Summoner Wars by Plaid Hat Games

[Hahma]

While I agree with you Kaiser Cat that the starter sets have the easiest factions to learn with, Colby had mentioned somewhere that he is holding off re-prints of those for a while because he wanted the new Master Set to be the entry-level set for new players.

The reason it makes sense to me to release the original 4 factions in either a 4 faction large expansion or as individual decks rather than as the original starter sets is because you get more bang for your buck with the new Master Set. You get 6 factions and a premium board for the cost of 2 starter sets with paper mats. People that get the Master Set don't need the paper mats, more rules books, wounds markers and dice that would increase the cost of what they really want in the 2 faction decks that come with the base set.

I'm just thinking that Summoner Wars is still a relatively young game and when more people get introduced to it, they will start buying the new Master Set and shouldn't have to pay more money than necessary just to get the original 4 faction decks if they would be exclusively available in the starter sets with the other stuff that comes with it and increasing increasing the cost.

[Agent Minivann]

I wouldn't mind seeing a reprint of the original 4 factions in a master set 2 along with maybe the Vanguards and the Fallen Kingdom. That way you have 2 premium boards for 4 player games, and even more extra space for other factions.

[Jexik]

Originally Posted by Kaiser Cat

Except the Master Set won't necessarily be the best set to start with after it comes out-The starter sets are, being comprised of basically the 4 easiest factions to play.

I disagree. It's the best deal, and 3 or 4 of the factions are really easy to learn.

One of the problems with having one starter is only having one matchup to play. With this set alone, you have 15.

[Jormi_Boced]

And really none of them are really difficult to learn. I would say the cave goblins are as tricky or more than about half of the Master Set factions.

[Jexik]

From easiest to hardest to learn:

PE > TO = GD = SE = Benders > JE = MV = SG > FK = CG = SO > DD = VG = CL

Maybe something like that. This isn't a strict power list, although at times it may look like that.

Benders are hard to categorize for me because they are a very simple faction rules-wise, but they don't play much like many previous factions.

[rym]

Agreed with Jormi.

The Shadow Elves and Mountain Vargath are pretty straight forward.

The Swamp Orcs are a little trickier.

The Benders, Sand Goblins, and the Deep Dwarves are just as tricky - and honestly, could be considered a little straight forward depending on your playing style, but definitely require a finesse to pull off.

[killercactus]

I've never played Benders, but by looking at them I'd think they were near the top of the "tricky to play well" list. The rest of that list pretty much falls in with what I've learned / would expect to see.

It seems to me that it's going to be hard to manage all of those low-life units that the Benders have, and also be tricky enough with Controllers and Deceivers to get the most out of them. Hopefully I'll see in a couple weeks.

[Jexik]

Yeah, I really like the cloaks, so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to hard to play.

My main thought behind putting the Benders among the "easy to play" list is that all of their events are very simple. I see new players' eyes glaze over when reading the Cave Goblins or Fallen Kingdom events, which causes them to ignore or build them as magic, when those are a big part of what makes those factions tick.

I think most factions are difficult to play extremely well. PE are pretty easy to play with decent success, and that's about it.

[Jormi_Boced]

I like the cloaks a lot too. So many ways to get a cheap shot on the summoner

[Kaemon Awa 123]

Originally Posted by Codeman

In this photo the SDPB " Super Delux Premium Board " is shown:

As you can see .... it has a smooth top / no seam. It is really a $10 poster frame that I put the papper version of the Summoner Wars mat in it.

Cool idea, sounds similar to what I did, but mine used cork, plywood and a sharpie...

I really like it for the quieter dice rolling.

[killercactus]

Originally Posted by Jormi_Boced

I like the cloaks a lot too. So many ways to get a cheap shot on the summoner

I like Cloaks a lot too, mostly because they take the decision out of "Do I attack the Summoner or the commons around it?" to an extent because the answer is almost always "Attack the Summoner", since there's a good chance you can get a bunch of little "pings" through on the summoner throughout the game.

I also really like how Vlox just ends up all over the board. It's a pretty common occurence for me that Vlox spends 3-4 turns on the opponent's back row of the board. That's just plain cool.

[Jormi_Boced]

Yeah, I love shooting him overt there taking a shot on the summoner then turn him to a thief to steal a card and bring him back to my side before he gets swarmed