Unlike many of IP (Jurassic Park, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Marvel) and public domain (Sherlock Holmes, Medusa, Su Kong, Beowulf, etc.) characters featured in the previous boxes of the excellent Unmatched series from Restoration Games, I’m not particularly familiar with the Witcher universe. Yeah, I’ve read one of the graphic novels, but fantasy horror is not a preferred genre for me, so I didn’t go any farther. Haven’t read the novels or short stories, haven’t watched the TV show(s), haven’t played the video games…

…and that may leave you wondering: “Mark, why are you even the guy writing the review on these games tied to the Witcher franchise?” I’ll give you a couple of reasons:

• My son Collin & his good friend Owen were playtesters for these characters back when they were generic (non-IP) fantasy tropes… and were very positive about how well they worked.
• While I can’t comment extensively, on how well the Restoration team managed to capture the world of the Witcher, I have 140+ plays of the Unmatched system on my gaming “resume” – so I’m more than happy to wax eloquent on how these two new boxes fit into the ever-expanding world of the “battle of legends”.

The Play

I’m well aware that some of you have not had the opportunity to play the wonderful goodness that is Unmatched – so, a short primer on how the game works is in order. (Yes, I know, some of you have played before. A lot. You can skip to the next heading.)

Unmatched is a skirmish battle game, driven by card play and fought on a variety of boards. On your turn, you get two actions (and you can do the same action twice):

• Maneuver – draw a card from your personal deck & optionally move your fighter(s)
• Attack – play a card face-down to initiate a melee or ranged attack 
• Scheme – play a Scheme card from your hand for its effect

You win by reducing your opponent’s hero to zero hit points… either through combat or through “decking out” (forcing them to take hit points when their deck runs out and they have to draw).

If this sounds a lot like Star Wars: Epic Duels, you’re not wrong. That 2002 mass-market game is the forefather of this amazing combat system. (If you want more detail, I did a deep-dive into the differences in my original Unmatched review.)

Meet Our Heroes

The six (well, seven – but I’ll explain that better in a minute) new heroes in these two boxes have one thing in common besides their thematic connection to the Witcher universe: each of them has cards with ongoing effects in their deck. These cards, once played, remain active in front of the player until their discard requirement is fulfilled or another ongoing card is played.

The first box, Steel & Silver, contains the key figure in the Witcher story, Geralt of Rivia, as well as Ciri and the Ancient Leshen.

• Geralt
  • A balanced combat-oriented deck – Geralt is a melee character while his sidekick (Dandelion) is ranged.
  • Before beginning play, the player controlling Geralt gets to customize his deck with weapon, armor, and potion cards. (There are two options for each type of gear – Geralt puts the two identical cards of the type chosen into the deck.)
• Ciri
  • Ciri is a Source – meaning she’s has “a staggering but often uncontrollable power”. Both she and her sidekick (Ihuarraquax) are melee characters.
  • Almost half of Ciri’s cards have Source icons on them – the total number of Source icons in her discard pile powers up some of her cards… and if she has 7+ Source cards in her discard pile, effects on her cards cannot be cancelled.
• Ancient Leshen
  • Both the composition of his deck and his character power push the Ancient Leshen towards attacking – and his attacks are ranged.
  • His sidekicks (Wolves) move slightly faster than he does and are (no surprise here) melee characters.

The second box, Realms Fall, contains three decks and four heroes… yes, I’ll need to explain the math on this one for you.

• Yennifer & Triss
  • Both of these heroes use the same deck – whichever one you choose as the hero makes the other one the sidekick. (There is a double-sided sidekick disc to use.)
  • Their character powers are different:
    • Yennifer can boost her attacks.
    • Triss deals two damage to an adjacent fighter when she plays a scheme.
  • The majority of the cards in the deck are “Any” cards – which can be used by the hero or the sidekick. (This means that the sidekick can be a powerful ally.)
• Philippa
  • Philippa can draw up to a hand of four cards at the end of each turn – which is a tremendous power when you’re on the attack… but also an excellent way to speed towards “decking out”.
• Eredin
  • Yes, he’s creepy looking. So are his four Red Rider sidekicks.
  • He gets really angry (aka Enraged) if all of his sidekicks are defeated – his movement speeds up and his combat cards all get +1 strength. Additionally, some of his cards are more powerful when he’s Enraged.

The Battlefields

In my last Unmatched review (of the excellent Shakespeare-themed Slings & Arrows box), I complained about only getting a single map in a number of the later expansions. Well, my griping has ended – both of the Witcher boxes have two maps! (Thank you, kind Restoration Games people!)

Each box has a normal map (in other words, one without any special rules) and a map with some kind of variant set of rules.

• Steel & Silver’s “special” map uses one way movement lines in a number of places (though you can still attack across them in either direction.
• Realms Fall’s “special” map is a two-level ship – above & below decks – with multiple places to switch from one level to the other. It’s also one of the tightest maps in the Unmatched series – very “knife fight in a phone booth” kind of feel.

Updated Character Rankings

The difficulty rankings below for the universe of Unmatched heroes are presented to you, dear readers, courtesy of Mark Jackson (me!) and my sons (Braeden & Collin) – and Owen, Collin’s friend who has developed a major obsession with Unmatched: Battle of Legends. In total, the four of us have easily played Unmatched 700-800 times.

The new characters are in red.

Final Thoughts

Again, I’m not really familiar with the Witcher IP – but both of these boxes contain excellent maps as well as interesting to play characters. (My son is particularly fond of Philippa; I like the high-powered duo of Yennifer & Triss a lot. But we didn’t have a character that we disliked or didn’t enjoy playing.)

The ongoing element on many doesn’t overwhelm the basic game – it just adds one more level of decision-making in play. While I’d still recommend Robin Hood vs Bigfoot, Tales to Amaze!, or Battle of Legends Volume I as the best starter boxes, either of the Witcher sets is accessible to new players. And if you’ve got friends who adore the series/graphic novels/video games, so much the better.

A final reminder: each of the Unmatched boxes are playable on their own – and can be mixed and matched with other boxes for “battles across time”. (Example: Buffy & Hamlet vs. Geralt & the Winter Soldier.) The flexibility is part of the charm of the system… and is definitely what has kept my boys & I deeply interested in the game system.

Coming soon: two new unannounced boxes that we had the privilege to playtest that we loved + Ali vs Lee (yep, Muhammed Ali vs the very difficult to find Bruce Lee deck).

I have received review copies of Unmatched: Buffy, For King & Country, Teen Spirit, Slings & Arrows, and the two Witcher boxes… the rest of my Unmatched collection was purchased with my hard-earned cash. For those wondering, I did finally manage to sell my copy of Epic Duels.

The title of this review is a sly homage (or a goofy reference – take your pick) to a game I never owned but loved to play every time I went over to hang out with the kids across the street.