Unmatched: Stars and Stripes – Strategy for the 250th

If you follow The Family Gamers, you know we love Unmatched. We’ve reviewed almost every set released and bought most of the ones we didn’t review. We’ve appreciated nearly all of them, either immediately or after a series of plays. On this 250th anniversary year of the United States, Restoration Games has released a decidedly American set of characters to add to the cadre of fighters in the system.

As a reminder, Unmatched a card-driven fighting game published by Restoration Games. It supports 2-4 players age 10 or older. A game of Unmatched will take between 20 and 45 minutes.

So let’s take a look at Unmatched: Stars and Stripes. This set features George Washington, John Henry, Wyatt Earp, and Rosie the Riveter… in a mech suit. All of this set’s characters were real people albeit with legends buttressed by a heavy dose of American folklore.

Gameplay

For the uninitiated, start with our Unmatched: Cobble and Fog review, where we discuss the game mechanics in depth. Then, let’s dig into the particulars of this set.

The Board

Stars and Stripes includes a double-sided board with different maps: The Alamo and The White House. Both maps feature a lot of connectivity across spots and zones. The Alamo has a path through the middle, not unlike the Soho map in Cobble and Fog.

The White House map features four rooms (including the Oval Office, of course) and a courtyard. Each room only connects through doors, plus a few secret passages as well.

Neither map introduces new mechanics to Unmatched. Neither contains items or other features (like closable doors) – these are just new layouts to play through.

The Characters

It felt inevitable that any United States based set would include George Washington, and Rosie the Riveter feels logical as well. But Wyatt Earp and John Henry were interesting additions. They wouldn’t have been some of my first thoughts for a combat-based game (Teddy Roosevelt, anyone? Annie Oakley?).

But the execution of all four of these characters hits well. While I have preferences – which I’ll share below – I was impressed at how Restoration brought some wildly different mechanics together.

George Washington

We couldn’t start anywhere else. The quintessential military maverick, the English renegade himself. George Washington is a melee character who leads his Culper Spies around the board.

George starts with four ruse tokens. When he attacks, he may use a ruse token by placing it next to the card. Before the opponent chooses to defend (or not) they may discard a random card to remove the token.

What do these tokens do? So glad you asked. Ruse tokens add varying abilities to many of Washington’s attack cards.

Washington also features a fair number of abilities designed to manipulate the play field, the location of fighters, and more. This isn’t the general on his white horse leading battle from the front. This is the real General Washington, fighting undercover, using guerilla warfare and subterfuge to win the day.

John Henry

John Henry, the legendary Steel Drivin’ Man, was perhaps the most surprising character in the set. Henry has the most health in the set, hits the hardest, and he starts every battle with ten track tokens.

Henry puts down a token at the beginning of each turn on a space somewhere in his zone. When he travels across spaces with track tokens, those spaces don’t count against his movement. They have no impact on other fighters.

So, if he has a chance to put some tokens down Henry’s melee limitation isn’t much of a limitation at all. He can move across the board with ease while maneuvering, leaving his enemies in the dust.

Wyatt Earp

Maybe Wyatt is the least famous of the four, but he’s the character that seems to fit Unmatched best. The legendary law man and his buddy Doc Holliday are the only two ranged characters in this set. This mere fact is one of his big differentiators. The other is their unique ability. When Earp or Holliday win in combat, they may draw a card, gain a free attack action, or move one space.

Not unlike George Washington, Wyatt’s abilities prove him to be wily and slippery. But unlike Washington’s tactical, clandestine manipulation, you can’t shake the idea that Wyatt Earp is staring you in the face when he collects more tools by drawing cards, or attacks again when you expect him to be finished.

You can almost imagine him grinning ear-to-ear as he presses the attack, then steps away to force his opponents to chase him.

Rosie the Riveter

The legendary personification of the women’s manufacturing forces of World War II, Rosie the Riveter is a symbol of feminism and female strength. Although the classic image of Rosie is one of her in a bicep flex, it’s her mind that is hard at work in her Unmatched character. Because Rosie isn’t just herself, but the operator of the powerful Freedom XK-II mech suit.

Each turn, Rosie activates one of her four upgrade tokens. The Sedgley Fist Gun adds one to Rosie’s attacks, while the the Whizbang makes her a ranged character. The Cavity Magnetron allows Rosie to draw a card after an attack. Finally, the Merlin Engine adds one to Rosie’s movement during maneuvering. When all four upgrades are active at the end of a turn, Rosie must deactivate them all to begin the cycle again.

Many of Rosie’s cards manipulate this upgrade activation cycle, allowing Rosie to activate additional upgrades or deactivate upgrades for perks. Part of deactivation requires moving an upgrade to the end of the row of upgrades (and they’re upgraded in order). So, Rosie can manipulate the upgrade line to maximize her advantage.

Joined by Wendy the Welder, Rosie is a formidable foe whose constantly adjusting abilities are hard to predict and counter.

Impressions

Together, these four characters represent a diverse set of abilities and play styles. We’re always going to be open about our love for this game system and thoughtful about how Restoration approaches every character, even when a set doesn’t work for us.

In truth, three of the characters in Stars and Stripes weren’t actually dreamed up by Restoration. Rosie the Riveter was the winner of a Restoration-sponsored fan deck-design contest. John Henry and George Washington were runners-up.

American ingenuity and flexibility seem to be the central themes of Stars and Stripes. With the exception of John Henry, the special trait of each character leans into all of the primary outcomes of an interaction – improving attack, defense, or movement. This does two things: First, players can play their characters the way they want. If you prefer a run-and-gun style, you may choose to take extra attacks with Wyatt Earp’s abilities. If you want to stay away from your opponent, you may manipulate Rosie’s upgrades to keep her a ranged character.

Washington’s ruse tokens allow players to toy with their opponents. Choose to bluff your opponent into discarding cards, or genuinely use them for benefits. Unlike the special abilities of characters like Sherlock Holmes, the maddening feature of Ruse tokens is the fact that your opponent always chooses whether or not you’ll activate it – all while you toy with them.

John Henry is the most one-dimensional character in the set as it seemed like there was a defined “strategy” against him. First, choose a character with range if possible. If not, press the attack early in the game before his power grows.

We love how these characters blend with the rest of the stable of Unmatched characters and we’ve been experimenting with crossing sets, as that is what it’s designed for. In fact, we’re planning an all-American cooperative Tales to Amaze adventure very soon!

If you’d like to join in the American celebration, pick up your own copy of Unmatched: Stars and Stripes directly from Restoration Games, on Amazon, or at your friendly local game store!

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Restoration Games provided a promotional copy of Unmatched: Stars and Stripes for this review.

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