This Week @PHG
August 10th & 17th Edition
Welcome back readers! This has been quite the eventful week here at PHG. Due to missing this article last week, I'll be reporting on things that have happened this week, and last week!
New Packages On Their Way
Firstly, I'd like to say that Bioshock Infinite, Mice & Mystics: The Heart of Glorm, and the VG/FK Second Summoners are shipping, and I'm sure many of you have already gotten them, and those of you who haven't yet, I'm sure they're on their way (note: BioShock is on its way to distributers. The Second Summoners and Heart of Glorm are shipping to PHG.com pre-orderers; the rest of them are on the boat from China)! So much Plaid Hat merchandise has been shipped to my house in the last week, it's unreal!
The Last of Sirian's Undead
Last week we saw the last of Sirian's troops. Including some really nasty commons, such as the FK Ghouls, a 3 life, 2 melee AV, 2 cost unit, that will eat itself if it's hunger isn't satisfied with blood of it's enemies. We also saw some really strong champs, such as Hirud, who makes all champs (yours and your opponents') cost 2 additional Magic Points! Overall my thoughts on all of FK and VG Second Summoner Units are that they truly bring these factions into the competative level of play, which is great as these types of additions balance Summoner Wars even better than it already is!
New iOS Factions' Strategy Articles
This and last week brought us Strategy Guides for the new iOS Factions, the Mountain Vargath and the Benders. If you haven't checked them out yet, they are definitely worth a read, as they give some helpful insight to the new factions. You can check out the Bender's Strategy Article here, and the Mountain Vargath Strategy Article here.
Talking with John Ariosa
I found myself lucky enough to catch up with John Ariosa, the lead artist for Plaid Hat Games. He was happy enough to participate in a great interview, in which we talked about the role of art in the world of gaming, along with real life applications of Summoner Wars powers. You can find the whole interview by clicking this link.
New FAQ
The Plaid Hat Team released a newly revised Summoner Wars FAQ, which deal with some of the errors that occured in the previous one, and also includes new FAQ's about the new Second Summoners and their units. The new FAQ can easily be found under the Support Tab on the Summoner Wars' Game Page.
Meta-Gaming Series
This week I published the first installment of a mini series that I'm running called Summoner Wars: A Meta-Gaming Experience, in which I discuss the different aspects of the ever changing game, and how those different aspects reinforce certain themes and promote different game play styles. It is a little bit of a lengthy article, but I feel it is worth a read, if you've been around Summoner Wars and Plaid Hat Games since the beginning, or even if you're a brand new player!
The full Part 1 of the Series can be found here.
GENCON!!!
Last but certainly not least, Gen Con Indy began this Thursday! Plaid Hat Games has a booth there, and is demoing and running tournaments of several of their games. I'm sure there will be a lot of stories being told throughout the forums within the next few weeks of the going ons at Gen Con. There will also most likely (though don't quote me on this) a Gen Con themed Podcast within a week or two, detailing all the shenanigans of Colby and his crew! So stay tuned for more Gen Con news to come!
End Notes:
So I'd like to also make note of a thread that I saw on the forums earlier this week. It was started by the Junior Member, yobo93, entitled Next Summoners after VG/FK? I thought it posed a great question for everybody to think on. If you could pick any Second Summoner to be released next, which one would it be and why? I personally would like to see the Mountain Vargath's new summoner, just because I don't think anything could top Sunderved's theme for that deck! So until next time, keep on Plaid Hat'n!