Iron Kingdom – The Undercity Boardgame

Inside the World of Warmachine and Hordes, the Iron Kingdoms, there are tabletop and role playing games and even miniature board games. The latest spin-off board game is "The Undercity" (here seen the german version "Die Unterstadt").

The Undercity offers from 2 to 4 players a game with a run time between 60-120 minutes and is recommended for players 14 and up. Privateer Press prices the box at 94,99 USD or 79,95 EUR for the german version via Heidelberger Spieleverlag / Ulisses Spiele.

The board game contains:

• a rulebook
• a campaign guide with 7 linked adventures
• 44 miniatures
• 4 character sheets
• 203 cards
• 202 tokens and markers
• 8 dice
• a game board with 16 tiles
• a villains reference sheet
• a campaign tracker

The game board is made from tricker card board, foldable and printed with a dungeon design. It can be modified with 16 tiles of brickwork and gives you quite a lot of variation for the different scenarios.

The rules and the campaign are splitted into two full color books, in addition you receive four character sheets, a villians reference sheet, and a huge load of different tokens and markers, to keep track of the effects and progress of the games.

The minaitures are plastic casts from the existing Warmachine/Hordes range, the main actors are four heroes and a light warjack, two identical sets of villians in red and blue and three special characters in purple. A total of 44 miniatures, among them three warjacks and one heavy monstrosity. Those alone are sold for more than 100 USD in retail, the total value of the miniatures alone in this game is more than 300 USD.

The picture shows only the red set of villians, as they are identical with the blue one. Each set has 8 different miniatures;

• 5 Sword Thugs
• 4 Crossbow Thugs
• 4 Drudges
• 1 Gobber Cutthroat
• 1 Heavy ’Jack
• 1 Ogrun Brute
• 1 Rhulic Merc
• 1 Trollkin Scout

In purple, the "vip villians"

• 1 Cephalyx
• 1 Monstrosity
• 1 Ringleader

and the 4 heroes, along with the light warjack.

The miniatures are properly designed, as Privateer Press can make use of their tabletop range. The casting itself is good, but the material bends easily and many of the miniatures have warped bases and weapons. Most of it can be fixed with warm water, never the less the board game miniatures don't feel like they are up to the same level as for example the newer Fantasy Flight games, but should be on eye-level with Reaper Bones.
I won't cover the rules, as you can easily see the videos on the tutorial and game play, and get a more detailed and live view of them.

Conclusion
The Undercity is a solid product. The box is properly filled, lots of token and a good load of miniatures. But at the price of nearly 100 USD, others do better and / or are cheaper. If you compare Undercity for example with other miniature based "dungeon crawler" games, Zombicide Black Plague has 71 miniatures for the same price, Blood Rage is cheaper and has more detailled miniatures by Studio McVey. Of course, it is still much cheaper and offers more than Warhammer Quest Silver Tower.

Undercity battles the same "problems" as other game its size. It takes up a lot of space on the table, it takes its time to set up and it might be difficult to play more than one game at a game night, as the estimation of 60-120 minutes of game time is without the set up, questions and discussion during the game.

The overall conclusion is, that it is a okay-ish game. If you like Iron Kingdoms and are looking for a dungeon crawler with RPG elements or want something to supplement the role playing game, Undercity is a solid recommendation. Otherwise, the problem isn't that Undercity would be a bad game, it is good, but just not good enough to compete with the broad selection of competitors in the market.

Iron Kingdoms is a brand of Privateer Press