The Greatest WW2 Board Game, Ever - Undaunted: Stalingrad Review 

This amazes me how SUSD got so big that studios are dropping in to say "thanks".

I'm sure SUSD would be happy to take the time to review Undaunted: Vietnam in the future, hint hint 😉😉

The game looks so simple. You sure you need manuals? 😂

@@onebigadvocado6376 lol. I was thinking another campaign/legacy game set in the Pacific, but hitting up another war would be a good change too.

Oh, please do the Pacific. That would be great to see. There were so many cool battles, and you could go nuts with the ships!

Thank you for your effort. Nicely done

This is huge. I sigh in frustration every time I hear that a new game is "legacy" as a developing country player because games here are so expensive that you can't afford a game that you can't resell. Thanks for thinking about your fellow players!

@@caiofernandoI think it’s relevant to say the reviews ones say the campaign involves no damage/stickers etc. so you can replay it or sell it. It’s not one play and done

Ooh yes, love this! I do enjoy permanently altering my board game pieces, RPG books etc because I love making things mine and having a unique experience out of it with physical marks to show, but it's nice not to make that the default experience. I sometimes prefer the inverse, especially if it's an expensive game it can feel _so_ wrong to permanently devalue it!!

I had to watch it a few times in slow mo.. Was a great scene

I nearly called the police. #teamTom

Hahaha yessss. I watched it numerous times before even stumbling onto this comment. They really sold the hit and fall!

That is probably the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in a SUSD video, just a flawless joke and execution in every way

😂that was perfect!

FUBAR game mechanism.

Quinn just has standard something to complain about with war games. I actually don't think he would recognize intentional mechanics if he saw them, if he felt slightly bad about playing them. He's too critical.

Yeah, but this is not a simulation game, it's a light-hearted gateway-ish game, so a little more visual cue would be appreciated.

Best WW2 game of all time lol

Indeed. I was privileged to be working at Sega when it was released, and I thought it was brilliant.

Kinda like that game is much better than it has any right to be.

Valkyria Chronicles is great but uh, is that how British people pronunce valkyria? Not trying to be mean I just think it's funny

if undaunted stalingrad had anime art for the soldiers THEN it would be the best WW2 game of all time

Undaunted: 40K sounds very appealing actually...

That does sound kind of amazing.

Well their next game is Undaunted in space, so maybe that'll be it.

Totally agree. If you didn't get a photoshoot as a reward, you got a piece of metal on some ribbon. Maybe through playing the game (or watching the review) some may be inclined to read a little about what went on during the battle of Stalingrad and the wider Eastern front.

Yeah and complaining about not understanding the flow of a battle (the examples he made) is a bit weak too

This was a good one. Cracked me up too.

Not to start an only tangentially-related discussion, but isn't Combat Commander supposed to be sort of a "new version" of ASL? (If it is, then mentioning Combat Commander would also cover ASL, to some extent at least.)

Which game is as you so thoroughly describe? 🤔

@@CareyMcDuff There are some ideas that Combat Commander takes from ASL (well, that have kind of become standard in many wargames as a result of ASL), I believe the designer said it was a big influence (as was a card game called Up Front!), and they cover quite similar subject area (squad based infantry combat from platoon scale up to company scale, though ASL does go a bit larger). However, it is quite a different beast. Combat Commander is complex for most people's idea of a boardgame, but for a *wargame* it is actually quite streamlined, while ASL is *very* complex. A large part of the gameplay in Combat Commander comes from the hand management mechanics, which simulates a lot of the "friction" of command abstractly, not allowing you to do many things unless you have the correct card, and information is limited to players by not knowing what they will draw or what their opponent has. ASL instead tends to allow the player to have total information and the ability to *try* to do anything, but then simulates the difficulties more mechanically with requirements to roll dice and/or applying modifiers and the like. Also, Combat Commander doesn't *really* do vehicles (there are some in a couple of the expansions, but they are a bodge), the system is solely focussed on infantry combat.. Basically, a lot of dedicated ASL players don't like Combat Commander. They think it is too random and abstract, maybe even a little silly, it doesn't have the scope that ASL does, and it doesn't have tanks! However, while I love Combat Commander, I took one look at the ASL 'rulebook' (actually a binder the inside of which is literally covered with tables, dividers which are covered in tables, and pages that are full of abbreviations and cross references) and just went "Welp, no, not for me." I wouldn't ever imagine trying to introduce a non-wargamer to ASL, while Combat Commander I have taught non-wargamers to play.

@@triangulan Thanks! Very interesting; I hadn't heard these details before.

It has a ww2 flavor, not a wargame is a card game were you work with probabilities.

If it helps, tanks played a really small role in Stalingrad. It was all about the infantry.

I don't think he's calling out the models, he's just saying they should have nicknames and a bit more personality to them as they crop up again and again as characters in the game.

I'm happy with them using the model number or variation. Guess you could have included unique art or decals to the vehicles to give them some personality?

For all anyone cared, you could have named them "Marie, Bertha and Konstantina", with a small id somewhere so people who actually cared could know you chose the t34 that was specifically there that day when the fifth battallion or whatever. Soldiers gave tanks names for a reason. Because it made them feel for them and because soldiers are people. I agree there must be accuracy, but not in the way of enjoyment and emotional investment.

@@JuanCLeal I agree. However, I think Stalingrad in particular is probably not the best scenario to develop attachments to anyone or anything: the shelf life of men and vehicles was very short. As an aside, there's a guy over at BoardGameGeek who claims he is Russian and is upset that Osprey got every detail wrong: the Red Army uniforms are wrong for the period and the names are also wrong (a woman sniper has a man's nickname, for example). He is upset because he claims Osprey, which specializes in military history, should know better 🤷🏻‍♂️

There's no reason you can't simply make up your own rules for doing so, don't let their rules limit your play!

Which in turn led to the Germans developing stronger self-propelled guns such as the Brümbär and Sturm Tiger.

The utility of armored vehicles in Stalingrad is debated. The rubble certainly didn't help though.

They can push the rubble no? I mean they drove hundreds of miles, sitting in a tank has gotta be better than freezing outside

@@ximbabwe0228Tanks work well in space where they can move around quickly. The rubble and the limited site lines negated that advantage. Also, the turrets aren't designed to shoot up. Many of the buildings of Stalingrad were made of reinforced concrete, and still stood even after being bombed. So when the tanks came into the city, they could sometimes be ambushed from above.

Tanks even in the modern era do not do well in cities. They are just too vulnerable. In Chechnya the rebels easily destroyed Russian tanks for example sometime with nothing more than gasoline and blankets. In Ukraine the Russians have pretty much given up on tanks and switched to using artillery because tanks just aren't viable when Anti tank weapons are so much more cost effective.

Finally someone Mentions Advanced Squad Leader which IS the BEST wargame simulation of WWII Cause it actually recognizes that WWII was a WORLD war Not just Yanks and Germans and occasionally the Soviets Every single nation that fought in WWII gets recognised along with their own equipment Nothing else comes close

If we are going for another game in the series with a more narrative feel to it I would love something like the Battle of Shanghai. It would be interesting since you can have things like giving access to suicide bombers for the Chinese after playing with the same soldiers for a bit, and then giving you the option to just permanently remove them from the campaign in exchange for removing a tankette. For those who just want something new to play with you can give the Japanese chemical weapons though that may be a bit too grim for most. It would give them more time to refine planes too before a Pacific Campaign which would probably have carriers in some way. That and its a great way to shed some light on another part of the war.

Lol I immediately thought of all the great ww2 wargames out there. But I know he doesn't play those so I'll let it slide.

Yeah, saying it's 'even better' than Memoir '44 is a big tip off they haven't played too many war games. M'44 is a fun game but isn't even close to a war game.

The claim is so absurd at so many levels that it's not worth the effort.

Permanent disadvantage can be easily solved by a handicap system or some houseruling. What Quinns describes worries me more - almost sounds like this game is a programming game where you need to think all your moves for the whole game, and if you make a mistake you lose pitifully

Quinns' cons mostly sound like a war campaign simulation being an accurate war campaign simulation. Taking the game on its own terms, the only one that seems fair is complaining about not getting emotionally attached to your soldiers. Because that would have been just another terrible thing about war for them to visit upon you.

@@mydemon In No Pun Included's review they made the point that you can always just resign from a scenario if you have no chance, thus saving the lives of your men for when they might actually make a difference.

Agreed. I've added a similar comment to people arguing about playing as Nazi's. You're not playing as Nazi's, your playing as Germans (or Nazi German)y and their axis partners.

@@jonkilner8816 No, you're playing as Nazis. That doesn't mean everyone in the Wehrmacht at the time was a zealous fascist, but they did, factually, fight for the Nazis, which makes them Nazis; that's their material position. It's more important to counteract the myth of the so-called "clean Wehrmacht" than it is to go "not all Wehrmacht", especially today.

@@shaleyaregenherz so by following your logic, if I pick the other side, I'm choosing to play as Communists? Fighting for Nazi Germany didn't make you a Nazi. Just as much as fighting for the Soviet's didn't make you a Communist.The postwar denazification process didn't automatically classify membership of the Wehrmacht as counting towards being a Nazi. None of my comments have perpetrated the clean Wehrmacht myth. The purpose of my comments is to correct people's views that Nazi/German/Wehrmacht/Heeres etc are one and the same thing. They're not. By calling every German a Nazi in the third Reich period over simplifies what you're trying emphasis in your comments.

Idk it does seem like a problem if you spent 45 minutes trying to optimize your kit beforehand. Same reason I stopped playing warhammer

@@wishesandfishes but that’s how war is

​@@crowwick7652but its not war, its a game thats supposed to be fun, and that really doesnt sound fun. I guess its the debate of Accuracy vs Playability

@@christopherfloody5555 I play some games for fun and sometimes I play games because I enjoy being challenged.

I really do not like overly complicated wargames. You can talk about realism but at the end of the day it's still just cardboard and paper abstraction. The games played by the DoD to analyze actual potential conflicts aren't nearly as complicated. Nothing wrong with enjoying them of course, but I personally wouldn't vote for World at War as the greatest ww2 game. Simpler, more elegant titles such as Stalingrad '42 are much better in my opinion.

I think the elegance of the system makes the game feel lighter than it actually is. Also, best rulebook ever written, IMO.

CC is the best. Also, I'm not sure the image they showed was CC. The art is different and there seems to be tank. Great War Commander maybe?

@@nebulon82 That photo threw me off, too. I think you are correct.

@@nebulon82 it’s Combat Commander battle pack Fall of the West with special tank counters from the C3i magazine. The tanks in the Battle pack are multiple counters.

what do you love about it?

If this stuff is what you're into I would recommend the podcast Hardcore History: Ghosts of the Ostfront

Have you heard about World at War or Advanced Third Reich? They all are at the same level of detail and complexity! World in Flames is great too but IMHO WaW was the real deal.

@@fedecano7362 I owned Advanced Third Reich but never got it to the table and it got lost in a move. No experience with WaW.

He likes Spirit Island.

It has more, a campaign is 15 missions but depending on how they go you play different missions in each campaign

@@scotthaggerty7755 interesting. You know how many missions it has?

Weeell in the mission book he was flipping through map layouts labelled like "#52" so I'd assume at leastthat many. Don't know if they're all *super* distinct or if it's just like "same map as #43 but different starting conditions"

The city gets destroyed as you play, it could have been better looking before destruction.

I've got the same question!

Just my opinion, start with the first one, enjoy the progression.

Hope you enjoy it!

Yes.

It looks fun tk have the whole map out though, but also fairly impractical, both for your individual game, and for life.

I agree.

Git gud. Seriously tho, there is imbalance as game is trying to be true to history as much as possible, but everything is win-able once you master the playstyle of your side, you need to play Italians and Brits in absolutely different way (for Italians having initiative at all cost is everything, for example). There's a good comment on SUSD's site under Normandy review (i think) about it.

@@VeeeeryyyFaaaastSlooooth even with optimal play there are some wildly unbalanced scenarios in NA. But worse than the balance is that in many of them there's only one obvious strategy and no room to experiment - especially for the Italians where many scenarios they barely have anything to do other than shoot at the enemy and hope for good rolls. I think the issue with NA is that because the scenario objectives are more concise and straight to the point, it can feel more swingy and dependent on luck. The vehicle system can also feel a bit fiddly and "gamey" as simply leaving your vehicle can render your opponent's deckbuilding obsolete.

Playing North africa neither of us felt like we were ever doing more than running to the optimal position and doing a 10 minute roll off. It was awful. But it felt like there should have been a good game there