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Undaunted 2200: Callisto
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The award-winning Undaunted series takes to the stars: build your decks, ready your mechs, and battle for dominance over the bleak, resource-rich moon of Callisto. Jovian Moon Base – Callisto, 2200 CE. Tensions have arisen between the conglomerate of Earth’s leading corporations that funded the base, and the mining collective tasked with operating it. Protests have erupted, strikes been called, and contracts broken. Private security forces have been hired, industrial mining vehicles repurposed for combat, and long-disused military mechs reawoken. The battle for Callisto is about to begin: it’s time to choose your side.
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Description
The award-winning Undaunted series takes to the stars: build your decks, ready your mechs, and battle for dominance over the bleak, resource-rich moon of Callisto.
Jovian Moon Base - Callisto, 2200 CE. Tensions have arisen between the conglomerate of Earth's leading corporations that funded the base, and the mining collective tasked with operating it. Protests have erupted, strikes been called, and contracts broken. Private security forces have been hired, industrial mining vehicles repurposed for combat, and long-disused military mechs reawoken. The battle for Callisto is about to begin: it's time to choose your side.
Undaunted: Callisto is a standalone game in the Undaunted series, adapting the core gameplay of previous games to a new science fiction setting. Play across a stunningly illustrated map in two-player, four-player, and solo game modes. Navigate the barren lunar landscape, manoeuvre to seize dominant high-ground positions, and utilize your formidable mechs to gain control of Callisto and its precious resources.
Ages: 14+
Players: 1/2/4
Playing Time: 45-60 minutes
Contents: 4 double-sided boards, Rulebook, Solo Rulebook, 135+ playing cards, 70+ tokens, 12 dice
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.
Undaunted 2200: Callisto (U2C), is the latest exciting installment in David Thompson and Trevor Benjamin’s innovative wargame series taking us off-world and into the future in a Sci-Fi setting. This is not an overly complex game but some of the concepts take some getting used to and even though I’ve played every Undaunted game so far I took a while to grasp all the nuances.
This How To Play, therefore is not going to be a didatic dissertation of every aspect of gameplay – both Rodney Smith’s video and Thom Newton’s Review cover that but more an overview of the salient points. Furthermore, players will be coming to Undaunted 2200: Callisto from different angles as either existing Undaunted players or newcomers.
(I’ll cover later a more in-depth look at the Solo system.)
New to Undaunted? – Listen Up!
Forces are organised as:
Squads comprising a number of different Units with the same designation letter
Units are named specialist types with a corresponding Combat Counter on the map
Units consist of 2-5 individual combatants each with their own Combat Card
Mechs – a standee on the map and 5 Combat Cards – with their own squad letter
Command Cards – Overall Commander and Squad Leaders provide support to their respective Squads. They do not have a Combat Counter on the map
These cards will either start in your Deck or in your Supply
The Deck holds those actively engaged. If they have a Combat Counter or Standee on the map they can take casualties
The Supply is the reserve area. Here they are “safe” but if their Unit gets reduced to zero before they are drafted they’re removed along with their Combat Counter.
Interference – your Deck also has 2 of these nuisance cards which clutter up your hand. Previously called “Fog of War” cards which reflects the main way you collect them i.e. when you Scout out new areas. They’re only removed with a Recon action from a Scout unit.
Scouting for Boys (and Girls)
Undaunted uses an area movement system and, importantly, you can not move a unit into an area unless it has been Scouted and marked as such with your Scouted Token. These are placed by a unit that has the Scout Action or by a Commander’s Pathfinder Action. Subsequently a unit with the Control Action can flip the Token to the Control side for claiming Objectives.
Opposing Units can be in the same area and both can have Scouted tokens simultaneously but only 1 side can have a Control Token. If they have taken over Control from their opponent their token is flipped back to Scouted.
An area that you have Scouted stays Scouted for the rest of the Scenario. Note that each Scenario will start with some areas on both sides Scouted and/or Controlled and in Undaunted 2200: Callisto‘s case these are pre-printed on the map boards.
Showing Initiative
Each round take the top 4 cards of your Deck to form your hand. Pick 1 to determine Initiative and you will play the other 3, with the player with the Initiative going first.
This is a tricky decision to make as the better cards have higher values but if you use them to gain Initiative you won’t get to use them on the other hand going first may mean you can suppress or eliminate Units before your opponent can use them.
A Unit can be eliminated with a single hit if you have not used Command cards to Bolster it with reserves from Supply
Rounds repeat until one side has met the Victory conditions either Objectives under your Control or opposing Units Neutralised
What’s Different about Undaunted 2200 Callisto?
Two words – Terrain and Mechs
On a Higher Plane
Undaunted 2200: Callisto has 2 levels of elevation. Those areas that are marked as elevated and the rest.
Being in an Elevated area gives you advantage to both Attack and Defence. You score a Hit with an attack by meeting or surpassing a target number on a die roll. This is often at least 6 or above. Undaunted 2200: Callisto has three different types of dice: the standard black D10, the generous green D12 and the mean red D8
On the same level you use the standard black D10 – giving a 50% shot at 6+.
Below your target – Red D8 – down to a 37.5% chance
Above your target – Green D12 – now it’s up to 58.3%
The effect of the difference varies with the total needed and units on an Elevated area more quickly become impossible to hit because unlike previous Undaunted titles there is no guaranteed hit number on any of the dice. So if you need a 9 on a red D8, forget it!
Bridge the gap
Elevation leads us, almost literally, to Bridges. As you would expect a Bridge will span the gap between two Elevated areas and it may be more than 1 section long. The Deck of the Bridge sits above the lower Foundation level and the Elevated end areas it joins to are its Supports
An area containing a Bridge and its Foundation is considered all 1 area for Scouting, Move distance or Range calculations but has the following restrictions:
You can not move from a Foundation to a Deck or vice versa. Nor can you Attack a Unit if the Foundation and Deck are in the same area.
You can conduct ranged Attacks from one Bridge area to another either Deck or Foundation as long as it is part of another Bridge.
Bridges can make for tactical choke points particularly if the lower level is impassable to some Units often Mechs.
Undaunted 2200: Callisto also has interiors on some boards, introducing Doors which do the usual thing Doors do. They start closed and can be opened by a Unit spending an action in an area with an associated Equipment icon (button!). Strangely, this (magic) button allows the opening of any door on the map. Alternatively you can blast it open with a successful Attack. Once open they stay open, particularly with the second method!
Mechs
While these are somewhat similar to AFVs in other Undaunted. They are different. It took me a while to work them out, not helped by the example in Scenario 1 showing Merc Combat Counters instead of Standees, so I’ll spare you the confusion.
The 5 different LFA Mechs: Artemis; Centurion; Hades; Lyssa and Vulcan have unique names and abilities. The largest Centurion like the Breaker’s Drill also provides a cover bonus for non-mech Units in the same area.
There are 5 Combat Cards for an LFA Mech: 1 x Commander; 2 x Navigator; 2 x Gunner. The Drill has 3 Crew cards. Usually the Mech Commander will start in your Deck and it will be their job to Bolster in the others. The Navigator will Scout and Recon; the Gunner can Attack or Suppress and the Commander can Move, Attack, Suppress or Bolster.
A hit on a Mech can remove any of the crew and you have to hit as many as have been Bolstered to take it down.
Note their different abilities. Most are close combat
Artemis – Close Combat Attack 2 – full range Suppress 3
Centurion – Close Combat Attack 2 – full range Suppress 3 – provides cover
Hades – Range 1: Pulse 2
Lyssa – Range 2: Attack 2 Blast v personnel – Attack 2 v standees
Vulcan – Range 1: Attack 2 – full range Suppress 4
All bar Lyssa can only Attack/Suppress personnel
That’s All Folks!
That should be enough to get you going. I’ll do a Separate HTP for Solo play.
Note: an Errata sheet has been produced by Osprey here.
Zatu Score
You might like
- New terrain mechanics
- Sci fi setting may be more to your taste than WWII
- Surprisingly quick to play, about an hour per encounter
Might not like
- No more modular boards, can feel a bit limiting
- Not the most consequential of campaigns