
Undermine is an easy-to-learn resource management & worker placement game.
Set up for Undermine is very easy. (Please see the below picture)
- Lay 3 Mine Cards, one below another, face up.
- Lay 7 Investment Cards right below the mine cards, one next to another, face up.
- Shuffle the Opportunity, Equipment and Gallery decks and place the decks, face down.
- Give each player 2 Diamond Tokens.

There are several cards used while playing Undermine, here is your quick reference guide to each of them:
Investment Cards – face-up the whole game. Each player lays the number of Diamond Token(s) or Miner Token required by the Investment card they choose, on their side of the Investment card. This way, the player can then collect the earnings of the card in the next Collection Phase.
Mine Cards – There are 3 types of Mine cards in the game; Iron, Gold and Copper. Mine cards can’t be operated without Gallery cards.
Gallery Cards – They are utilized for mining.
Equipment Cards – To play an equipment card, players must pay the resources shown on the card to the bank.
You can find the Full Rules here
Undermine is a super intelligent game; it is everything I like about small box games and yet has the feel of a Euro style placement game. When they reached out to me about this game I must honestly say I expected a small box game trying to be a Euro Placement game. In the past I have played several games trying to balance the feel of a Euro Worker Placement game and yet keeping the feel of a small box game. Most haven’t been amazing, as they seem to be a small box game that feels dragged out or seem to not utilize the beauty of the mechanics of the worker placement. Undermine isn’t one of these, that’s for sure. It is simple and fun but has the complexity of a great worker placement game.
I’ve had a great Christmas filled with so much gaming. I managed to have two full days of gaming with my friends from Brisbane, Ty and Nick, along with one on Christmas night with Oz and Panda. This game I played again with Nick and Ty and was actually the first game we played on the second day of our gaming weekend and I was a little nervous about it, as I previously mentioned. Nick loved this game; to the point because of Ty and I got sick of here about it actually played in it again towards the end of the night too.
The art of Undermine is very simple and if it wasn’t for the amazingly vibrant background color of the aqua (on the Equipment Cards) and grey (on the Opportunity Cards) that perfectly contrasts the yellows, I would have said the art may have been too simple. But it just goes to show that you can handle the art correctly if you use a more simplistic aesthetic and make it work perfectly.


Undermine is currently Live on Kickstarter and has already funded itself, raising over $10k. You can find it here.
Derek 'Dez' Maggs comes to us from the Land Down Under. He has been bit
of a fanboy of miniature games, growing up with HeroQuest and moving into Warhammer Fantasy and 40K. An avid RPG & causal Magic the Gathering player. But his heart and passion lies in board and card games. Feel free to follow me on Twitter @Derekmaggs81
of a fanboy of miniature games, growing up with HeroQuest and moving into Warhammer Fantasy and 40K. An avid RPG & causal Magic the Gathering player. But his heart and passion lies in board and card games. Feel free to follow me on Twitter @Derekmaggs81
Undermine Guest Preview With Derek Maggs
Reviewed by Dane Trimble
on
January 13, 2017
Rating:
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