Unmatched (Witcher Sets)

 On the second day of Christmas, my children played with me… Two Unmatched Witcher sets… and a reaction game I played with all three!

Today, I’m diving into the two brand-new Witcher sets as part of the Unmatched system. As a huge fan of both the Unmatched franchise and The Witcher series, I’ve been looking forward to these sets. I’ve played them with Jack twice, plus another six or seven games with a friend to prepare for an upcoming school tournament in January.

The Witcher Sets

“Unmatched: The Witcher Steel & Silver” and “Unmatched: The Witcher Realms Fall” are the latest additions to the Unmatched line, based on the popular Witcher games from CD Projekt Red. These sets introduce six and a half characters (I’ll explain that in a moment) and four new maps.

A major addition is the use of ongoing effects. Each character has abilities that persist as long as you meet specific conditions. These effects can be very strong—like healing one health per turn or boosting attack power—but keeping them active can mean playing sub-optimally, adding a new layer of strategy.

Characters in Steel & Silver

• Geralt of Rivia: A melee character with a customisable deck. If you know what is in your opponent’s deck, Geralt is excellent, as you can tailor your deck to counter them.
• Ciri: A strong character who is reliant on card draw. She gets better as her power cards move into the discard pile, but bad draws can leave her struggling.
• Leshen: A ranged character with limited movement, supported by fast wolf sidekicks. Strong positioning is key, and he’s vulnerable if his wolves go down.

Characters in Realms Fall

• Philippa: A glass cannon with only 12 health but huge damage potential. She draws up to four cards every turn, making her aggressive but prone to burning out quickly. Reminds me a lot of playing the Raptors where you need to end the game in 5 or 6 turns.
• Eredin: Gains bonuses when his sidekicks are dead, but managing them effectively is tricky. He’s my least favourite so far as actually becoming enranged isn’t as easy as it first appears.
• Yennefer & Triss: At the start of the game, you choose one as your hero and the other as your sidekick. They share a deck but play differently based on your choice, effectively making them two characters in one. They have some extremely strong cards and the internet community generally sees these as the strongest in the set.

The 4 new maps include two simple ones, a one-way map (like the Raptors set), and a two-level boat map, which I personally find frustrating to play on. The Witcher Sets Overview

The Unmatched System as a Whole

In its most basic form, Unmatched can be described more as a card game with miniature movement to provide positioning and tactics. While it can be played as a 2v2 or three-all-against-all format, by far the best way to play Unmatched is 1v1.

You choose your characters, take your deck, as well as a health dial, and place your character in a relevant starting space. On your turn, you can do two things. Firstly, you can move, which also means that you draw a card. This draw is not optional and must always happen whenever you move, which is positive but can also be a negative if you are starting to run out of cards. Secondly, you can attack, which usually involves playing a card face down that your opponent can then choose to defend by playing one of their defense cards face down. You can also use a scheme, which is essentially an effect that doesn’t involve the other player defending.

This continues back and forth until one player is down to zero health and the game is over. What really appeals about Unmatched is that while the rules are relatively simple, the complexity comes through the abilities on the cards as well as each character having a base ability that works just for that character.

The sets you can buy can obviously be used as standalone board games, but the real appeal comes with mixing and matching all of the various characters against each other from any of the sets, allowing for some very interesting matchups. This means that every game you play can be potentially different. I have every single set available (including the brand new Slings & Arrows) except the single release of Deadpool, which is extremely rare and retails in the hundreds of pounds. What is, however, good is that Restoration Games have openly said that they are happy with the use of proxies as long as official artwork is not used. I have a fan artwork version of Deadpool that we use alongside the main sets.

The real appeal, therefore, is the creative matchups that can be had as well as the interesting IPs that can be found in the various sets. Do you want to know what happens if Buffy the Vampire Slayer fights a T-Rex? How about if Spider-Man enters into a battle with Medusa? Or maybe having Dracula square off against Hamlet for a battle of literary characters? We know the characters based on the Witcher IP are coming later in the year, and as time goes on, I fully expect to see more and more interesting characters brought into the fold.

Games generally last about 30 minutes and it definitely has a “one more go” appeal. In the school where I work, I have about 15 boys who play this daily, and we have just finished a tournament.

Getting into Unmatched can be a little bit daunting as there is a lot to buy. Most of the sets are good, and I would especially recommend either of the Legends or Cobble and Fog sets if you are looking to get started. The Marvel sets are great fun and obviously will appeal to people who like the Marvel licenses, but it’s worth noting that these aren’t always the simplest characters. Equally, and this definitely appeals to me, some of the chosen Marvel characters are fairly unusual, such as Squirrel Girl and Cloak and Dagger. There’s a brand new set called Slings and Arrows based around Shakespeare that I am really enjoying, but I would not recommend it as a first set as most of the characters in it are quite complex to play.

I will definitely do a separate review of it, but there is also a set called Unmatched Adventures, which also has a cooperative mode but still allows the use of those characters in regular battles. This is an excellent set and would also be a strong recommendation for those new to the system.

You definitely can play this with younger kids; I have played this with Jack when he was seven, but it does require reasonable reading skills.

Unmatched has become pretty much the main board game not just in my life, but a significant part, bizarrely, of my day-to-day work. It is therefore lucky that the Unmatched system is excellent and extremely rewarding to play.

All of the production values are really high. The miniatures are really nice and everything is extremely well presented. I’m also pleased that the same style and design of the box has been consistent throughout the entire series.

I am not saying, like me, you should go out and buy everything, but I would wholeheartedly recommend you pick up a set that interests you. You never know, this time next year you could be having to alter the shelving in your workshop to fit all of the relevant sets on it.

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The Witcher sets are excellent additions to the series and a great entry point if you’re a fan of the Witcher universe. For newcomers, I’d also recommend starting with “Cobble & Fog” or one of the Legends sets.

Unmatched has become a huge part of my life, both at home and at work. It’s quick, endlessly replayable and perfect for anyone who loves creative, character-driven gameplay.

Currently, the Witcher sets are only available in the USA and are due for release in Europe in the Spring.