The Salamander Prince -series: Refurbished Fairy Tales Book 1 -by S.R. Nulton
I liked the Salamander Prince. It had a calm and relaxed tone about the writing. It was almost passive in the story telling with very little overt action and a great deal more introspection. Which in the right mood is a joy to read.
I liked the strong female enchantress that we follow as she is abruptly married to a cursed salamander and then forced to leave her home in the woods. Grace is a charming character, faulted, powerful and with a wicked sense of humor. She is great.
As Grace travels from her cottage on the edge of the forest to a new kingdom, she passes through some different lands with some different kinds of people. I liked that each land was known for something, greed, military, family… There were some interesting locations visited in the story.
Book cover for the Salamander Prince. Image from the internet.
What first struck me was a line from the prologue, “It’s a tale of broken souls and corruption that pitted brother against brother.” I kept waiting for things to go wrong. I kept waiting for some terrible betrayal. But the story ran smoothly. It never actually felt like the characters were playing for high stakes. The abundance of magic was always present to smooth over problems (or cause them when the plot needed a push). It was a very quiet feeling story.
Also, I am still not clear on this twin soul thing going on in the family. Two brothers, sharing one soul? Other than feeling a connection to each other, what does it mean? I suppose it was only there to explain the dark magic of pitting the brothers against each other.
To be clear, the Salamander Prince is a retelling of the Frog Prince. Which it supposedly combines with King Thrushbeard, but as I am not familiar with that story I cannot confirm. However, it is clear that this is part of a bigger world retelling many familiar fairy tales, some of which are set up as Grace walks her way through the plot.
The book was sweet. Grace was charming. Her husband, the salamander, was fine – but far from memorable. Overall I would give this 3.5 stars out of 5. It might be interesting to see what else is happening in this world by reading some of the others in this series.
Last week we saw the wonderful events Ret-Talus is packing in the new Summoner Wars. But the combo train doesn’t stop there. Now, I prefaced this faction with my belief it was the strongest in the box. But it’s hard to untangle bias from judgment. And I will say, I’m one of those players that enjoys complicated plays with cascading effects.
To be fair, however, it’s easy to get lost in the “best case scenario” of combos while ignoring how a card works in the majority of plays. So I’ll try and keep focused on Ret-Talus’ units base strength while supplementing with fun little combos that they enable.
First up is the Undead Warrior. These guys play into the Fallen Kingdom theme of death, gaining boost tokens for each unit which is destroyed on your turn. Each boost token on this unit increases its strength by 1. This is kind of how the old Summoner Wars Dinky worked… in a sense. They’re best at attacking last in your turn to capitalize on early kills. And since they start at 2 strength (and 4 health), it’s not too complicated to get them up to the coveted 3 strength on a melee unit. And all for 2 magic! And the more things you kill before they swing, the better they get! Their base stats are pretty good, all things considered. That their ability plays so nicely with Ret-Talus’ sacrifice events is even better. To note, Undead warriors get stronger whenever any unit is destroyed which includes yours! Though you do want to use them right away because those boosts will decay at the end of your turn.
They can also be brought back from the graveyard with Ret-Talus’ ability.
But let’s talk about destroying your own units.
We say that purge gives you decent benefit for denying your opponent magic. And the undead warrior appreciates those same sacrifices. But who do you give up for the greater good?
Why the Cultist of course. These babies are free! And ranged! And 2 strength! Cave Goblin slingers are looking a little worried. But even better, the cultist deals 1 auto wound to each enemy adjacent to them when they’re destroyed.
So, yeah, combos. Cultists love being purged. That’s three assured wounds! But they also leave parting gifts against enemy melee units too even if you aren’t able to purge them. They’re great targets for hellforged weapons as well as the cursed blades can cause them to pop after their attack. The only downside with these guys is that you can’t recycle them. They’re also the only non-undead unit in the faction. Which, given their utility for their cost, is fully justifiable. They’re so good, even with deck building, you may not even want to remove them from the deck.
Next we have the Undead Archer. This unit is interesting as it gives a pretty decent mobile ranged attack for the Fallen Kingdom. Granted, we’re not talking about Breaker levels of mobility but all things considered, it’s pretty good reach. They’re undead, so Ret-Talus can raise them. They’re 3 strength so they pack a decent punch. But the best part is that whenever a unit is destroyed within 3 spaces of them on your turn, you can move them to that space. Purges can jump them before they take their movement. Alternatively, they can pop into blocker spots giving you a shot at defending summoners! All in all, pretty solid for 2 magic!
Last but not least are my favourite Fallen Kingdom unit.
The Undead Carrier is a hands down most improved unit from old Summoner Wars. The old zombie was so cumbersome and so low impact that you would never be living your walking dead fantasies. Getting a single infect felt like a herculean feat. Thankfully, 2 strength melee is far more reliable for killing. Them as a starting unit plus the new graveyard rules means greater reliability for having them in the graveyard for infections.
But perhaps the single best part of the Undead Carrier is that they can infect themselves!
That’s right, you can destroy your own carrier with a carrier to bring that carrier back with full 3 health. It’s delightfully scummy and makes the Fallen Kingdom truly frightful in the late game. Trading carriers for enemy units is great as you grind out your opponent’s cards. Ret-Talus can just sacrifice some life to raise one carrier who can, in turn, infect another until your opponent is dragged down by a horde of these returning monsters.
Granted, the carriers do have a drawback. They don’t generate any magic on kills. Which kind of encourages you to infect your own units rather than the opponents. But, considering they cost 1 magic, you can see it more that they pay for the infection on kill. That they deny your opponent magic while healing themselves is simply divine.
All in all, it’s a very strong common suite.
As for the Fallen Kingdom champions, I’m a little less enthused with them. They’re not necessarily bad but they’re pretty expensive. And with two 2 magic commons, even with raising the dead, the Fallen Kingdom aren’t the cheapest faction on the block.
Gul-Dass is perhaps my least favourite though he pairs really well with Blood Summons. His 2 strength is but a temporary downside considering he gets a bonus strength for each damage he carries. He’s great for defending for a turn before a strong counter attack. However, he hits strongest at his weakest so your opponent can more reliably eliminate him when he’s at his scariest. It’s hard to get a good champion exchange with him, in my limited experience, and with such great commons, I’m more apt to recycle carriers than try to throw Gul-Dass down.
Dragos is fun because he gives an extra source of unit destruction on your turn which then makes his attacks hit all the harder. With 4 strength naturally, then turning specials into additional hits when you sacrifice a unit near him, he’s going to rip enemy walls, summoners and champions to shreds. You can also hop archers or strengthen warriors at the same time. Or pop a cultist. Great for those complicated combos but not too shabby on his own either.
Finally, there’s Elut-Bal. It’s hard to ignore the original bad boy from the first run of the Fallen Kingdom. He’s… hard for me to really evaluate. On the one hand, great strength. On the other, poor health and moderately high cost. He requires a sacrifice but takes the place of the unit sacrificed. So this cancels archer shenanigans but does allow forward summoning. This just loops back to my original problem with Fallen Kingdom champions in general. They’re so expensive and the commons are so good that I find it hard to justify their use. They’re not bad. We’ve certainly seen worse.
They are an investment though and I’m not sure they would pay theirs off. All three are basically different spins on doing more damage but the faction isn’t really hurting for damage in general.
In the end, I’d kind of prefer to flood the field with carriers.
Kingdom of Beauty: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast -series: The Kingdom tales Book 1 -by Deborah Grace White
Apparently I am in a fairy tale reading phase! A Kingdom of Beauty is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. It is a well done version without any major surprises. It follows more of the Disney movie version with Felicity and her family expelled from the capital city to some forgotten village. Naturally there is a Gaston-like boorish male in the village who believes Felicity will marry him. And will eventually cause problems for her later on.
Book Cover for Kingdom of Beauty. Image from the internet.
The beast, the Prince Justin, is a self-centered, arrogant male transformed into a hideous beast and locked away in the summer palace, which vanished from the land when the curse took hold. He is cold and very slow to change. He is suspicious of everyone. Which is his fault, because he is now an adult. Although I will say that his upbringing was pretty poor with a horrendous father to instill horrendous ideals. However, I will also point out that the father has been dead for ten years, and Justin’s Uncle could have been a model for being a better kind of human being.
The play on visible / invisible castle and servants is sort of interesting. The inclusion of dragons seems largely superfluous. But I guess this might weave into a larger narrative that the author is clearly building in this world. In addition to the dragons, other fairy tales have been alluded to, so you know more are coming in this series. It is good the author is setting things up early so the stories will all feel connected.
It is also passingly interesting that the sorceress that curses Prince Justin is then surprised at how strong her curse is. And is lasting much longer than she planned. This leads the woman to actively try to help break the curse, ultimately placing Felicity on the path to meet Justin. But also hints at bigger problems on a global scale in this world.
The character progression for Felicity and Justin is solidly done. I cannot fault how things grow and develop between them. Their path is very true to the Beauty and the Beast route. It was all competently done. I suppose my only hesitation with the series (outside of the random dragons) is the predictability. Which is perhaps unfair as I am choosing to read a story that says clearly in the title it is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. For me, I would give this 3.5 stars out of 5. I liked Kingdom of Beauty quite well. It is another solid retelling of Beauty and the Beast. I might even pick up the next in the series.
Last but certainly not least, our Summoner Wars 2.0 relaunch concludes with my estimated strongest faction from the box. It’s a classic tale of good versus evil here, with dusting off the old and making them shiny and new. Last time, we saw Sera Eldwyn return better than ever. Her time in the spotlight, however, is short lived.
Because most improved has got to go to old Ret-Talus.
Old Ret-Talus was a snotty little punk with far more bark than bite. As ruler of the undead, Ret-Talus liked to play in his graveyard. Naturally, as everything ends in the grave, to compensate for this strong ability, the old Fallen Kingdom units were very expensive for what they did. The design was meant to be the other side of the same coin with Sera: attrition based faction designed to wear down your opponent. But whereas Sera healed her units and kept them in fighting form, Ret just pulled his back again and again.
All images, rights and whatever belong to Plaid Hat Games.
Well, Sera does that now. So thematically and mechanically, the pair are tied even closer together. While Sera’s new Summoner Wars simply requires her to attack an enemy unit, Ret-Talus has been learning from his old pupil Mad Sirian. It’s Ret’s life that’s on the line now. Which is great, since giving life to power feeds into his “sacrifice” element.
However, Ret’s dead raising has received a facelift. He can now raise during the summoning phase, which lets his fresh monsters their own turn to move. This will make positioning easier. Furthermore, Ret doesn’t have a small health pool like his old incarnation. Though his stats are painfully mediocre so don’t expect much on that front. Two strength range is weak so it’s a good thing that late game you’ll be relying on your dead than yourself to finish out the game.
Of course, the old caveat (and the same as Sera’s) still applies here. Ret needs things in his discard in order to bring them back. Granted, with the new graveyard rules, you’re assured anything that’s destroy will be available so your opponent can’t lock important units in their magic piles. That’s a lovely quality of life improvement.
Granted, his ability is restricted to undead units, so there’s currently a hard limit on who benefits from his ability and no doubt this limitation will be utilized to keep Ret-Talus in check as much as possible for future releases. Much like with Sera, I don’t see a lot of Citadel or Undead being printed though, of the two, I expect to see more undead.
Now, while I think Ret-Talus’ summoner ability is one of the strongest, it really only shines because of his epic event.
Sacrificial power is a faction defining card and you will definitely be playing his matchups with this in mind. As Ret’s opponent, you need to be cognizant of his sacrificial potential. As Ret himself, the availability of the pyre will dictate the pace of your plays.
But it’s certainly worth it. I mentioned before that Ice Repair was the strongest healing event in the game. Well… I lied. Sacrificial Pyre takes the smoke. An active event which accrues boosts for doing the thing needed to win the game: destroying units. Barring exceptional circumstances, this will generate 4-6 healing in one play as you should reasonably expect each player to destroy 2-3 cards on their turns. At least, that’s what they’ll be trying to do. Being able to dump that much healing right on Ret-Talus (which can then be turned around and recycled into more undead units) is simply fantastic. This healing can also be used to save a champion in a pinch – making a hard hitting lynchpin unit even that more difficult to remove from the battlefield.
Furthermore, there’s not a whole lot of counterplay open to your opponent when the pyre gets lit.
Sure, they could just refrain from killing things. But if I had the option of taking an event that said “your units can’t be destroyed for one turn” that would probably get heads to turn. It’s ultimately hard to justify keeping dangerous units on the board and simply not conceding the healing to Ret.
However, Ret isn’t even at the mercy of his opponent’s whims. If he really wants to be accruing tokens for the pyre, he can drop a handy Purge. And if Sacrificial Pyre is good, Purge is phenomenal.
On first blush, destroying a unit for 2 assured wounds may not seem great. But it’s the fact that Ret-Talus really combos off destruction that makes purge all the better. Triggering in the move phase means that you can hobble your wounded units into advantageous positions before making them pop. And the damage from purge will most definitely leave what remains softened up for the attack phase. Pairing purge and pyre, you can probably reliably generate 4 boost tokens on your own turn between blowing up your own units and killing theirs.
But purge is great because it doesn’t need to combo either for it to be value. Purging is like the old Summoner Wars old magic denial trick. Your sacrificed units give no magic to your enemy. Anything they leave behind turns into lost cash and can tip the economic balance in your favour. And it’s free to boot!
While these two events represent Ret-Talus’ best, his other two are no slouches either.
Hellforged Blade is like a less reliable purge with a chance to give you continual value. I mean, it likely won’t. Either it’ll blow up its user (denying that unit’s magic in the process) or leave your enchanted common weakened to be killed by your opponent on their turn. As such, it’s less valuable but giving any melee unit an additional 2 more strength (which is essentially them dealing 2 more wounds) isn’t the worst play. If the unit somehow survives and you get another round to attack with it, then you’re just laughing.
Oh, and it can also combo with pyre – either through ensuring your unit kills what it’s attacking or it blows itself up. Or even both at the same time!
Last, but certainly not least, is Blood Summons. This lets Ret-Talus keep up the pressure against his opponent. He’s an even more conservative summoner than Sera, preferring to keep well away from any attempted harm while he saps his own strength while waiting for the high of a strong pyre.
Blood summon lets him turn any of his units into temporary gates. Even better, you get to summon for free! Well… sort of. The unit needs to give up two health. Which can destroy itself. Which can in turn give pyre an additional boost! Or you could blood summon off a bunch of units, move them forward then purge them for huge gain!
So, while on its own, blood summon may have marginal effect, it easily pairs well with the best of Ret-Talus’ events.
And that’s what makes his suite so strong. Each event improves its others. And with so many triggers occurring on unit destruction, you can create a lovely cascade of power effects. His turns can get quite complicated, yet it’s a very good kind of complication. Comboing all these triggers makes them stronger, so learning the best order to blow up your units is both a fun process of discovery while also being very potent in advancing the game in your favour.
However, to really shine a light on how good all these self-blowy-uppy powers are, we’ll have to take a look next week at Ret-Talus’ units.
Book cover for the Legendary Inge from the internet.
I don’t often read the preface before starting a book, but for the Legendary Inge I did. It did not spoil the story, since I know nothing of Beowulf and am also confident this story is at best loosely inspired. First off, I liked the Legendary Inge. It had just enough surprises to make it interesting, but no dramatic twists that come out of nowhere and make no sense. In fact the entire story flowed well together and you could see how the little clues about the characters and plot were sprinkled well in advance.
The Legendary Inge starts with the titular character Inge (Ingrid), accidentally killing a monster plaguing the castle. As her reward, Ingrid is adopted by the king as his son and heir to the throne. While Ingrid might be dressed as a boy when she takes down the monster, she is most unhappy to be slotted into that role. She is the eldest girl in her family of seven children. With her parents dead from a wasting sickness, Ingrid has a lot of responsibilities and no time to play prince to the kin.
Unable to decline the king’s reward, Ingrid is forced to discover that things at the castle are not as they seem. The monster, a terrifying nightwalker, is not the only problem in the castle. The king is going mad according to rumours and the court is a vicious place for the untrained. Inge is forced to face all this as she grows in her own confidence as an individual and learns to accept the great legacy left by her own father.
Book cover for the Legendary Inge from the internet. I think I like this one best of the two.
Well written, the characters are competently developed. While they are a little on the young side, I recognize that I am getting older. Young adults want to read books with characters of their age. Still, the world was interesting. It had that nordic-viking flare, while including plenty of magic to make it truly fantastical. More than the setting, it was the character interactions that sold the narrative. I like books with family, and this had plenty of it. Sure, there were a couple of orphans, because all great legends seem to circle around them. In the end, everything really came back to family – both chosen and blood.
I like the author’s way of writing. The Legendary Inge is a solidly developed story with great characters and a fantastic plot – 4.5 out of 5 stars.
In celebration of a loosening of the COVID restrictions, I have been to the movies. The most recent movie I saw was Free Guy. This is the movie with Ryan Reynolds, Jody Comer, Lil Rel Howery and Joe Keery. There were also a number of cameos by other actors, like Alex Trebek, Chris Evans, Channing Tatum and others – some of which I missed.
My spoiler free summary of the movie: I expected it to be either terribly bad or terribly stupid, but was surprised when it was actually a fun and funny movie. I liked it! I think it is my favourite movie this summer!
The following is a slightly more complete reflection, with some spoilers…
Guy and Buddy, best friends and NPCs walking down the street of Free City and enjoying their coffee. A wildly dangerous place to live. (Image from the internet)
Ryan Reynolds plays the titular character Guy. Guy is a NPC (non-playable character) in a video game called Free City. Essentially, Guy is a background character on a fixed loop of actions. He wakes up, talks to his goldfish, gets his coffee and goes to his job as a teller at the bank.
In this open-world video game, players are generally the villains – or heroes in their own minds. They rob banks and stores on a regular basis. They steal cars, knock out people and blow up buildings. They are your typical player in a game where there are zero real world consequences for their in game behaviour.
Of course, things are a bit different from the perspective of the NPCs. They are caught in their usual loops of actions. For example, during a bank robbery, all the NPCs capitulate without question. Buddy, Guy’s best friend and Bank security guard, never fights back. He drops his gun at the first sign of trouble and joins Guy on the floor. This cycle continues for Guy until one day he meets the player Molotov Girl (aka Millie). Seeing her triggers something, a change in his programming that causes Guy to veer off script.
Millie (aka Molotov Girl – in game) and Keys, living in the ‘real world’ and working as computer programmers.
(Image from the internet)
But the story is not limited to the actions within the video game. We are introduced to some of the players and the media world they occupy too. I was impressed with the switch between “in game” and “real world” story telling. There was a lot of different aspects of modern life brought into the storytelling of this movie. The visual shift between the two worlds was nicely done. And the connections with the story were well organized. The plot about a corrupt owner of a popular (but bland) video game company wove in well with the idea of successful AI and stolen code. The plot used just enough jargon to sound vaguely real, but explained enough that someone with no gaming background could follow along. And the AI wasn’t evil and out to destroy all humanity. The AI was nice and just wanted to do its own thing – so relatable to our everyday life.
I loved Guy. Really Reynolds did an excellent job making the character so likeable. It was wonderful to see that Guy’s method for leveling up was generally non-violent. He was just trying to do good. And he approached this goal with the idea of minimal violence and nothing permanently damaging (or tried to). It was a nice change from the pirate blimps machine gunning the streets in the background.
Speaking of background. I totally want to watch this movie again just to pay more attention to the crazy work going on in the background. There is always something insane happening – usually because of the game players. Cars are exploding, fighter jets are zooming through the skies, it is an endless flow of weird and generally violent actions that I sometimes failed to notice because I was focused on the primary plot. They did an awesome job making the background and characters interesting!
Movie Poster for Free Guy – image from the internet.
Really, Free Guy was just a great, straightforward, fun story. The actors sold the characters really well. It looked like it would have been a blast of a movie to work on. And it was not part of a franchise, not a sequel and not a remake. All of this has pushed Free Guy to the top of my summer movie list – full five stars (out of five)!
Last time, we saw how Sera Eldwyn of the new Vanguards in Summoner Wars relaunch had a slick coat of sparkling paint. With some very nice looking events and an ability that lets her command additional troops from her mighty Citadel, she’s become quite a terrific battlefield commander.
Is this the best unit in the game? Survey says… possibly!
But returning lost Citadel units is only useful if those units themselves are good, right?
Well, why don’t we take a gander at them.
First up is the Citadel Knight. This guy has one of the greatest transformations in the jump from old to new Summoner Wars. I’m sure most people don’t even remember the old Guardian Knight. And I wouldn’t blame them. Here he’s a hefty 5 health and two strength. I mentioned before with Svara how this is a pretty threatening unit in its own right. Better yet, Sera’s knights have the engage ability which appears fairly common now on units meant to hold the front of a battleline. One damage for moving past the knight isn’t terrible if you need to wiggle through but it does nettle. Furthermore, their protect ability means that simple worming around isn’t good enough to strike Sera behind as they must be the target of any adjacent attack.
Thus, these knights end up being supplementary health pools for Sera thereby trivializing the danger of her being at the forefront of the battle so long as she has access to her bodyguards. And since she can pull them from the graveyard anytime they’re sent packing dirt, you can pretty effectively make a rather large roadblock to trying an assassination attempt against Sera. And they’re absolute walls to break too, so it’s no easy feat to simply remove the knight and attack with ranged units.
The coveted 3 strength melee attack comes at a pittance here for only 2 magic! Get yours today! Or throw it out early and recycle because you’re Sera!
But though he sports great defence, if you’re wanting to lay on some hurt, you’ll turn to the Citadel Paladin. This guys… is mostly bought for his stats. He comes with a little less health for that seemingly coveted 3 strength attack. Drawing cards on a special results is nice and all, made more reliable with his high strength but it doesn’t really do much if you draw through your deck. He’s largely a beat stick and you’ll pull him back to simply apply the beating. Everything else is a cute bonus.
Rounding out the last of Sera’s Citadel options is the humble archer. The best part of this guy is his large health pool equaling that of the knight. Unfortunately, that’s about it. His attack is too weak to effectively trade and using arrows of light to compensate can get pretty expensive. He’s more of an emergency play than anything else. This is a unit that can only work in new Summoner Wars, however, since you do get the magic for the archer’s discards and you can then use Sera’s Citadel Might to pull back a card to play later (or build for an additional magic).
Don’t underestimate the value of a massive 5 health pool. All factions will struggle to efficiently remove this from the board.
As I mentioned before, Sera’s ability only triggers if there is a Citadel unit on the board. And all three of these units are pretty healthy, making it a difficult feat to negate her power through common slaughter. As such, it’s always handy to keep at least one Citadel in hand to summon on your next turn should the tides turn unexpectedly against you.
But to help keep these soldiers going is the humble Priest. I mentioned before that Sera has a healing option and these ladies are far better than the Mass Heal event. First, they’re a body so can, in a pinch, be two strength attack or a body to block. Their healing requires you to discard a card, which is a little worse than using a magic (ignoring that Sera recycles cards endlessly) and uses up an attack. However, you have the potential to heal upwards of 4 health in one swing if you get specials on both those rolls. Plus, Holy Judgement makes this heal even more. Not to mention you can be healing units away from Sera.
I’ll admit, I first thought these ladies sucked. Then I used them. How wrong I was.
Healing is fairly niche in the first place so I’d rather have a flexible card that can attack and block as well. The Priest is the only common that’s costless too which is appreciated compared to all those two cost Citadel units.
Sera’s champions, much like Abua’s, do end up leaving something to be desired. They’re not bad, per se, it’s just that they don’t compare to the commons anywhere near as well. With priest support, you can get some more mileage out of them rather than Abua’s, mind you.
The worst, personally, has to be Coleen. Her greatest use is her attack but at three times the cost of a paladin, it’s hard to justify her use. I’ve notoriously bad luck and the few times I play her I can’t ever seem to get her to trigger her shield. She’s also a support champion who you really want on the field with a bunch of other Citadel commons to get the benefit from her. I just think it’s too much hoping for the stars to align. Late game, if I’m sitting on a pile of magic, I may consider it but generally I just pitch her for ease and convenience.
Expensive with a mediocre ability. Best against factions with low strength but even then, the ability is so inconsistent that you should never rely on it.
Brother Jacob Eldwyn at least brings something unique to the Vanguard roster. His two strength ranged attack can give you that desperately missing long range power. Even better, his strength grows with every two magic you accumulate in your pool. The obvious synergy is with the archers but then you’d need to play the archers. I find just timing him to attack third during your turn is generally enough to get a bonus strength or two. Six health on a champion isn’t a whole lot, mind you, so don’t expect him to make a huge impact. But he’s more affordable than your other options.
Citadel Archer #5! Except you don’t want five archers. At least’s he’s inexpensive I guess?
Last is Valna who slots in perfectly with Sera’s gameplan. Her nine health is good for leading a charge. That she gets stronger the more knights, paladins and archers are supporting her places your opponent in a tight bind. They can try to winnow your forces to reduce her attack, though you can always summon more and that leaves her on the field longer. Focussing her, however, and her large health pool lets your paladins and knights run free. She offers no good options. And, if you happen to get her early, the additional two card draw is nice to get more options and keep Citadel commons in your hand. If I had a choice between the three champions, I’d choose Valna each time. In fact, if I could, I’d just choose three Valna’s.
Hohoho. Even if she didn’t improve her strength based on your endless units, she’d be worth it for that health pool alone. Enemies will hate her paired with priests. Or knights. Or paladins. Or archers…
As you can see, Sera sports a pretty strong collection of common units and events that synergize well with an incredibly powerful ability. It’s really no wonder that she’s so powerful. Your general game plan will be to bring the aggressive fast and hard. You’ll be burning through your deck, getting those delicious Citadel units into your discard to recycle them with Citadel’s Might. And the more pressure you apply to your opponent, the more resources they need to burn to deal with you. Sera’s end goal is to reach the late game where her endless magic generation and card recycling gives her a clear advantage.
However, you don’t need to recklessly use Citadel’s Might either. Even two or three uses can give you the edge needed to claim victory. And you benefit from a methodical approach. Much like Abua Shi, Sera’s life points are a resource too. You can afford to take quite a few hits to win the economy war. The plan is to end with neither you nor your opponent with any draw pile and for you to outnumber your enemy’s forces decisively. The more your opponent summons units to take stray shots at you, only to die to your force’s retaliation, the sooner you reach those overwhelming numbers.
That you’ve got units and events to make the exchanges even less efficient for your enemy between blocking and healing damage is merely a handful of additional nails in their coffin.
Certainly, the Citadel’s strength knows no bounds.
Only two more factions to go before we have covered the entirety of the Summoner Wars relaunch! And these next two factions are quite the dozies!
First up, and by my estimation the second most powerful summoner, is Sera Eldwyn. She’s returned with her feisty Vanguard but this time she’s got a lot more heft in her hammers. This isn’t your old peace loving girl. This one is prepared to punch in your face.
The face of a killer.
The concept behind the Vanguard faction is simple enough: win through attrition. In Summoner Wars 1.0 this meant you had high (relative) health units, low attack and a boatload of healing capabilities. The Vanguard were meant to really drag their opponents into the mud, slowly whittling down their health and resolve while keeping the fighting spirit in tip-top shape.
In practice, this manifested as the Vanguards hitting like wet noodles, being completely run over by the rampant high attack factions and champions and overspending on mediocre healing effects and units that could hardly defend themselves.
Sera was bad. And Sera was sad.
However, it seems that in the intervening years she’s really been hitting the gym. She threw aside her triage skills, instead learning that people really only respect one thing: power. And boy howdy, is Sera’s new ability power. Now, whenever she shoots feebly at one of her enemy’s units (alright, maybe she wasn’t hitting the gym that hard), she is able to pull a Citadel unit from her discard into her hand.
If anyone recalls The Demagogue from Summoner Wars’ old Filth faction, they’ll understand how strong this ability is. It allows, in theory, an infinite amount of economy with the only limit being how many things Sera can shoot and what you have in your graveyard. There’s also small print on her ability – she needs to have a Citadel unit on the field. So keep in mind there’s (a little) counterplay to this.
But there’s additional perks in being able to draw from your discard: you can be assured having a common you need on the next turn, you can build the card you’d play for magic prior to give yourself a discount on its summoning and you need to worry about stuffing your hand with important units. You can also endlessly recycle your best common. Imagine if Abua Shi could have infinite border archers. Crazy bolts!
For being the healing faction, Sera certainly is bad at it.
There’s a caveat here, outside of just killing all of Sera’s Citadel commons. She needs to be flicking pebbles at something to do this, so she does need to position herself a little aggressively to get this benefit. It certainly reduces the amount of economy she’ll generate compared to old Demagogue but with greater health pools in the new Summoner wars, this is less a concern than you may think.
As for Sera’s events, let’s start by looking at her worst.
I mentioned how Svara’s Ice Repair was fantastic and frustrating. Well, Sera’s unit version, Mass Heal, is… something I almost never play. First, it costs a magic. And when we see Sera’s roster, we’ll understand there’s not a lot of magic to go around.
Because her stuff’s expensive.
Second, she can only heal units within two spaces of her. And yes, the Vanguard play tight but even so this is a bit too tight to get a whole lot of benefit from. If you’re really pressed about healing in this game, Sera has a much better option for one magic and we’ll be discussing that later. Basically, you want to get at least two units with this to be effective. But, honestly, letting Sera’s units die is actually beneficial if it opens up firing lanes for her to drag them back from the discard.
What’s better than healing? Not getting hurt.
Thankfully, the rest of her options are much better.
Guarding Spirits is wonderful. Kait might not be sold on them but I think this is a fantastic common event that I’d probably throw into as many decks as I can. All units within 3 spaces of your summoner suffer only 1 damage from the first attack against them? Yes please. Sure, striking that unit with a weak attacker first eats this protection. But then that means the enemy a) needs to have weak attackers out and b) needs to position at least two attacks on their target thereby assuring that none of your other units will die in their remaining attack phase.
Unless you’re the Cave Goblins, I suppose. Rejoice, Cave Goblins, you’re good in one specific instance!
Sera’s epic event is suitably impressive. Holy Judgement gives all your common units, regardless of position, an increase of 1 strength. In theory, she can have this event last for three turns which is a potential for 9 damage from one event! Granted, you’re unlikely to have this event last that long. Your enemy would be focussed on killing our units regardless of it ending your event sooner or not. But getting even 3 bonus damage from one event without paying a dime is wonderful. You’re laughing if you can get it to last two rounds.
Last, certainly not least, and arguably her best event, is Renewed Hope. This event has so many benefits for Sera. First, you can summon multiple units from the same spot which has marginal usefulness. More importantly, is being able to use Sera as a mobile gate for a turn, allowing summoning from her during the movement phase, attack phase and even the draw phase! This allows Sera to immediately capitalize on, say, magic from killing units, clearing blockers, fresh defenders drawn after she triggers Citadel’s Might or even anything tantalizing that she gets in her new draw. And these units are guaranteed to come down defending Sera?!
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
Bonkers. Is it possible to give a summoner two epic events? This makes a compelling argument for it.
I will note here, however, one hesitation I have for Sera. With so many of her abilities triggering off the Citadel keyword, it means she has a very limited potential for deck building. Unless we get word of deck building, I’m not certain there’s going to be a lot of decks that carry such a faction specific keyword. Whereas say, Sneeks, is merely limited by summoning cost and so is more likely to see a wider variety of options as the game goes on.
On the one hand, this means that the balance on Sera can be controlled a lot easier. Any future release that will synergize with her will be done very deliberately. No needing to worry about crippling a hypothetical Alliance box set with weak decks to keep her in line. Ultimately, however, it probably means that she’ll really only have what we see to play with. So either her decks are all going to be the same or she’s going to have to lean into some other synergies and combos that reduce the power of her Citadel’s Might ability.
The good news is her events are faction agnostic so it might not be that dire in the end.
Alright, are you ready for another full day of me gushing over how great the Polar Dwarves are?
I know I am.
This is the day we talk about Ice Golems.
I do like how Summoner Wars reboot has made common units an integral part of faction identity and tactics. Commons are a far better unit to focus your deck around, largely because there’s far more of them in your deck. This gives you better consistency in your draw, which is an aspect of Summoner Wars that doesn’t get enough attention. It is a card game, after all is said and done, and no matter the dice results or your clever maneuvering, you can still be undone by a lousy new hand of cards.
The original Tundra Guild tried to manipulate your deck and draw for advantages. It failed. Thankfully, Svara ejects this principle.
Instead, let’s talk more about structures with her standout common: the Ice Golem.
Can you believe that Summoner Wars 1.0 analogue of the Ice Golem was 1 attack and 3 health for the same cost? Crazy eh? To make matters worse, you needed one of five other cards in Hogar’s old deck to turn it into a moving summoning post. Which only did so after the summoning phase so your opponent had a very good chance of just blowing your ice golem off the board before you could even use it as such.
Ice Mages may not be as sexy as ice golems (weird to say) but I think they are the best unit in Svara’s deck – if only because of their massive synergies and cheap cost.
But not Svara’s golems. These brutes swing for a respectable 2 strength. It’s not incredible but it’s enough to demand attention from your opponent. That five health pool is hard to chip down with the added bonus of failing to finish them off leaves them open for a lovely repairing on Svara’s turn.
Moving only one tile a turn is not to be dismissed, however. You’ll be using a lot of Svara wiggles to get them into position. But these guys are really good at holding their position once you get them there. However, those first few rounds are brutal while you try to get them setup.
And that’s what I like about Svara. She really takes advantage of the board in this boardgame. Your golems are less mindless chaff pitched mercilessly against your opponent’s defences. They’re pillars supporting your massive battleline. And Frost Mages are the unsung heroes of your battles. Don’t let their meagre strength stat fool you, the real steal here is their 4 health for 1 magic. They’ll almost never be attacking at 1 strength with your plethora of structural support to boost their strength. And against most ranged options, they’ll be winning their exchanges.
Only Abua’s Border Archers really offer a one turn threat to your mages and they’ll need to roll above odds to win. Plus, border archers are twice the price so even if it takes two mages to kill one, you do economically come out equal. And much like Abua, golems and mages are rather your main battleline.
Our friendly reminder that all this stuff belongs to Plaid Hat Games. Though I’d be flattered if anyone actually thought I created this product.
However, Svara’s other options are interesting in their own right.
Bear Cavalry are, thematically, awesome. I’m less sold on them as a unit in general. They’re a specialist, needed for very specific moments but otherwise best sent off to the magic pile. Svara has no economic strength so a 3 magic unit is a tough sell. Their trample and 3 melee strength provide some reasonable damage against commons, however. But they’re no more durable than your golems – less so if you take repairing into account.
On one hand, they’re not Rune Smiths from 1.0. On the other hand, they’re no Marauders either.
But the one niche where the cavalry shine is in conjunction with Ice Smiths. These little guys are mercifully free. They’re pretty flexible too. Two melee strength is pretty handy to have on call at any mana level especially since they can usually reach whatever target you need once your gate and golem line is established. Their special ability is interesting if a little slow to roll out. You basically have to decide upon summoning whether you want to sacrifice them to improve your golems and bears or if you’re going to attack with them since no enemy will let them live a full turn. Their ability – making any special symbol count as two wounds, is very nice. Obviously they’re best on the bears who have a higher attack. In the worst case, they will make sure all your attacks hit. But they can also make golems and bears effective champion slayers with a potential 6 or 9 wounds on a best roll!
It’s a pretty decent collection of units, after all is said and done.
Svara’s champions are no slouches either.
Oh look it’s ice mage #6!
Nadiana is the expected “a common but better” unit. She eases off the pressure for exacting structure placement with counting two spaces for her strength bonus. Her 7 health is on the low end but never forget that she’s even more effective behind a parapet than Svara is.
Jarmund is a far more reasonable 5 magic. He really neuters melee focused decks, applying auto wounds to any enemies that end up adjacent to your walls. Like everything else with the Polar Dwarves, he needs a turn to start building his boost charges and wrecking havoc so your opponent can respond. Which is nice but ultimately doesn’t help them all that much.
Slow value.
Last, and certainly least, is hands down the worst champion in the game.
I’m glad Svara at least delivered something for me to hate. I cannot tell you how bad Ollag is.
But I will certainly try.
Oh look, it’s the worst champion in the game.
Ollag has an incredibly awful ability. Sure, having no range limit on his health boost to all your structures is nice. And it’s probably the only thing I can compliment him on. Unfortunately, a boost of one health is pretty minor when all your structures already have such large pools to start. He’s also timing dependent – you get no benefit from this ability if you don’t have structures on the board that your opponent is going to attack. Which is to say, you need a bunch of golems out.
And a minor ability would be fine if it came on someone who compensated with good stats. Yet, Ollag’s 5 magic, while low for a champion, is still too high for the magic pressed Polar Dwarves. Even worse, he has only 7 health so he’s not going to survive very long out in the wild (unless you hide him but then why did you waste 5 magic on a guy squatting in a corner when you could be killing with golems and bears?). Even worse, he doesn’t even have a good strength like Miti Kyru. And your smiths are unable to improve this at all so he’s left standing out there with subpar health, sub par strength providing very little durability to your forces who, albeit, lean heavily on their durability to win the game.
There’s simply no good moment where you would want to summon Ollag.
But thankfully, he’s pretty much the only blemish on an otherwise well designed faction. I like that the Polar Dwarves are focused on being a mid game powerhouse, creating a formidable line of structures that are hard for your opponent to move around and surrounding them in crushing ice. It’s a defensive style that works aggressively while Svara slowly chokes all options out from her opponent until claiming victory over their suffocated corpse.
So, there was this little release back in Summoner Wars original run called Alliances. It was an interesting big box packed full of goodies and surprises. The concept behind it was the various game’s factions paired up like an elementary school’s Valentine’s Day social and then awkwardly stepped on each other’s toes at the evening dance while realizing with sinking despair they had nothing in common.
No doubt they hung out with each other afterwards regardless of this fact.
It was a fascinating little project, however, as it created interesting thematic and mechanical mashups. The decks featured some of the most complicated rules and some of the most creative ideas. But were they good?
Well, that’s a different story.
Alliances came out near the end of Summoner Wars life cycle and so the designers had a better eye for what was strong and what was not. Alliances thus… struggled with trying to present interesting, innovative and compelling decks that did not tip the balance for those that had come before and were still dominating the discussion amongst the enthusiast community. Which is to say the decks were hobbled in their design to make sure that their parent factions wouldn’t be grossly unbalanced from their release.
As such, the mashups of the generally considered weaker factions were better than those that were formed from the originals considered powerful.
Which led us to the Tundra Guild.
I hate the Tundra Guild. Frothingly so.
And here we have the Tundra Guild returned.
Don’t be fooled by Plaid Hat’s marketing speak. The Polar Dwarves are not the first new faction. They’re those disgraced little snow midgets trying to sneak into the club with some fresh fake IDs. You thought no one would notice? Ha! We notice. And we’re keeping a close eye on you.
What an absolute unit. She looks standard enough but boy is her power so well constructed around her deck.
I’ve been skeptical of Svara and her little frostbitten fleas since they first previewed. And now, getting my grubby little hands on them I am proud to proclaim…
… well, I must admit that they aren’t half-bad. I so desperately wanted to hate them. But, dare I say, they’re actually quite good. And the more I play them the more I like them. Are they strong? I actually think they are. There’s a fair bit of layers beneath this ice. They’ve also got their own unique tempo compared to the other factions.
Furthermore, they absolutely abuse the new Build Phase and I love them for it.
My initial impression of the faction was in the gutter due to my preconceived bias. But I think they’re the third strongest in the box. Perhaps, with some time, I may even consider them the second? And hey, at this rate, they could be the best deck by the end of the year!
So what makes Svara stand tall amongst giants?
It’s certainly not her stock standard stats. Her ability is further unremarkable on first blush. Pushing around gates like some frigid, battlefield Sisyphos.
Granted, this is some mild spoilers, but her ability is meant to address the weakness of her slow cursed common yet to be previewed. However, shuffling around gates isn’t necessarily a terrible idea. You can’t really talk about Svara without getting a little into the weeds about the new Build Phase so, I suppose, let’s get into it.
Knee-high walls in gaming are getting out of control
The original Summoner Wars had the infamous walls that rather dominated the discussion and tactics of its release. These 10 health absolute units could only be placed on your side of the board and, for the most part, once down they never moved. You only had three of them, giving the tantalizing prospect of smashing all your enemy’s walls and leaving them unable to summon anything for the rest of the game.
Course, you didn’t, because 30 health worth of attacks in the last game where health pools were tiny and attacks were off the chart meant that you never really had a chance to swing for the fences when it was always better to be eating our opponent’s forces for lunch and preparing to have your champions duke it out in the mid or late game.
But here, in new Summoner Wars, things are different. For one, your bonus gates are half the health now. But you have an extra one to compensate. Furthermore, gates can be placed anywhere so long as they’re adjacent to your summoner (as well as the back three rows of your board). This means you can get aggressive summoning points rather handily on your enemy’s side which is a terrific source of pressure.
Svara, naturally, has these same capabilities. But even more than that, she can drag her gates with her. So any gate dropped early for funnelling or to clear your hand can eventually migrate like the ancient glaciers to your opponent’s side. And there’s really no better way to block an enemy’s summoning point than parking your own gate right in front of it.
Svara draws this weird ice curtain with her cold war, shrinking your opponent’s movement options as the game drags on. Naturally, “just shoot the gates” is a reasonable suggestion. Except it’s hard to do when feral bears are ripping your face off at the same time.
Look, it’s our old friend from the Tundra Orcs. Only it’s leashed to being close to your summoner but can now be your regular gates as well as Svara’s other toys!
Not to mention Svara has the amazing Parapet. This is a stupid waist high wall of the shooting genre fame. It won’t let you summon from it but you can fire over it while your opponent is absolutely baffled that you disappear from sight mere moments after lobbing some snowballs in their face. It doesn’t just provide your units a shifting shield of five health – it actually shuts down lanes as no one wants to leave their units vulnerable to the parapets’ defenders while they try to blow up the stupid thing.
Then, to lend Svara a hand with her gate rolling, she has Glacial Shift. Once again, we’ll get into how this event helps your little construct common later but even having it for repositioning all your gates and parapets is pretty damn helpful. And while I’m starting to find myself burning gates in other decks for the magic, you can be assured Svara is going to play all three of hers.
Ice Ram is fun. Vital? No. Overwhelming? Not really. You can win handily without ever using it. But is that really a victory?
And with all these structures littering the field, Ice Ram becomes such a lovely little tool.
This is worthy of Svara’s epic slot. The dream, of course, is to pair Ice Ram with Glacial Shift to just come crashing into your enemy’s face with all your buildings. However, I find even getting 1 or 2 assured damage and some reshuffling of enemy units to be worth it. Svara has some decent tricks in her event suite that she isn’t reliant on to secure an advantage. They’re merely additional threats that may, or may not, come out and this keeps your opponent on their toes.
Finally, if those poor fools do think “Man, these ice gates and walls really are ruining my day, why don’t I just kill them?” Svara has Ice Repair to make them regret having this entirely justified and rational thought. This is, perhaps, the best healing card we’ll see. Costless, two health across the entire battlefield is probably not going to be replicated for anyone else. And I’m not mad about it either.
Perhaps the best healing card in the game. Which is funny, because there’s actually a healing faction and Svara ain’t it.
And this is what I find beautiful about Svara. She’s got an excellent suite of event cards that you don’t need to hold for the best moment. On the other hand, you can carry one or two for an opportune moment and still get a good payoff for it. I never really find myself saving a card for “just the right moment.” I can squeeze some value from her events at any point.
