Thrilla in Manila

Fellow Meeple Mountaineer Andrew Holmes recently published a review covering Unmatched: The Witcher - Realms Fall and Steel & Silver, and his opening comment mentioned that we at Meeple Mountain differ on our opinions of the Unmatched franchise. But that makes sense as different reviewers covering differently themed sets are going to land differently on their thoughts.

(The correct opinion is that Unmatched is awesome)

However, Andrew is right that Unmatched is a great system because of its simplicity, quick pace, and heavily contrasting roster of fighters. And like him, I’m the ideal demographic, but for different reasons. The original game, Star Wars: Epic Duels, was played dozens upon dozens of times by my friends in middle school and me. We even found custom heroes online and printed them out, and though they were wildly unbalanced, it was a blast nonetheless.

Fans of Unmatched will recognize Bruce Lee as a highly sought-after expansion, being the first single-character pack and, at times, running upwards of $250 on the secondary market. Fortunately for those patient enough, Bruce Lee has returned in both an affordable and memorable set, going toe-to-toe with the famous boxer Muhammad Ali. I wasn’t alive during their height of fame, but their quotes, stories, and larger-than-life personas live on through pop…

The post Unmatched: Lee vs. Ali Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

When Restoration Games launched the Unmatched series in 2019, the system was praised for its diverse character roster, a claim that’s stuck with it ever since. At the time of writing, there are now 75 hero decks, based on fictional characters and real people from around the world, with a Hellboy set due imminently. With an average of just over 15 new heroes released a year, we’ll hit 100 heroes before the end of 2028. The future as tabletop’s most accessible and diverse miniature fighting game looks safe, right?

Back in 2020 Kathleen Hartin wrote an article titled ‘Representation in Board Games Matters’. In the article, Kathleen highlighted a lack of representation of women in board gaming, with compelling evidence including poor representation in game covers, rulebooks, designers and reviewers.

It’s nice to think the tabletop world has moved on; whilst not perfect, things are certainly better than they were. At the time of Kathleen’s article, Unmatched felt like a sign of things to come. The then-released sets (Battle of Legends Volume One, Bruce Lee, Robin Hood vs. Bigfoot and Ingen vs. Raptors) drew on Greek, Arabian, British, Asian and North American sources and included 3 female and 5 male hero decks (plus cryptid Bigfoot, whose gender…

The post Unbiased – Is There a Representation Problem in Unmatched? appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Unmatched is a modern classic. Unmatched, you might say, in the genre of miniature combat games. Accessible rules, punchy fights, card art that turns heads. It’s fun, especially for those of us who don’t generally enjoy player-versus-player miniature fighting games.

And then there’s Unmatched Adventures, a cooperative take on the system. The best of both worlds: all the fun of combat but working together to defeat a common enemy.

A lazy design studio might simply have created automated opponents and left it at that. Restoration Games is not a lazy design studio. Yes, the bulk of the game is indeed an automated boss and its minions fighting the players until one side is defeated. But the team pushed beyond that basic experience, adding little pressure points that influence how you approach defeating the big baddie.

A downside is that each villain is restricted to its own scenario, tied to a specific board and rules additions. You can’t mix-and-match villains in the same way as you can with the heroes. Mothman always tries to destroy the bridges of Point Pleasant, presumably to cause transportation chaos and highlight America’s overreliance on the automobile. Meanwhile, the Martian Invader is exclusively focussed on dropping aliens into the cornfields of McMinnville…

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