Ace in a Day
UNDAUNTED: BATTLE OF BRITAIN
Designer: Trevor Benjamin & David Thompson | Publisher: Osprey Games
Undaunted: Battle of Britain leaps to the skies in this fresh twist on the already classic series. Players battle it out as the Royal Air Force and Luftwaffe across 11 scenarios that depict the fall of France, the Battle of Britain and the beginning of the Blitz.
For anyone unfamiliar with the series, Undaunted is a deckbuilding game that offers an accessible entry to the world of historical wargaming. Each turn you’ll play a hand of cards to control your units on the battlefield (or in this case, your aircraft in the skies). Combat cards control your aircraft on the board while communications cards represent ground control providing assistance via radio.
As aircraft take hits, you’ll permanently lose cards from your deck, while the chaos of the battle might add discord cards to your hand, making it harder to reliably control your units. However, you can also bolster your deck with new cards from the supply and use your communications cards to remove discord. Winning Undaunted requires you to both manage your deck and make the best moves with the cards drawn.
In previous titles, movement wasn’t so much a tactical puzzle but a strategic consideration. You worked out where you needed to send your units and then tried to build your deck around getting them there as fast as possible. In contrast, every turn of Battle of Britain is a constantly evolving puzzle, as you balance attack runs against incoming threats. Can you line a plane up to shoot on your next turn? Will that position leave you vulnerable? What’s more, planes in the same section need to stay within communications range of each other, or you’ll risk adding discord cards to your deck. The choice between breaking formation for an opportunistic attack or keeping wingmen in comms range for the long-term benefits adds an extra layer of depth.
Battle of Britain does a fantastic job of conveying a sense of speed and dynamism through its simple flight system. With each combat card you play, you must choose between shooting and manoeuvring. Movement is always mandatory and shooting means you must move in a straight line. To turn the aircraft, you’ll have to forgo shooting to manoeuvre, letting you adjust the aircraft’s heading instead. This core decision between lining up a shot or pulling the trigger not only rewards good positioning, but forward thinking; draw multiple copies of the same aircraft and you’ll get to zoom it around the board, all guns blazing.
Battle of Britain focuses much more on the board than on your deck. How you move (and divisively what you roll) are more important than ever. Higher lethality, smaller ‘health’ pools and the value of drawing duplicates make the bolster action more important. In previous titles, the bigger scenarios came with the decision of which units should be brought onto the battlefield during the mission. The choice of unit composition is absent in Battle of Britain and the decision space around how you manage your deck is generally smaller, which is a welcome change of pace to the series. As with the previous entries, some scenarios do feel stacked in favour of one side, which can be frustrating. However, the core flight system is so quick and satisfying that replaying a scenario is more appealing than any previous entry.
Yet again, Benjamin and Thompson have turned out another winning entry. Battle of Britain’s new spin on the formula gives long-time fans reason to add another box to their collection, but remains as accessible as ever, making it another great entry point for new players.
GEORGE BARKER
WE SAY
After the ruins of Stalingrad, the azure skies and verdant fields of Battle of Britain are as refreshing as the new combat flight system in the most dynamic entry to the series yet.
WHAT’S IN THE BOX?
◗116 Cards
◗31 Map Tiles
◗4 D10
◗58 Tokens
◗ Rules and Scenario Booklets
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED WINGS OF GLORY...
Battle of Britain distils the same satisfaction of dogfighting down into a simple system that combines perfectly with Undaunted’s other core elements.