As a child growing up in the south – eastern part of Europe, my friends and I would always debate on who would win a fight between Bruce Lee and Van Damme, or if Jackie Chan could take on Chuck Noris. The latter turned out to be a non-question as everybody knows that if you want a list of Chuck Norris’ enemies, just check the extinct species list. All in all, the Unmatched system almost answered these questions by pitting titular characters against each other. Sherlock Holmes, Medusa, Little Red Riding-Hood are just a couple of the available characters you can play as and now with the addition of Unmatched Battle of Legends Volume 3, you can add: Loki (the Norse God, not the Marvel variant), Pandora, Chupacabra and Black Beard in the mix.
Like all other titles in the series, Unmatched Battle of Legends Volume 3 is an asymmetric board game where players can play unique characters with unique abilities and unique card decks, with the sole objective of attacking the other player and bringing their life total down to 0.
Game setup and flow
The setup for any unmatched game is a pure treat. Just select the character you want to play as, take that character’s deck and miniature. Don’t forget to add its sidekick in the mix, if any. Place the boardgame on the table and decide the first player. That player will draw 5 cards and set its mini on the first player area, marked with 1. The other player draws 5 cards and places its mini in the second player area, marked with 2. If you are playing with more than 2 players do the same steps for player 3 and 4. Literally the setup takes less time than it took me to write about the set-up.
The flow of the game is pretty straight forward. Each player, in turn, takes 2 actions. They can: manoeuvre, which means to move up to their movement limit and draw a card from their deck, they can play a scheme card for its effect, or if they are close enough or in the same area of the map, they can attack another player either by playing an attack card (red card) or a versatile card (purple one). The player who is attacked will be allowed to defend himself by using either a defend card (blue card) or a versatile card (purple one). Each player places its card face down, then simultaneously both players reveal their cards. After the card effects are settled, the value of the defending card is subtracted from the attacking card and the defender takes that amount of damage. Nothing happens if the cards are equal in strength or the defenders card value is higher than the attack card. Eventually after enough tussling, one player life total will become 0 and that player will lose the game.
The Good
Nearly 17% of my recorded games are Unmatched games. Since 2022 when I have discovered this system of play, I logged almost 200 games in BG Stats application so it is safe to assume that I play around 50 games yearly. Now let’s look at why on Earth would I dedicate so much of my limited gaming time to Unmatched. Is it because I tend to obsess about something I like? Maybe oooor it may just be best play system I have seen since Magic the Gathering.
Firstly, everything about this game screams ease of play. The setup takes 5 minutes, the rules explanations another 5 minutes and after a few matches I promise you a game of Unmatched will not take more than 30 minutes. And yes, Unmatched Battle of Legends Volume 3 is no exception to this.
A second strong point of the series, is the huge roster of characters. As I am writing this there are 69 characters available in the system, with another 10+ arriving in 2026. Oh, and did I mentioned that you have multiple IPs you can select from? If you love gothic horror, you can see who would win in a fight between Dracula and Buffy; or maybe you like dinosaurs and you always debated who would win between a pack of raptors and a T-rex (spoiler it’s the T-rex and it’s not even close); or you are Marvel fan or a Witcher fan and you wanted to see who would rain Sorcerer Supreme between Yennifer and Dr. Strange. You can mix and match as your heart desires. This high interchangeability between characters makes the system fresh with each new release so to this end Unmatched Battle of Legends Volume 3 is a perfect new addition to the roster of heroes.
However, my biggest selling point towards these games is the high asymmetry between characters, their abilities and their play pattern. And although games with high asymmetry between factions take a long time to master, here I’m looking at you Root, for Unmatched Battle of Legends Volume 3 or any other set in the series this it’s not the case.
The Bad
There are truly few things I can complain in regards to the Unmatched system or about Unmatched Battle of Legends Volume 3. Volume 3, like all Unmatched sets, has an issue with the player count. Although advertised as a 2 to 4 player games, Unmatched is a 2-player game true and true. If you are a glutton for punishment and you decide to play a 3-player game, I can guarantee you one of the following two outcomes. Either two players will duke it out just so that the survivor can be picked off by the 3rd player who is virtually unharmed or after initially duking it out those 2 players will gang up on the third one essentially transforming the game back into a 2-player game. Can you feel the tension? Me neither. In a 4-player game the play dynamic is a bit more palatable but still weak in my opinion. You can either play a 2 vs 2 game which is essentially a 2-player game with extra steps or go free for all which will add the politics dimension to the game. The free for all variant is less about characters ability and more about convincing other people you are not a threat and act friendly up to the point where everyone is at a low health and you don’t need to pretend any more. I love negotiation games so this doesn’t bother me but this type of politicking is not for everyone and I feel the game wasn’t intended to be played like that.
If I am aloud to nit-pick and I am because I am writing this, Unmatched Battle of Legends Volume 3 is on the heavier side for an Unmatched game. Except Chupacabra who is pretty straight forward, the other characters require some manoeuvring and careful planning to win so to this end the set is not the best intro point in the series for somebody who hasn’t played the game before and is a new boardgame player in general.
Conclusion
I think I rambled and gushed enough about this set and the Unmatched system overall, so it is time to bring this one to a close with the traditional who is this game for. If you are an Unmatched nut buy it, the characters are so different from the other characters created so far that you will not regret it. If you are in search of a 1 vs 1 game this might be the game for you. Even of you are new to Unmatched , as long as you have some mid weight games under your belt, you might want to look into it if you want some highly interactive fast passed game.
