the other new thing on show here on Callisto. There is now a system for relative elevation while attacking, that’s what the new dice are for. Some areas of the map have little borders around their spaces. That indicates that the space is higher than the rest of the map. That means if you attack from an elevated space to somebody on the ground you get to roll a D12 rather than a D10. But, conversely, if you’re on the ground shooting up, you only get to roll a D8.
It's a simple difference but it really adds a new dimension to the gameplay, literally in this case! Normally your best chance at avoiding being shot is to try and find spaces that provide cover for your troops. This gives you a different option where not only can you make yourself harder to hit, but you can actually increase your odds when you shoot back. The downside is that all these advantages can be negated if your opponent manages to get somebody to the same elevation as you.
You can play Callisto with either 1, 2 or 4 players. There is no reason you couldn’t play at 3 with a little bit of house ruling but we’ll stay with the rules as they come in the box. The default way to play is with two players so I’ll stick with that, but the solo or 4 player team mode have very minor differences to the two-player game.
Each side will have 2 squads of units that are dictated by whichever of the 8 scenarios you are playing. You’ll have some starting units as well as some zones to deploy them on the board. You’ll draw a hand of cards and secretly select one of them to use for its initiative value. You and your opponent will reveal, and the winner gets the initiative and can go first. These initiative cards are discarded, and the higher initiative cards are generally the more powerful cards, so you need to make a choice about whether to act first or to hold off and maybe strike harder. It’s a cool, but sometimes agonising, decision to have to make.
This rag tag bunch
You then go to war with whatever cards you have remaining in your hand. The various units all have their strengths and weaknesses. The commander cards are mostly about adding new cards to your deck via bolstering. Some units can scout the map, opening new areas for the rest of your squad. Others can take control of spaces on the board gaining you control points which can be critical to winning a match. Some units hit hard, but only up close, whereas others can snipe from halfway across the board. Choosing the right unit for the job is a crucial part of playing Undaunted.
Inevitably, shots are going to get fired. Whenever a unit gets hit, it is up to the owner to discard that card from their hand, discard or deck. If they can’t discard it, that unit is taken off the battlefield and it is eliminated for the rest of the game. It’s a wrenching thing when it happens, but it also plays into another of the actions you can do on your turn, you can hunker down.
Hunkering down allows you to remove a card from the deck and place it back in your supply. Doing this means your deck is now leaner, and more focused on what is left. But, the card you removed is still on the battlefield. Meaning it’s now just that little bit easier to remove permanently. That said, hunkering down can be a necessary part of some brilliant plays. By removing a bunch of cards that you don’t need right now, you can make it more likely to draw multiples of the cards you have left. Meaning you may be able to move more than once, and then take control of a zone without having to leave your units relatively undefended in the open. That’s the thing here, these fights are all feel close combat scale. With a good roll, you can hit almost anything that is undefended in the open. So, avoiding that with some clever card play is a great way to keep your people safe.
The spice of life
The missions in the campaign booklet have some variety in them. Mostly you’ll have a main objective to do something like control a number of areas on the map, along with a secondary objective to neutralise a certain number of your opponent’s units. There are also some escort missions where you will have to make sure some non-player units are unharmed. It’s a bit of fresh air, but mostly you’ll be shooting at each other.
The game as a whole is really enjoyable. I’m sure there are some people who would prefer a sci fi theme to a historical war setting, and for those people Undaunted 2200 Callisto will almost certainly be well up their street. The box is well put together, although I did end up getting stung by a typeo on the board which made one mission very unbalanced. Outside of that one hiccup, I’ve had a great time with undaunted. The various units have felt unique, the armies themselves are also very asymmetrical. The insurgents feel better at sneaking around and stinking from afar, wheras the LFA security forces have big mechs to try and quash them. It’s all very thematic. The various scenarios get more complex as the campaign goes on and you’ll be fielding more and more units making everything feel much grander.
Action without reaction
My only real complaint with regards to the campaign is that actions don’t really seem to matter. There is no consequence from one scenario to another. For example, in one mission the LFA are rushing to gather some mechs to deploy them on other battlefields. It’s be cool that if they failed, in a later mission they have less mechs, but maybe other units to make up for it. It would make it feel like it’s a living engagement rather than a series of disconnected encounters.
The story itself is fine. There aren’t any massive plot twists or anything like that and it is all fairly standard sci fi fayre. But it is solidly written even if it doesn’t really pull you into the world. The only other thing that I really didn’t get from my time on Callisto was that I never felt connected to the units themselves. I’ve heard people say they got really attached to certain units during their play time as they pulled off various heroic feats. But I didn’t really get that. Maybe it’s because you very rarely get to see the faces of the various units you control on their main art, there is a little portrait on the card. But for whatever reason I never got that feeling of elation whenever certain units made it into my hand because ‘Dave the nailgunner always gets it done’. And in a way, I’m a little sad about that.
With all that said though, these are very minor quibbles to what, mechanically, is a very tight and well-made game. It’s made me curious to try out other games in the series. But from what I can gather from my experience and from talking to other people, 2200 Callisto may very well be one of the best games in the series from the combat point of view and it is a game I can recommend whole heartedly on that front.
