Line of Fire Burnt Moon - Undaunted But Not As We Know It

If it isn't intergalactic miners, it's hackers trying to make things difficult for us. The Lunar Frontier Authority is simply trying to make a better life for everyone amongst the stars. Of course, there's profit to be made, but that simply funds future endeavors. The hackers want to hold the moon to ransom, and not just the moon, but the entire power grid on it. You need to stop it. I want you to throw everything at them, make them wish they'd never tested us. Welcome to the Line of Fire, Burnt Moon.

Line of Fire Burnt Moon is a new deck-building lane battler from Osprey Games. We've covered the full range of their Undaunted series on the site, from the recent Undaunted 2200 Callisto to the original Undaunted Normandy.

Send In The Drones

Line of Fire Burnt Moon is listed as a card game, deck-building lane battler. It uses some mechanics from the awesome Undaunted series, but in a more compact package. It takes place in the same setting as Undaunted 2200 Callisto, with the LFA batting a group of hackers, rather than a group of protesting miners.

Line of Fire Burnt Moon keeps the deck-building elements, action, and damage elements of Undaunted, meaning that you play each turn using the cards in your hand. 1 card is played each turn for its initiative value, and the remaining 3 are used for actions, either to place a drone on one of the 5 lanes, activate a drone already in a lane that matches the card being played, or gain an effect from a personnel card.

When a unit is damaged in Line of Fire, as with Undaunted, you remove a matching card from your hand, discard pile, deck, or board in that order, meaning that taking damage also affects your ability to activate a unit in the future, possibly that turn. You start the game with a set deck, and certain cards allow you to draw from your supply to your discard pile, waiting for your current deck to run out so they can be shuffled in. This allows you to tailor your deck as you play, drawing in the units that will be the most useful to you.

Pick A Lane

The deck-building elements are where the similarities to Undaunted end. Rather than taking place on a map with tokens, each player has 5 lanes that they are trying to control. Line of Fire is won when either player has 8 control points on the 5 lanes, or if their opponent has no MOSS-type units on the board. This changes the style of play from Undaunted dramatically, removing the strategic movement of the map and replacing it with lane control. This makes the board space a lot more compact for Line of Fire, but also means that you're going to be in your opponent's face, right from the start.

This immediacy has an effect on game length too, and games of Line of Fire can be extremely fast compared to Undaunted. There's also no randomness in the attacks, with attack and defence values fixed to the units and zone, and modified by controlling the zone, having certain types of units in the lane, and having fortifications present. This means that you always know in advance if your attack will be successful or not, and puts a focus on the activation order that you will take each round.

Choose a Side

Line of Fire Burnt Moon has 2 different factions, the corporate LFA and the POSIWID hackers. They both come with identical decks and a set of 5 identical lanes and are identified by unique artwork and the icon colors (blue for the LFA and pink for POSIWID). I initially felt like I wanted a difference in the forces, the different troop types in Undaunted 2200 Callisto gave each force a unique feel, but after a few games, the tighness of play and the ability to tailor your deck as you play means that an initial deviation in forces could have a signification impact on balance.

The short length of Line of Fire games means that every turn counts, and poor draws can have a big impact. There's a balance to be found in going first (which is a big advantage as you can decimate your opponents' turn by removing cards from their hand), with high initiative cards usually having the best abilities, and once used for initiative, they can't be used that round, and saving that card for a big effect, if you get a chance to after your opponents turn.

The game length also means that if you are decimated, draw poorly, or make some bad supply draw choices, the game is usually over quickly, and you can jump straight back into another game. The quick setup and play also mean that you don't get heavily invested in a game, and losing and starting again isn't as painful as an evening-long strategic masterpiece.

It's also worth noting how well all the components fit together in the small box. Both forces have their own colored box to keep them separate, which also fits the fortifications and site tiles. The only other components are an initiative card, 4 player aid cards, and two tiny rulebooks, which makes the components as tight, clean, and compact as the table space it takes up, and the gameplay itself.

Line of Fire Burnt Moon Final Thoughts?

My first thought was, 'Why is it not called Undaunted? I love Undaunted and this is Undaunted, right?' But I think that the Line of Fire name makes it clear that while there are Undaunted elements, this is new, and while players of Undaunted will feel comfortable, players who find Undaunted too complex, random, or too large on the tabletop shouldn't approach this expecting any of those things.

Line of Fire Burnt Moon has gameplay as light and tight as the components that fit perfectly into the small box, but gameplay that well outgrows the small package. Games are fast and can be brutal, but the small play time means that if your opponent decimates you, you can get right back in for another quick game. The deck-building element means that small changes can have a big impact (good or bad), but the short game lengths mean that poor picks won't affect you for long. Players who like long-term deck-building strategy won't find it here, but players looking for a quick and sharp deck builder will love it.

The copy of the Line of Fire Burnt Moon used to produce this review was provided by Osprey Games.