SUMMONER WARS brings a fairly fresh resource system to the table. Players have a magic pile into which cards may be discarded during the turn. On the next turn, cards are tossed out of the magic deck and into discard to pay for units and spell effects. It’s a recycling mechanic that calls for hand management to get the more tactically significant cards in circulation. But wait, there’s more. Players also get to add any casualty they inflict into their magic deck. That’s right; everything you kill makes you stronger. The “strong get stronger” impetus hasn’t been a very popular one in gaming of late as everyone still has scars from one RISK steamroller attack or another, but in SUMMONER WARS it provides the game with a power curve that demonstrates one player’s gradual dominance of another. That doesn’t mean that good luck on the die rolls and card draws can’t rescue victory from the jaws of defeat though, and I’ve seen one or two units hold off twice or three times as many aggressors with careful movement and card play. The resource mechanic also creates an incentive to attack as much as possible, and as a result it controls game length and ensures a vicious, bloody fight.
With a unit’s life expectancy weighing in around one or two turns, tactical considerations such as maneuver and unit placement emerge as critical decisions every turn so it’s far from a mindless brawl. The board also has that PAC-MAN wrap around thing, so there’s nary a safe place to hide and I don’t think a single turn goes by without bloodshed. I like the focus on quick battle quite a lot, and as a dice-slinging, card-flinging exercise in pure gaming fun I think it’s an out-of-the-gate smash success. As much as I get into the big, heavy games filled to bursting with rules, card text, narrative detail, and strategic complexity, I think there’s a lot to be said for a simple, quick game that gives a complete gaming experience in such a compact package. SUMMONER WARS pulls it off, and I’m eager to see what expansions Plaid Hat has in store for the game as well as further output from Mr. Dauch.
Volume One of this series of books does a grand job of introducing gaming to the masses, but offers a lot of familar information for gamers already in the know.
