Jexik
12-02-2009, 11:01 AM
So, over this last weekend, I met with some of my old college friends in St. Louis. We all went to visit my friend Travis, who is working on his PhD down there, but is an all-around very sociable and extroverted kind of guy. One friend flew in from Houston, and the other from DC. I drove from the Chicago area.
Now let me make a few things clear. These guys are not your typical board game types. We're all in our mid twenties. The first thing we did that weekend was go to the park and play football. That first evening we went to some bars, clubs, and a casino in St. Louis until around 5:00 at night. When they think "game," they think of basketball, Blackjack, or maybe that latest Call of Duty game.
And yet, they couldn't get enough of Summoner Wars.
Saturday afternoon they were just tired enough to sit around and play whatever game I could get them to try, so I chose Summoner Wars. I played three quick 1-on-1 games with two of the guys (two with one, and one with the other), and although they lost all three, they were scratching their heads and aching to play again to rectify their mistakes.
We decided it would be a good idea to try it out in teams. I was rather excited to try this, because I had played around 15 or so heads-up games of Summoner Wars, and was curious if the team game was just as solid as I hoped it could be. I took Travis on my team (since he hadn't played yet) and let everyone else pick their factions first.
Houston liked the Guild Dwarves, as that was the faction that he felt had come closest to beating my dirty Phoenix Elves with in his first two games, and their heroes are pretty badass. DC went for the Tundra Orcs, because he likes smashing things, even if it's only half of the time. Travis selected the Phoenix Elves, in part because I told him that they're awesome (and a bit easier to play for your first game than the Cave Goblins).
So, during setup, which is pretty easy to do thanks to the handy reference cards, we're trying to give Travis a quick run-down on how to play. The game really takes no more than 5-10 minutes to tell someone pretty much everything they'll need to know to play, and probably about the same if they read through the straightforward rulebook. We roll to see who goes first, and I win the roll, which is good, because it allows me to explain the turn phases, and it means that Travis will go 3rd. On his first turn, I still show him what I think I would do, just so he gets a slight idea of how to go about things, but from there on, he was pretty much playing like he had several games under his belt (with a few minor mistakes here and there ;)).
What really surprised me about the team game is how short the down time seemed to be. Typically in multiplayer games like this, I get bored between turns. Even though there are no reactive abilities to play during other people's turns, and you don't even roll defense dice, I found myself emotionally invested in everyone's turns, and thinking about how my teammate and I would have to adjust our strategy based on what the other guy is doing.
I think a lot of this has to do with the well-tested team mechanics. Unlike in a 2 player game, players can go off one edge of the board, and wrap around to the other (only along the Left/Right edges, not front/back). Combined with the fact that you can place your Walls (which serve as summoning points) in your teammate's quadrant, each player often has a hand in the fighting on all fronts. Teammates also sit next to each other, so there's ample opportunity for kibitzing and showing of hands, as well as discreetly discussing which hero to summon next and who should get the Magic at the end of this build phase- we often ended up just passing it all to the other guy after our turns, but wouldn't if we expected them to use Drain Magic on that player.
Well, back to the actual game, huh? All four of us were playing rather defensively, not sending too many guys out, trading magic tit for tat, getting big heroes out when we could, using events and surrounding guys to get rid of them, and so on. Travis and I got a really good offensive push going, but with some neat defensive tricks, like DC summoning an Ice Wall to help protect Oldin, we weren't able to finish him off, bringing him to just one life left. One of the Orc Champions, Blagog, moved forward and hit Prince Elien for two wounds, while Sneeks held Ragnor and Baldur at bay.
Eventually those champions were brought down. And we had all depleted our decks and were just trying to scrap together any kind of damage we could... but then Houston got up to 6 Magic and summoned a guy who I previously thought was terrible, the Dwarves' only ranged Champion- Thorkur...
Which was the only possible summon that could reach (and threaten) Prince Elien! He ran out and shot at Elien who was hiding way in the back row. With three attack dice, he only need 2/3 hits, and only needed a 3+ each on the the dice. But if he only got one hit, Elien would survive.
We waited with baited breath.
[i]THREE SIXES!
The room explodes simultaneously in cheers of glee and profanity.
I try to move Sneeks up to take out Oldin, but he can't even reach this turn.
The orcs were melee, so they couldn't make it to Sneeks either the way the board was arranged at that point.
Then Thorkur launches a fireball and toasts another Summoner. He's kind of a G[uild dwarf].
We immediately demand a rematch, even though looking at the time it had taken 2 and a half hours. That was a short 2.5 hours! We play with the same teams, but have one half swap sides on their end so that we're facing off directly against the other opponent.
I look at Travis with a weird look in my eye. We went about it all wrong in that first game! Those Dwarves and Orcs- they want to play a slow game, hiding behind their walls and stuff. We need to play aggressively! Blow up one of their summoners before he knows what hit him. But I don't tell him this right away, I just do some things that make him nuts first. :D
My first hand is total crap for early game. I think. I get two champions: Mook, and The Eater. A 2-cost summon in the Berserker, my 2nd Wall, and an event that requires me to have a ton of guys out to be worth anything. All of these cards are useful, but not right now. After I place my wall in the center of the board (closest row to the opponents, and on the near edge of Travis' quadrant), I keep Mook and Build the other three cards as Magic, and pass them to Travis. He had had the first turn, so this put him at exactly 5. I did that in case he drew one of his cheaper Champions.
Which he did. Kaeseeall gets out there and starts tearing stuff up. Their melee are afraid to engage her. Their shamans are missing her. Yes. With a little building, he gets enough to pass me exactly 5 Magic.
Houston plays Besiege the Walls, doing 3 damage to both of my walls. He has some Engineers out there too, but is choosing to activate other stuff.
I summon Mook. He's my favorite Goblin Champion. I play Goblin Invincibility to make a hard push forward into Guild Dwarf territory. Oldin runs... two spaces from the wall I put in Travis' area. I have Blarf in my hand, and my 3rd (and final) Wall. I build [discard] that sucker. I've got two walls already. Sure, if I lose them both, I'm in trouble, but we can't play the waiting game.
Travis is dumbfounded. First I discard The Eater, and now my Wall! Is James insane?! Travis' Elves tear up the Tundra Orc commons, getting a nice helping of magic, passing me 5 again, together with his build phase and killing of dudes.
Some stuff happens. Then I summon Blarf. For those who don't know, Blarf is a Piņata that you stuff with Magic. He only costs 1 Magic to summon, but that's because his base attack is ZERO. For every card you put under him, he gains one attack value. If he is killed, whoever does the deed gains all of his sorcerous sweets.
I put all 4 of the magic in my pile under Blarf, and go after Oldin. I'm rolling 4 dice, and Oldin isn't next to a wall. But I roll a 1, a 2, a 5, and a 6. Only two wounds! And he has 6 hits total.
DC is salivating, but doesn't have enough magic to summon anything. He gets 1 hit in on Blarf.
Oldin, a Defender, and a spearman try to take down Blarf, but only get 3/5 hits on him. Whew! He has one health left. Had they taken down Blarf, it'd be game over. I went too crazy, and they'd have a huge Magic advantage.
I move Mook into position to support Blarf. Mook won't attack, but now Blarf only needs 2's to hit. I get hits on all 4 dice. In your face Oldin!
Magic Piņata for the win!
[This was only after an hour. DC decides to forfeit since he really wants to catch the first half of the LSU/Arkansas game at the sports bar. I got a slab of ribs. They were almost as delicious as this win].
Despite the fact that Houston and Travis told me that they likely won't purchase the game for themselves (they don't know enough geeks to play games with in their area) they liked it so much that I lent the game to Travis for a week. He'll be in Chicago this Saturday when he visits his girlfriend, and I'll get the game back from him then.
So the real reason I'm writing this is because I haven't played Summoner Wars for nearly three days, and it's killing me. I can't wait to try out another team game or two with some of my friends in the area. I think over time the games will be under 2 hours more often. That first game was a learning experience for all of us.
Now let me make a few things clear. These guys are not your typical board game types. We're all in our mid twenties. The first thing we did that weekend was go to the park and play football. That first evening we went to some bars, clubs, and a casino in St. Louis until around 5:00 at night. When they think "game," they think of basketball, Blackjack, or maybe that latest Call of Duty game.
And yet, they couldn't get enough of Summoner Wars.
Saturday afternoon they were just tired enough to sit around and play whatever game I could get them to try, so I chose Summoner Wars. I played three quick 1-on-1 games with two of the guys (two with one, and one with the other), and although they lost all three, they were scratching their heads and aching to play again to rectify their mistakes.
We decided it would be a good idea to try it out in teams. I was rather excited to try this, because I had played around 15 or so heads-up games of Summoner Wars, and was curious if the team game was just as solid as I hoped it could be. I took Travis on my team (since he hadn't played yet) and let everyone else pick their factions first.
Houston liked the Guild Dwarves, as that was the faction that he felt had come closest to beating my dirty Phoenix Elves with in his first two games, and their heroes are pretty badass. DC went for the Tundra Orcs, because he likes smashing things, even if it's only half of the time. Travis selected the Phoenix Elves, in part because I told him that they're awesome (and a bit easier to play for your first game than the Cave Goblins).
So, during setup, which is pretty easy to do thanks to the handy reference cards, we're trying to give Travis a quick run-down on how to play. The game really takes no more than 5-10 minutes to tell someone pretty much everything they'll need to know to play, and probably about the same if they read through the straightforward rulebook. We roll to see who goes first, and I win the roll, which is good, because it allows me to explain the turn phases, and it means that Travis will go 3rd. On his first turn, I still show him what I think I would do, just so he gets a slight idea of how to go about things, but from there on, he was pretty much playing like he had several games under his belt (with a few minor mistakes here and there ;)).
What really surprised me about the team game is how short the down time seemed to be. Typically in multiplayer games like this, I get bored between turns. Even though there are no reactive abilities to play during other people's turns, and you don't even roll defense dice, I found myself emotionally invested in everyone's turns, and thinking about how my teammate and I would have to adjust our strategy based on what the other guy is doing.
I think a lot of this has to do with the well-tested team mechanics. Unlike in a 2 player game, players can go off one edge of the board, and wrap around to the other (only along the Left/Right edges, not front/back). Combined with the fact that you can place your Walls (which serve as summoning points) in your teammate's quadrant, each player often has a hand in the fighting on all fronts. Teammates also sit next to each other, so there's ample opportunity for kibitzing and showing of hands, as well as discreetly discussing which hero to summon next and who should get the Magic at the end of this build phase- we often ended up just passing it all to the other guy after our turns, but wouldn't if we expected them to use Drain Magic on that player.
Well, back to the actual game, huh? All four of us were playing rather defensively, not sending too many guys out, trading magic tit for tat, getting big heroes out when we could, using events and surrounding guys to get rid of them, and so on. Travis and I got a really good offensive push going, but with some neat defensive tricks, like DC summoning an Ice Wall to help protect Oldin, we weren't able to finish him off, bringing him to just one life left. One of the Orc Champions, Blagog, moved forward and hit Prince Elien for two wounds, while Sneeks held Ragnor and Baldur at bay.
Eventually those champions were brought down. And we had all depleted our decks and were just trying to scrap together any kind of damage we could... but then Houston got up to 6 Magic and summoned a guy who I previously thought was terrible, the Dwarves' only ranged Champion- Thorkur...
Which was the only possible summon that could reach (and threaten) Prince Elien! He ran out and shot at Elien who was hiding way in the back row. With three attack dice, he only need 2/3 hits, and only needed a 3+ each on the the dice. But if he only got one hit, Elien would survive.
We waited with baited breath.
[i]THREE SIXES!
The room explodes simultaneously in cheers of glee and profanity.
I try to move Sneeks up to take out Oldin, but he can't even reach this turn.
The orcs were melee, so they couldn't make it to Sneeks either the way the board was arranged at that point.
Then Thorkur launches a fireball and toasts another Summoner. He's kind of a G[uild dwarf].
We immediately demand a rematch, even though looking at the time it had taken 2 and a half hours. That was a short 2.5 hours! We play with the same teams, but have one half swap sides on their end so that we're facing off directly against the other opponent.
I look at Travis with a weird look in my eye. We went about it all wrong in that first game! Those Dwarves and Orcs- they want to play a slow game, hiding behind their walls and stuff. We need to play aggressively! Blow up one of their summoners before he knows what hit him. But I don't tell him this right away, I just do some things that make him nuts first. :D
My first hand is total crap for early game. I think. I get two champions: Mook, and The Eater. A 2-cost summon in the Berserker, my 2nd Wall, and an event that requires me to have a ton of guys out to be worth anything. All of these cards are useful, but not right now. After I place my wall in the center of the board (closest row to the opponents, and on the near edge of Travis' quadrant), I keep Mook and Build the other three cards as Magic, and pass them to Travis. He had had the first turn, so this put him at exactly 5. I did that in case he drew one of his cheaper Champions.
Which he did. Kaeseeall gets out there and starts tearing stuff up. Their melee are afraid to engage her. Their shamans are missing her. Yes. With a little building, he gets enough to pass me exactly 5 Magic.
Houston plays Besiege the Walls, doing 3 damage to both of my walls. He has some Engineers out there too, but is choosing to activate other stuff.
I summon Mook. He's my favorite Goblin Champion. I play Goblin Invincibility to make a hard push forward into Guild Dwarf territory. Oldin runs... two spaces from the wall I put in Travis' area. I have Blarf in my hand, and my 3rd (and final) Wall. I build [discard] that sucker. I've got two walls already. Sure, if I lose them both, I'm in trouble, but we can't play the waiting game.
Travis is dumbfounded. First I discard The Eater, and now my Wall! Is James insane?! Travis' Elves tear up the Tundra Orc commons, getting a nice helping of magic, passing me 5 again, together with his build phase and killing of dudes.
Some stuff happens. Then I summon Blarf. For those who don't know, Blarf is a Piņata that you stuff with Magic. He only costs 1 Magic to summon, but that's because his base attack is ZERO. For every card you put under him, he gains one attack value. If he is killed, whoever does the deed gains all of his sorcerous sweets.
I put all 4 of the magic in my pile under Blarf, and go after Oldin. I'm rolling 4 dice, and Oldin isn't next to a wall. But I roll a 1, a 2, a 5, and a 6. Only two wounds! And he has 6 hits total.
DC is salivating, but doesn't have enough magic to summon anything. He gets 1 hit in on Blarf.
Oldin, a Defender, and a spearman try to take down Blarf, but only get 3/5 hits on him. Whew! He has one health left. Had they taken down Blarf, it'd be game over. I went too crazy, and they'd have a huge Magic advantage.
I move Mook into position to support Blarf. Mook won't attack, but now Blarf only needs 2's to hit. I get hits on all 4 dice. In your face Oldin!
Magic Piņata for the win!
[This was only after an hour. DC decides to forfeit since he really wants to catch the first half of the LSU/Arkansas game at the sports bar. I got a slab of ribs. They were almost as delicious as this win].
Despite the fact that Houston and Travis told me that they likely won't purchase the game for themselves (they don't know enough geeks to play games with in their area) they liked it so much that I lent the game to Travis for a week. He'll be in Chicago this Saturday when he visits his girlfriend, and I'll get the game back from him then.
So the real reason I'm writing this is because I haven't played Summoner Wars for nearly three days, and it's killing me. I can't wait to try out another team game or two with some of my friends in the area. I think over time the games will be under 2 hours more often. That first game was a learning experience for all of us.