First Thoughts – Unmatched adventures: Tales to Amaze

After a couple of games, I decided to put together a quick round up of my first thoughts. Obviously, my opinions aren’t based on much gameplay and so may change later down the line.

First up, the characters. I must say I wasn’t excited to play any of them, as other than Nikola Tesla, I had no idea who they were. Annie Christmas? Dr. Jill Trent? The Golden Bat? Nope, no idea!

One of the things I’ve enjoyed about the Unmatched series so far, was the connection to the characters and the interesting ways they were represented in their cards and gameplay. Not knowing any of these – I played Trent and Yasmin The Golden Bat – we both felt disconnected from our characters when playing.

The good thing is, though, you can use any characters from the unmatched series and I’m really looking forward to doing just that.

We played both games against the Mothman, which, according to the rules, was the easier of the two (Martian Invader being the other). There were a number of Minions that could join the main villain (based on player count), which was good, as it added more variables to the game. We played with Tarantula and the Skunk Ape.

The first game didn’t last very long at all. The Mothman and friends handed us our backsides in quick time! The following game, we almost defeated him and one more turn sure we would have, but he destroyed the last bridge and once again we tasted defeat.

This illustrates our learning curve. The first game we had no idea what our characters could do (we always play blind – not looking through what our character card can do) and only an inkling about what the villain and his minions were capable of.

The other consideration was the board. That first game we were constantly separated, as the Mothman held the centre, the Tarantual kept Yasmin at bay by leaving webs everywhere, and the Skunk Ape pushed me back into an area I struggled to escape from. Ending a turn adjacent to the skunk ape causes you to take damage, and I couldn’t move fast enough to slip past the Mothman.

Things escalated because I wasn’t drawing useful cards. Skunk Ape dispatched my sidekick, Daisy, quite quickly and all I seemed to draw were Daisy cards and attack cards. I pummelled Skunk but was struggling to move away and when Mothman bimbled over, I got, what can only be described, as a shoeing!

The following game, we were a lot wiser to what we could do and how to approach things (for starters I remembered you could boost movement).

We wiped out Skunk Ape early doors and that freed one of us up to take on the Moth. We just took too long about it but I reckon we could beat him next time we play.

That was a brief overview of the games we played.

I enjoyed the game, especially working out what tactics to use against the Villain and minions, and being able to mix and match the latter, combined with being able to incorporate any of the other Unmatched characters, offers a lot of replayability. I’m sure more and more Villains will appear and build even further on this.

The side of the board we played on (one side for Mothman one for the Martian Invader) I found a little restrictive, at least where I started. In the two games I found myself severely restricted in one area of the board. First game by Skunk Ape and the Moth and in the second it was Tarantuala and the Moth. My base movement was 2, and I had a few cards in my hand that allowed me to attack and then move, however, every time I tried that the enemy played a card that cancelled my action. I finally remembered I could boost my movement to escape, but I soon found I had too few decent cards in hand.

It’s more likely to be down to my poor play rather than the design of the board, only more plays will tell.

I did like the way the enemies decks worked, in that there was a single card in their deck that caused all their discard to be reshuffled back into the deck, and that card had a defence and attack value of 0. As their decks were quite small, you could gauge the chances of that card being played and try to time your biggest attack then, which we did with some success.

I also enjoyed the way initiative worked. Each player and enemy has an initiative card and they are shuffled together. The top card is then drawn to see who goes next. Okay, nothing new there, but the enemy cards have special actions on them that take place at the end of the round – Skunk Ape’s ‘Deal damage equal to the threat level to one hero or sidekick adjacent to Skunk Ape’ being a particularly devious one. If Skunk Ape was last to act then someone was going to be in a world of hurt, as he’d be sure to finish adjacent to one of us.

I do believe, if we had played the same set up with one or two characters that had ranged attacks rather than both being melee, we would have had a better chance of winning the game, but then that’s the beauty of Unmatched – it’s a bit like Rock, Paper, Scissors, and finding the right characters is a lot of the fun.

The bridge scenario that Mothman plays in added something other than just defeating the villain to think about, and removing the doom tokens to keep them at a reasonable level took team work. There are also Event cards to play with, though we never added them and they might increase the strategic depth of the game.

Now, here’s the deal. You see, I didn’t enjoy the few games we played as much as I enjoy the competitive version. I found it lacked the tension of the original. Having someone flip over the villain’s card when they attack/defend, just didn’t have the same anticipation as when you’re trying to beat up a real-life opponent.

Plus, with the villains and minions decks being quite small, it got a bit repetitive and you quickly figure out what to expect. Again, it’s that Rock, Paper, Scissors. I would imagine (and it’s something I will eventually try) that you could choose a character who’s deck would work specifically well against that of the enemies. That, though, as I’ve mentioned before, is all part of the game system. I wanted a little more variety from the main villain’s deck rather than providing it by changing up the minions.

The characters themselves were interesting to play and I’m sure they gave a fair representation of the skills their characters have/had in lore/comic books/real life(?), but I’m looking forward to playing with some of the characters I know and love from the series and that may alter my perspective of the cooperative side of the game. The minis, though, are great, as one has come to expect from the series.

To sum up. These really are early thoughts and the game requires a lot more play to get a better insight. It will be interesting to see what the Martian Invader brings to the table, as well as playing with the other characters and sidekicks in the box.

For now, I’d say it’s a game that Unmatched players will be drawn to and really enjoy (we did) and it adds more to the ever-growing series. Four players will be an interesting experiment, as I’d like to see just how restrictive it becomes on the board (more players, more minions!). All the components are up to the usual standard seen in the series, so there’s nothing to worry about there. For me, I think it will prove an excellent addition to the collection, as I can play it solo, though I think I’ll still prefer the competitive version.