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Hail to the King, Baby – Ret-Talus Preview Part 2

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.

Hail to the King, Baby – Ret-Talus Preview Part 1

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.

Might Makes Right – Sera Preview Part 2

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.

Might Makes Right – Sera Preview Part 1

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.

This Ice is Nice – Svara Preview Part 2

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.

I really like this ice.

Walk on the Wild Side – Abua Shi Preview Part 2

Last time we took a look at new Summoner Wars Savannah Elves. We saw, arguably, one of the strongest common sets in a faction to date. And I say that even as an absolute fan of the Breakers. On the flip side, we also saw some rather lacklustre champions. They weren’t bad, by any measure, they just did not help with the flaws in the common roster and, instead, exacerbated the high cost of the Savannah Elves’ army.

Today, we’ll take a look at Abua Shi. Kait loved Abua in Summoner Wars 1.0. To the point that she’d pick him over Nikuya Na despite my attempts to convince her that the second summoner was better. 

Standard disclaimers apply. Plaid Hat owns EVERYTHING

And I can’t fault her efficiency with Abua’s first incarnation. 

This time, he returns a lot of the old dressings. He’s a high strength, low health summoner who sacrifices one of your precious actions in order to improve one of his units. With the Deep Bender boosting mechanic baked in as a standard system, the new Abua is undoubtedly stronger. 

First, sacrificing a movement isn’t nearly as bad as an attack. And the boost he gives now has a much higher variability in its effect. It’s a great way to “cheat” out extra boosts on the Savannah Elves commons who, smartly, are all able to boost themselves. Which is good because most of Abua’s units want a big stack of boosts on them. 

As such, his events are largely… there to get more boosts. Which is good. Chant of Growth can get you a lot of action economy in a big spike if you manage to get three units boosted from it. Though it’s not really worth putting a lot of effort into getting those large group boosts if it isn’t immediately available. Sometimes it might just be worth getting it on one unit and then moving on.

Chant of Weaving is an interesting little event. You get double duty of turning one of your units into a temporary gate while also giving them boosts for each unit that pops out of their forehead. Unfortunately, with the economic crunch in the plains these days, you’re not really going to be getting more than one boost from this event but the forward positioning for a fresh rhinoceros or lioness can be worth the effort. The downside with Chant of Weaving, however, is that you’re likely to fling your fresh units well out of Abua’s reach since he’s got a pretty tight circle in which he can boost. 

And you want your units to be near Abua because his best event is Chant of Entangling. This lets you share abilities between your commons and, really, there’s almost no losing combination here. Rhinoceros can get super charged lionesses into position. Border archers copying lionesses can refund their attacks while also giving the lioness that deadly second attack. And spirit mages… are best left untouched here. Chant of Entangling is your best “trick” in Abua’s arsenal which is why it’s surprising it’s not his epic event. 

Not to say Chant of Power does not deserve it’s epic slot. And Chant of Power promises such tantalizing opportunities. A border archer with multiple boosts becomes a machine gun for chewing through champions, gates or just hordes of commons. It will put the fear of the wild in the hearts of your enemy summoners. However, there’s a massive drawback to Chant of Power and that is Abua’s reach. He needs to be within that three space radius during the attack phase, so you won’t be getting crazy rhinoceros charges with this. 

This leads to Abua’s peculiar difficulties. He needs to keep fairly close to his units to give them the power of his ability or events. Yet that ten health is always worryingly low. Curiously enough, however, I don’t think there’s truly a risk of assassination simply due to the fact players are going to be moving him around cautiously.

Yet, I think having Abua tempting your opponent is the best bet. At the end of the day, and why I’m skeptical of Abua’s potential, is that he’s very straightforward. You know what you’re going to get facing him. Border archer and lioness spam will crash against your side with a few entangling chants and the odd cry of havoc to back it up. Therein lies Abua’s weakness: just kill his units. 

I mean, this does sound pretty silly on first blush especially given that his units are so strong. However, you’re likely to face an aggressive Abua, so lean heavily into the game’s natural defender’s advantage. Most factions either have cheaper units which they can use to get more favourable exchanges or they have economic advantages to make up for their units getting torn to shreds. Also, Abua needs to pay for his units somehow. I find his gates, events and champions are mulched for each of those archers and cats. Get those off the board as fast as you can. In this way, I think a risky Abua who positions himself aggressively can get some mileage. If he lures some attacks his way then his commons can do what they do best. Otherwise, both players will just end up counting his litter to see how many he’s got remaining in the tank. 

And getting back to these events, none of them do a particularly good job of preserving his precious commons. It’s a good balancing decision but it exposes Abua’s weakness. Which is why I find I build them for magic more than anything else. In this way, I don’t think the Savannah Elves are bad per se, it’s just that a lot of the base decks have answers to this common unit throwdown:

Ret-Talus and Sera recycle their best units so losing trades mean nothing to them. 

Svara’s buildings act as secondary health pools that draw attacks away from her commons so she can get better trades. 

Tacullu can steal those powerful commons for herself if she’s lucky. 

Though I will admit, the Tacullu matchup does expose a few cracks in my original view of Tacullu’s unending power. Her fragile army doesn’t trade well and there’s enough health on the wild side to make Mind Capture a very risky proposal. Mind Control does a fair bit of work here but… I think I need to play this pairing more. I’m starting to believe it’s in Abua’s favour. 

And then, of course, there’s the goblins. Who… I guess just try to rush down Abua before he can draw into all his goodies? 

There is a reason I have the Cave Goblins last, afterall. 

Last, but not least, I’m skeptical of Abua’s future potential. He’s so reliant on these boosting combos that I’m not sure deck building is going to provide much for him. We’ll have to see. I’m just reminded of Endrich’s gimmick, however, which received no further support in later releases so he was left flapping in the wind with his original tricks and toys against an ever shifting battlefield.

At least Sneeks is assured there will be more 0 cost units released.

Walk on the Wild Side – Abua Shi Preview Part 1

Right, well we’ve a lot of Summoner Wars content to cover and… well a lot of time to cover it. However, while I’m happy to belabour this project, I’m certain Kait would want me to post something that isn’t baseless speculation on a game that’s been delayed to August. 

But then again, we can’t always get what we want. 

I don’t really feel like doing a disclaimer at the start of all my posts on these faction previews so I’m just going to do this once. These are my initial impressions based on very little information and are most likely to be wildly inaccurate as I’m examining them from a Summoner Wars 1.0 lens rather than this relaunch. Granted, unlike the Breakers and Cave Goblins, I’ve actually been able to give the factions a little bit of a whirl with their online beta. So it’s a little less baseless but still going to be my wild opinions. Don’t take them as gospel.

Or do. I mean, I’m not you. Whatever floats your boat and what you like. 

Today, we’re going to look at the Savannah Elves. I’m going to try and squish faction previews down to two posts so one will be the summoner and his or her events and the other will be their commons and champions. And what better way to start this format than doing it backwards with the Savannah Elves common units!

Of the six base decks, I actually think that the Savannah Elves are the third worst. 

Now, hear me out. I know that they seem very strong. And I know when you pick them up, you’ll probably get your first few wins. And I do think they’re good. This is more a commendation to the seemingly close balance of the starting decks rather than a poor reflection of the Savannah Elves’ roster. 

On the other hand, we can always frame it as them being fourth best and things just feel all nice and cosy.

But let’s get into why I think they’re on the lower end by talking about what makes them strong. 

All rights, images, intellectual properties, concepts, beliefs, wardrobes and grammar pertaining to Summoner Wars are belong to Plaid Hat Games

Here’s the Lioness. You may remember her from Summoner Wars 1.0. There, she was a pet favourite of Kait’s but her effectiveness was… well… ultimately questionable. Before, she granted extra unit movement in your turn (and the corresponding car pile-up as your units tripped over themselves trying to herd the unruly cats). Now, she grants health. And she comes in with a meaty 3 strength melee attack. 

This is a bargain. It’s trivially easy to get an attack off your summon turn so the lioness is really a 3 strength, 3 health unit for 2 magic. That’s pretty gangbusters for its price. In comparison, the Cave Goblins are paying an additional magic for that benefit. And this is ignoring that the lioness has a number of tricks to boost her health on the first turn with a little support. But even more than that, the lioness demands attention. Your opponent wants to kill this thing because each turn she goes unmolested, she gets harder to kill later. And yet, failing to kill her allows her to recuperate those wounds while snacking on your face. On average, you can expect her to live two rounds and deal on average 5 damage. 

Which is great. 

But it’s not even the Savannah Elves best unit.

That distinction goes to the Border Archer. 

I don’t know why, but border archers always seem to hit for 3 or 4 damage consistently yet all my other 4 strength range units only hit for 1 or 2.

Here’s a unit which is essentially 4 strength ranged, 4 health for 2 magic! That’s even better than the lioness, depending on how lucky you get with that 75% chance to hit, of course. Granted, if she has to move, then she loses half her attack – ignoring all the support from other cards of course (which is a big point to ignore). And she will eat a move with her Prepare ability that can drag on an assault. But on the other hand, swift shot means the border archer can attack two separate units. She can kill a blocker and hit a wounded unit or enemy summoner behind. And since she’s a ranged attacker, with even more health than the lioness, odds are that enemy retaliation won’t be able to finish her off in one go. So she can really hold down a lane of fire for you too. 

These two units alone would make any faction respectable. As such, it’s not surprising that the last two are less impressive only because they couldn’t hope to compare to these all stars. 

I can relate with this guy’s receded hairline.

The Spirit Mage, however, is a respectable unit on his own. He holds the distinction of being the only affordable option in the Savannah Elves roster at 1 magic. And with that, you get a rather impressive 3 ranged strength. Furthermore, he can ease pressure on your preparedness by giving a border archer a single swift shot while allowing both to get into position. Alternatively, he can allow a rhinoceros a longer charge or more health on your lioness if necessary. His two health, however, means he won’t be lasting long especially given that respectable attack strength.

And I can relate with this guy’s… uh… pink mood? I don’t know.

Finally, the humble rhino may not look like much compared to the rest of the herd. Two melee strength is rather disappointing when the rest of the cast hit like freight trains. However, the rhinoceros provides unprecedented levels of pressure. Commons, which are very common on the field now, cannot block as getting two or three boost tokens onto the rhinoceros is remarkably easy. And while its punch is lower, it’s still enough that charging a rhinoceros onto an enemy summoner demands attention. And there’s really no summoner that can reliably deal with the rhinoceros on their own. 

The trample damage is just a cherry on the cake, as they say. But a respectable one at that when they’re bulldozing over little Cave Goblin Slingers.

As for the champions, I think you can probably start predicting the issue here. 

That’s some thick trunk. I’m not entirely sure how those pectoral growths occurred. Maybe they’re tree fungus.

Let’s start with the big showstopper: Miti Mumway. There’s no way we can ignore that 8 magic cost. It’s steep, especially for a 1 strength attack. Yes, Miti can grow and the Savannah Elves specialize in growing quickly, but it’s hard to ignore the opportunity cost in putting big Mumway to the board. For the same price in magic, you could have your entire suite of archers or lionesses. Best case scenario, you get him in the late game when your opponent has few opportunities to surround Miti Mumway and chop him into mulch. 

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Miti Kyru is a far more affordable 5 magic. He’s largely a support, providing another source of boosts for your squad. Though his stats are respectable for his cost as well. Downside is that he’s… well… two and a half border archers to play. He’s nice to have but he doesn’t fill a niche uncovered by your strong commons. And for what he’s normally going to be doing, do you really want to spend five times the cost of a spirit mage? 

Poor kitty broke his legs.

I don’t. 

Not to mention, there’s no inherent addressing the problem of support commons in Summoner Wars. They’re very reliant on draw order and timing to work effectively. You want Miti Kyru to come up when you have several commons on the board already that need boosting. Early draws of Kyru and you can’t afford him or him and his commons. Late in the game, most of your commons might already be dead. And if you’re cycling through commons constantly, you’ll likely be pressed for magic anyway. 

That bird reminds me of Summoner Wars 1.0’s Hawk. I hope he makes a return.

At last we have Makeinda Ru.

And there’s not much to say about Makeinda Ru. She’s border archer #6. Coming in at Kyru’s cost, Makeinda brings two additional health at the sacrifice of accuracy compared to the king of cats. If I’m going to slap one of these pricey characters to the board, it’s probably going to be Makeinda. Not because she’s amazing but just because she’s essentially two border archers that only turn over half the magic to your opponent when killed. 

So there you have it. The Savannah Elves bring a terrifyingly powerful force to the battlefield. Their game plan is simple, smash your opponent’s face with your incredibly strong animals and archers. If they don’t die, they get stronger. If they do die, you replace them with more. Then, laugh all the way to victory over the summoning stone wars or whatever it is these kids fight over nowadays.

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Vault 111 – The Institute

So… The Institute.

Adventure stories like Fallout really revolve around the villains. They are the ones that drive the action and set the motivation for the hero to continue through their hardships. As such, the Institute is so insanely important that you can’t drop the ball like Bethesda did. For me, this is where Fallout 4 must begin. Which means we need to pop over to the Commonwealth Institute of Technology before the bombs dropped.

CIT would have been, before the war, a massive centre for robots and artificial intelligence engineering. Their developments and staff had to have played a major role in the war effort both in creating the powersuits that would allow the American army to repel Chinese forces as well in fabricating more theoretical warmachines like the Robobrains. As such, no doubt researchers at CIT had developed predictive models and simulation results that at least suggested there was a good probability for total nuclear destruction. Maybe they didn’t feel a need to formulate their own fallout shelters, erroneously believing that Vault-Tec’s governmental contracts meant such needs would be met. Surely, however, they would have had older or test facilities built beneath the CIT campus, however. Thus, when the bombs fell, the staff and students were instructed and directed to these primitive shelters. However, perhaps in their own arrogance or maybe just in administrative screw-ups, the shelters were clearly not stocked well enough to support all the students and staff cowering in them. Furthermore, their campus wireless network was blown offline and their access to the robotics facilities and the numerous machines built there was lost. 

Recognizing something had to be done or they would all die, several senior staff and scientists bravely volunteered to venture out into the radiation and try to activate and program the robots to tend to exterior repairs of the shelter as well as secure food and water for those inside until the outside world became more tolerable for human life.

Taking what precautions they could, they set out into the nuclear winter. Suffering heavy radiation, they managed to activate some rudimentary robots but recognized that they didn’t have the time or terminals to program them sufficiently for their duties. One of the senior staff offered a bold option that would change the direction of the Commonwealth forever. These senior staffers would hook themselves up to an experimental cryogenic system that would hook their consciousness up to the digital system in the labs and allow them to control the robots manually. 

Fallout 4 and all associated imagery belongs to Bethesda Softworks.

Coincidentally, these pods were designed with the help of the scientists from Vault 111 who were more focused on their long term effects on the human body while the CIT pods specialized in the applications of the mind. Holy shit, we’ve just made a perfect connection with the start of the game!

Thus, these original staff saved the people of CIT and operated as their robotic guardians through the next few years as the landscape was ravaged with nuclear weather, raiders and monsters. But once the radiation had subsided enough, and the area secured well enough, the survivors emerged. They were moved by the sacrifice these researchers did, vowing to reward their actions by unfreezing them. However, the technology was still experimental and those thawed ended up dying whether through the process or the insane amounts of radiation in their bodies. Worried about losing their heroes, they turned to brain mapping and preserving these magnificent brains in great databanks.

This was the start of the Gestalt.

A peculiarity of the Fallout universe is that while there are incredible leaps in technological development, other aspects of their tech are sorely lacking. As such, their storage capacity for digital information is closer to the huge server banks of yesteryear rather than the miniaturization revolution of our days. Thus, while they could store these minds in these servers, they couldn’t really communicate with them individually. These uploaded brains were instead treated as one system and it produced a highly complex entity composed of dozens of personalities, knowledge and skills. This gestalt of minds ended up being insanely valuable for the survivors to consult as it preserved years of advanced computational, robotic, physics, mathematical, psychological and engineering knowledge that would have been otherwise lost. So, even those valued minds that didn’t make that fateful journey but were now aging and in risk of losing their own expertise were uploaded near death, their haggard bodies frozen in a dwindling supply of cryopods. When last these survivors could no longer keep safe the bodies, they resolved to just preserve digital copies of the minds. 

But they vowed, one day, that they would restore these heroes to life anyway they could. They just needed to develop the bodies for them. 

They first started trying to use old Mr. Handy, Protectron and even their experimental robot designs to house the Gestalt. And, if they hooked them up to the wireless system on campus, the Gestalt could interact with them as it filtered the complex computations of the digital mindbanks into its representative body. However, if these machines left the range of the network, the connection was severed and the robot failed. The Gestalt express this process as highly traumatic to its memory cores. So the survivors looked at isolating small portions of its personality, trying to tease out the old minds from the collected whole. Yet the processing units of these simpler machines was simply not suitable for the vast quantity of data uploaded from the brain mapping. Even worse, the survivors were worried of permanently damaging the minds of their revered elders. 

So, they vowed not to experiment with them any further. Instead, knowing there were others out there, they could turn to using other survivors of the bombs to refine their process. Of course, no one is going to willingly volunteer to have their brains forcibly digitized so… some ethically questionable tactics had to be employed. 

And all the while they worked, the Gestalt focused on advancing and expanding the digital campus network so they could keep protecting and providing for the survivors. Time passed, generations changed and more and more great minds were added to this burgeoning digital consciousness as the people feared losing the advanced knowledge of the project they toiled on. In this way, the Institute was a slow birth of attempted fealty and reverence along with desperation and necessity. The Gestalt could tirelessly man the turrets and machines of the CIT campus to chase out or dissuade deadly adversaries like deathclaws or raiders while its people worked on trying to save them. In time, the Gestalt came to process other communities arising from the ruins around them. Fearing that the Institute’s technology and expertise would be highly sought by these people, the Gestalt focused its efforts on leading its people underground. The labs could not easily be moved, but dormitories and living quarters could be better protected deep in the earth accessed only through the twisted maze of access tunnels once connecting all the old campus buildings. 

In this way, the rest of the wasteland came to discover small research outposts and labs that were heavily defended. However, to their eyes, these were just hermit researchers using old pre-war robots to protect themselves. And the Institute made no effort to dissuade them of this misconception. As such, the Institute isn’t really one place. It’s numerous laboratories and factories, all connected through secret service tunnels underground and protected by the Gestalt consciousness through its wireless network. The Gestalt could sense an intruder in one satellite location and immediately prepare and evacuate all others in danger. In return, the Institute scientists played to the ignorance of the wasteland, presenting themselves as independent researchers oftentimes feigning ignorance of their colleagues operating mere blocks away. Then, at night, during down time or when threatened, the Institute scientists retreat from their labs to the underground bunkers beneath the now abandoned CIT main campus with none the wiser. 

And it is beneath the campus where the CIT cognitive databanks are stored, housing the massive memory of the Gestalt. Above ground, the wasteland recognizes it as a deadly wildland filled with robot experimental creatures who kill anyone who tries to scavenge it. For the CIT robotics department had created numerous robots, from birdlike animatronics to large dog or catlike machines to study dynamic movements, flight patterns and numerous other mechanical inquiries. These robots were repurposed by the Gestalt as a defence force that could operate in a staggering and surprising manner to defend its otherwise dead appearing home. 

Thus, the Synths are the culmination of many years of development by the Institute. They wanted to create humanlike robots with the ultimate goal of teasing apart the consciousness of the Gestalt and restoring them to bodies capable of feeling, tasting, loving and hurting. Their experimental process necessitated field tests of sending out kidnapped consciousnesses into the communities to see if they would succeed at achieving the human experience. And in their compassionate mission, the Institute realized that, yes, this allowed them unprecedented infiltration and spying that no other organization could match. But there’s a hitch. These aren’t mass produced bodies and these consciousnesses they send out aren’t mere machines. These are their heroes, saviours and revered elders. Each Synth is a precious being which they want to keep safe and protected. Any that are lost necessitate an even larger force to reclaim. As the memory cores of those units carry the precious, one of a kind minds. 

To add a further wrinkle, they found that while they toiled to save the Gestalt, the Gestalt was also slowly changing. The personalities, for lack of better language, grew accustomed to being one. The process of isolating a mind into a Synth for field work can be highly traumatic. Extended separation can cause unfathomable psychological stress and damage. Many of their Synths developed personality aberrations. And some of these psychological failures resulted in the Noodle Shop Massacre of Diamond City. Some Synths, once separated from the Gestalt, develop complete psychotic breaks and flee into the wasteland in their madness. There many become raiders or other personalities altogether as the mind tries to cope with the separation. 

As a result, the Institute never ceased its kidnappings. It just started being more selective. They developed a means of assessment for targets, looking for those with the correct psychological make-up that could tolerate separation from the Gestalt for their fieldwork operations. They also had to demonstrate the same quality and character that would maintain the mission and want to return to the Gestalt. This is why Vault 111, which the researchers knew about since they helped develop the cryogenic pods, was so important to plunder for minds as these pre-war personalities were far more pliable for fieldwork than regular wastelanders who had communities and families to which they felt kinship towards. 

And, ultimately, the Institute is still struggling with keeping the minds of their Gestalt stable. Reuploading to the Gestalt is the only way that they can keep these personality matrices in proper synchronization. 

Now, I think this gives some proper motivation for the behaviour and motivation of the Institute while also adding some complexity to their philosophy and goals. Obviously we can’t just leave the work here but we need to break it down into a mission based story progression. So, we need to ask ourselves how do we want this faction represented in a playable story with some measure of player agency over its outcome?

For me, I think Fallout 4 would really benefit from having specific leaders leading their factions with obvious tangible goals. These should be fairly easy to communicate as well while allowing the player and ability to support or resist said leader’s direction. 

With the Institute, Shaun was a terrible, terrible figurehead. Now, there is a strong story for the kidnapped child of a cryogenically parent being the villain of the world in which the parent wakes up in. But this is not that story. We would need far more connection with our son Shaun and there would necessitate a level of character development and personal journey that Bethesda has consistently failed to demonstrate in their entirety of their career. So let’s not set our bar too high. I would keep Shaun as a high ranking scientist of the Institute and there could be several side quests dealing with him in various capacities. In fact, I have a very clever way to integrate Shaun much better into the main gameplay and narrative than having him as this immovable political figure with no actual ability to shift at the player’s efforts. 

Instead, the clear leader of the Institute should be the Gestalt. The story of Fallout 4 would revolve around settling the conflict between the four main factions vying for control over Boston. I’d have it that, with four factions, a player must conclude the game by allying with one. The other three can be resolved in one of two ways: diplomacy or combat. However, the have a proper rising climax, each faction should have a hated adversary which, when allying with that faction, necessitates the destruction of its opponent. 

So the way to “resolve” the Institute violently would clearly be to break into its core Cambridge bunker and explode the memory banks of the Gestalt. This literally obliterates their political aspirations in the region and would bring all their operatives to lay down arms as they have no reason to resist after that fact. And look, such a choice for the more likely route a player takes doesn’t actually encourage genocide. We can be moralistically responsible too, Bethesda!

On the other hand, siding with the Institute makes this more interesting. As I mentioned, I want tangible changes to the world as the story progresses so that players can see an immediate impact of their choices (in support of different factions). For the Institute this gets more complicated.

However, given that they’re meant to be an incredibly advanced society of scientists and engineers, baked in complexity is a perk and not a bug. 

Thus, we need to settle on a goal for the Gestalt. We know the Institute is creating Synthetics to give bodies to their revered leaders. This would effectively make them ageless since, should their Synthetic bodies ever get damaged enough they can replace them. However, this process of uploading and creating Synths of prominent members wouldn’t be rolled out for everyone unless the risk of death is close for the obvious reason that it deprives the faction of parenthood and some key important survival elements. Synths, no matter how advanced, can’t make babies since they are still reliant on biological personalities to power their robot bodies. 

So while the Gestalt is happy to have individual bodies for themselves, they’re not actually looking to return to a “normal” human life that their scientists and research expect. 

The Gestalt is a digital hivemind. From the perspective of those that are absorbed into it (willing or not) it is a combination of both a greater collective and individuals. Each personality is integrated into the grander personality bank, becoming operating cells of a greater whole. It’s a community, or city, gaining sentience and operating at a separate cognitive level than those from which it came. For the Gestalt, Synths are not a means of ending the collective – they’re about expanding its range of operation and sense. 

The Gestalt is more focused on expanding CIT’s pre-war wireless network. As mentioned earlier, the Gestalt is able to use its wireless signals to command and possess any robots which enter receiving range. And given the large number of robots scattered throughout the Commonwealth, by spreading their wireless network they can expand their “physical body” to greater distances. Imagine an overseeing consciousness capable of instantaneously analysing and executing coordinated operations across the entirety of the Commonwealth. It could detect an approaching raider attack and immediately withdraw its civilians while simultaneously moving a response force to intercept and deal with the attack. It could, in fact, be so precise in its operation that it could calculate exactly which farmsteads and factories are in danger while leaving others in the area still operating and maintaining productivity. Furthermore, any advanced system falling inside this wireless network runs an extraordinarily high chance of being hacked by the Gestalt and converted to its own operation, halting most technological threats. And the robots beneath its command would serve as effective defense against primitive threats.

Thus, the Gestalt directs the Institute to expand out from its central research core to activate old, pre-war terminals and systems to bring this wireless network back online. The Institute believes that this allows the Gestalt to retrieve and integrate the stored information within those systems into itself. Which is true. The dual purpose of expansion is to broaden the entity’s knowledge and reach simultaneously, making each new wireless hub a powerful tool in its arsenal. So the Institute fields its lower generation Synths – both human and animal robots – alongside researchers to ruined university laboratories and computer systems to install or reactivate this powerful wireless network. I would have a blue digital field projection to visualize areas where the wireless network was established, giving players carrying robots with them effective warning for zones they should avoid with their companions if they wished to keep them peaceful. It would also give visual clues for quests against the Institute to direct players towards the wireless transmitters that they would be tasked with destroying.

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Vault 111 – The Synthetic Problem

So in my prior posts about Fallout 4’s shortcomings and changes I would have done for it, I covered the lack of important locations and weak world building that deprived characters motivation for the story. I feel like Bethesda tried to emulate New Vegas’ structure with the action centred around a single point of interest and having a bunch of interests squabble over it. Yet, Diamond City was never designed to be an important or strategic piece in any faction’s goals. Likewise, it ended up being rather sparse in interests or details nor did it qualify for its in world importance.

My fix was to develop five important political bodies each with an invested interest in the ruins of Boston and a brief description of how they are integrated with each other. However, while I liked New Vegas’ direction, I don’t think Fallout 4 has to follow so closely in its predecessor’s shoes. So, the Boston ruin settlements help to flesh out the stage for the conflict but not the conflict itself. 

Furthermore, I don’t think it’s constructive to look at a flawed result and say that to fix it you have to pitch everything about it out and start over. I’ve already expressed that those situations don’t really interest me. So, in my efforts to provide an alternative to what we had, I tried to preserve what I could of Bethesda’s efforts – in spirit if not in design.

As such, the crux of the conflict should center around the Synthetics that sucked up so much oxygen from the actual release.

It also means fixing the massive mess that is the convoluted and contradictory entities that are the Synthetics. And that means we’ll have to put their creators, The Institute, squarely in centre stage. 

But first here is a quick rundown of the Synthetics. They are robots designed with cutting edge artificial intelligence and advanced engineering so as to be wholly indistinguishable from actual human beings. 

Seems reasonable enough except whenever Fallout 4 tried to get into the nitty gritty details.

For one, the earliest you’ll stumble across talk of the Synthetics is at the small village of Covenant. There, following their quest, you’re informed that a person is impossible to identify whether they’re a robot or not until the individual is dead and you’re able to dissect the body to find robot parts. As such, the doctors of Covenant were attempting to create a psychological test that would reveal the nature of Synthetics without having to resort to death.

However, this brings up way more questions than it provides answers.

First, how the hell can you not tell a robot until you’re dissecting it? I’m not sure if Bethesda has taken literally any biology classes but if you cut a person, they’ll bleed. And they’ll bleed because our circulatory system is incredibly complex and important for providing oxygen, nutrients, hormones and nourishment to our entire body. It seems trivial to tell the difference. Prick a person’s thumb. If they bleed then they’re human. If they don’t. They’re a robot.

Unless, of course, the Institute created the Synthetics to have a fake circulatory system. For argument’s sake, let’s assume they did this. The marvel of the Synths could be that they Institute was able to fabricate a fake cardiovascular system that provided veins and blood to each of their robots. This would mean, despite what the characters argue in game, the only purpose for Synthetics is literally as infiltration units for the rest of the Commonwealth. There is no other logical reason to develop and build such an insanely complex and ultimately pointless system other than to try and obfuscate the robot’s identity. In Far Harbour, we learn the fate of one unlucky Synth is that they were grabbed by cannibals and eaten before they could reach safe shores. And they didn’t even notice something wrong with their victim. This suggests that not only did they develop this circulatory system but they also created synthetic flesh, muscle and bone so realistic in its properties that literally people used to eating it couldn’t tell the difference. 

And also makes you wonder where their meetings debating how human flesh would taste went down. 

Fallout 4 and all associated images are copyright Bethesda Softworks.

So if the Institute was creating highly advanced infiltration units, what was the purpose of this unfathomably difficult project? We don’t know because Bethesda never provided an explanation. Literally. As I’ve complained before, it wasn’t for manual labour because labour robots are littered throughout the entirety of the Fallout universe like discarded PPE from a pandemic ravaged world. And not only that, but these infiltration units are incredibly more fragile than an actual armed robot army as they now must bleed and be crippled from wounds, seek to preserve themselves and be susceptible to radiation and other biological maladies that other robots would naturally carry immunities. The only logical explanation is, then, that these were meant to be spies and sleeper units with the next logical step being that the Institute was planning some sort of tyrannical invasion of the Commonwealth that would be accomplished so quickly as the people in power were either replaced by complicit Synthetics or easily neutralized by infiltrated Synthetics. 

However, why would the Institute want this? We learn that the Institute is nothing more than a bunch of scientists from MIT who survived the apocalypse in their secret underground laboratories and, quite literally, want nothing to do with the pathetic squabbling outside world for being so barbaric and primitive. You literally have a conversation with your son on the roof of the old Cambridge Square building where he laments how disgusting the rest of the world is and how he doesn’t regret never leaving his hole except for this moment. 

As I’ve said, the plot of Fallout 4 is insanely, incomprehensibly stupid. 

I simply can’t accept that a secret scientific society would ever approve the amount of attention, resources and time required to develop this incredibly useless technology. To add insult to injury, the Institute literally developed teleportation technology rendering the argument for an infiltration unit moot since they could appear unexpectedly exactly on their target and then vanish before anyone could respond. And yet the news of this world shattering technology kind of hits like a warm fart. Your faction of choice is like “That’s neat” when you inform them and then they blithely move on with whatever inane issue Bethesda cooked up to occupy your time. 

So, first order of business, kill the teleportation technology. This was literally a deus ex machina designed to fix obvious plot holes in their story when they were writing it. Furthermore, the ability to teleport would have such unfathomably far reaching effects for the world going forward that you do not want to open that can of worms on a franchise that you have any intention of continuing with. It’s the sort of thing that’s either pre-baked in or it will eat up the entire narrative whether you want it or not. And since Bethesda is so gungho on making Fallout a post-apocalyptic survival sim even though its been multiple generations since the apocalypse, this is clearly the dumbest decision I’ve seen on the top of a heap of idiotic choices. 

And since I’m committed to making Synths work and the crux of the story, we now need to do the work Bethesda wouldn’t. 

We need to come up with an explanation for these dumb robots which exist in a resource strapped world that already has robots. As a reminder, the apocalypse in Fallout occurred because the world had exceeded the natural limit of its resources to support an insanely energy wasteful society. Fallout happened specifically because there wasn’t enough resources to go around. So if we want to create a new kind of robot that is immeasurably more wasteful and difficult to develop than the rustbuckets in our garbage cans, we need a damn good reason for doing so.

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Vault 111 – Boston Ruins

Last post I wrote about how I would spruce up the world of Fallout 4 and focused on its gleaming capital along with the figures you would find at its central, beating heart. 

But the Boston ruins shouldn’t just be Diamond City. Since the major players of the story are focused specifically on its control, there should be an immediately tangible reason for players to understand what is at stake. While New Vegas went the route of having its titular location glamoured up, I would instead have the bulk of the area’s population concentrated in the greater Boston ruins. As such, I’d put four more major settlements in the bombed remains of the city. While I do care about some degree of realism, I think one of the fun elements of Fallout is having people form cities in weird places or recontextualizing old locations by repurposing them into habitats. 

So let’s start with Massol.

Massol

Massol takes its name, like many locations in Fallout, from a bastardization of a rather generic or familiar modern day place. In this case, this city is built on the Orange Line in the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority, specifically at the Back Bay Station. This would be an underground city based around the old subway system. Naturally, when the air raid sirens blared and the bombs fell, people fled to where they thought they would find shelter. For many residents of Boston who didn’t have access to Vaults or fallout shelters, this ended up being the underground tunnels. However, the underground was never designed to be shelters. It was a catastrophe, as thousands upon thousands of citizens were killed in these murder holes. The detonations collapsed the tunnels on top of them. Ruptured water mains drowned others. There was no protection from radiation leading to many getting sick and dying from exposure.

However, despite the scale of the tragedy, some people managed to survive against the odds. Perhaps they were buried in the rubble but managed to dig themselves out. Or maybe through sheer luck, they managed to find themselves deep enough to avoid the worst of the hazards. Most turned into ghouls, mind you, but life is life. Instead of crawling to the hostile surface, these people dug further into the dark. They created a warren of tunnels through the old transit system. And these tunnels turned deadly as many of these ghouls slowly became feral.

But in the meantime, there was a congregation of survivors. They formed a fort against the crumbling walls and prowling monsters. With access to the city’s buried power cables and sewage, these survivors formed a rudimentary community underground. And with some ingenuity and cleverness, they even managed to get it thriving. For once the people of Massol made contact with others above ground, they found they offered a highly valuable service that no one else could – transportation free of the early radiation danger and the opportunists and monsters that now prowled the streets. Massol quickly learned that they could charge handsomely to get people and things through the tunnels. And for a people largely subsisting off radiated water and mutated roaches, this gave them much needed food and water that wouldn’t kill them. 

Fallout 4 and its associated imagery and art belong to Bethesda Softworks.

Furthermore, the service provided by Massol proved vital for the numerous settlements throughout the Boston ruins. It facilitated advanced trade negotiations. Nowhere near pre-war levels but excess resources produced at specialized sites could easily be converted into necessary goods otherwise dangerous to obtain. The success of a settlement, so long as they could secure access to the Massol lines, no longer required fresh water, tillable earth and fortified positions. 

Of course, the feral ghouls which periodically raided the pump cart transports (and mostly those not operated by Massol ghoul technicians) ended up being more of a publicity problem than a logistical one. Those that started to get comfortable with the Massol transit lines were worried that the ghoul operators would turn on them during work. In time, this worry turned to discrimination and ultimately ended in exile for the original survivors who established the settlement that saved so many lives.

Now, Massol is more discriminatory towards ghouls than anywhere else and they spread their distrust of the heavily irradiated wherever they go. But otherwise, as a people, they have proven hardy and ingenious. Though they operate simple outposts at station posts, its central hub is Back Bay where most of the settlement (and derailed train cars) have been repurposed into a bustling hub. 

And, technically, Massol is independent of the other cities in the Commonwealth. However, much like Flotsam Burg, they are heavily influenced by the Diamond City Brahmin and the Gardner family in particular. Massol and Gardner workers ensure the buried power lines of Diamond City are functional to power the generators of both cities. Massol further specializes in excavation, digging into ruins from the ground up while running lines, pipes and power beneath the earth to those above ground. However, despite their vital service, most look down on the people of Massol, viewing them barely above the ferals and ghouls which they chased out. 

In terms of gameplay and story, Massol would offer the player a means of fast travelling through the Boston core – assuming the player pays and stays on the city’s good side of course. It would start off limited to the Orange line, from the remote terminus near Franklin Reserve and the eastern port of Flotsam Burg. However, quests available to the player would be expanding the Massol lines, culminating in access all the way to Framingham in the north, Vault 88 in the south, Deadum and Quincy. These could involve clearing tunnels of ghouls or distant stations of raiders and monsters to allow the construction of new station posts. The guards for the Massol lines would start as Gunner mercenaries but as the player and the factions influence who controls which areas of Boston, faction guards could take their place. Other quest opportunities could be helping defend underground power generators that supply Massol and Diamond City or scavenging fusion cores from distant ruins and army bases to bolster the city’s stockpile.

As a note about quest ideas, these are just generic ones. They could be part of Bethesda’s persistant “radiant AI” quests which are basically just randomly generated mad libs. Or they could be the basis for a fully fleshed out, unique and multistep questline. The point is to demonstrate how location and design can also feed into gameplay to keep driving narrative and world design.

Flotsam Burg

Flotsam is perhaps Diamond City’s closest ally. Arising from the ruins of the Port of Boston, its centrepiece is the great vertibird carrier USS Conscription which smashed into the Port Authority from the tsunami caused by several warheads detonating into the ocean. The docks were decimated and over the years, untold amounts of rubbish and garbage had washed into the port. From this huge bay of refuse, residents built floating bridges and gangways between the largest wrecks. It first started to access vital salvage from these great, rusted corpses. But in time, and with some technological ingenuity, some were able to get boats operational in the bay. What started as desperate scavenging turned to a more rustic fishing community. Homes grew up on the gently bobbing metal islands.

Now, residents ply the waters outside of Boston, selling seafood (mutated and otherwise), harvest from the giant kelp forests, pick through the barrage of garbage and waste still washing up along their shores and terrifying locals with stories of sea monsters. Most dismiss these as tall tales to keep others from encroaching on their aquatic bounty. But in the end, only the most brave or foolish trek out to the Deep Dark. 

Their access to the ocean and distant communities, however, make them an excellent hub in commerce. Naturally, and likely to the surprise of many Diamond City residents, the Cabot family runs their trading headquarters from Flotsam Burg. They’ll go into a long argument about honouring the original genesis site of the company and honouring traditions but they largely set it up here to avoid the Peabody rent, though their primary outfitter is still located in Diamond City. The Cabots naturally exert a lot of influence in Flotsam Burg and, some argue, justifiably as their early financing helped to see the city rise above the muck and saltwater to be an actually respectable location instead of merely a shifting garbage heap as others may desire.

And while many might find the constantly bobbing ground of Flotsam a little stomach wrenching, the community is safely protected from raiders with Diamond City Security. For the settlement has provided, with the use of the Massol underground network, some unique opportunities. One such find is a semi-submerged Chinese nuclear submarine. And while certain parties are likely highly interested in the possible scavenge of such a high valued target, all the nuclear payload was discharged against the continent a hundred and fifty years ago. 

Gameplay wise, Flotsam Burg could give some quick travel options along the coast, whether it’s hitting up Salem or even heading out to the dlc of Far Harbour. A unique quest could be plundering the Chinese submarine, complete with the disappointment of learning its nuclear warheads are already gone (though there’s surely nuclear material in its engines still). Flotsam Burg would provide a unique environment for specialized enemies from mutated fish as well as give glimpses of the terrors from Blight Horror Country in the north. Quests could include salvaging operations for sunken ships and cargo.

Franklin Reserve

South of Diamond City and situated in the old grounds of the Franklin Park Zoo, the Franklin Reserve is a dangerous and often avoided community. Overseen by the Warden, the people of the Franklin Reserve live amongst the woodlands of the expanding Emerald Necklace. Once the city’s prided park system, connected by rivers and walkways, the green belt has since gone wild and expanded in the wake of the bombs and human depopulation. The animals, once a main attraction, have escaped into the sprawling lush to multiply and thrive. 

Some of them even mutated. 

The people of Franklin Reserve are largely descendants of the old staff, administrative force and animal hospital. Where once their predecessors devoted their lives to protecting the animals, however, the current residents of the Reserve have turned the parks into a sort of wildlife game hunting operation. The Warden is responsible for maintaining controllable levels of animals and plants while trying to prevent these mutated creatures from overrunning the rest of the greater Boston area. 

She’s had some limited success in this operation.

More than anything, the park ground and abundant flora and fauna make the Franklin Reserve a key contributor to Diamond City’s food supplies. Of the satellite settlements which feed the city, the Reserve is largely free from political meddling by the Brahmin. The Reserve had long survived the apocalypse on their own without the aid of the elite and when they allied with the other cities it was less out of necessity than any of the others. The reservists are, naturally, proud sovereignists and their expertise in navigating the swollen waterways riddled with crocodiles and terror birds rather ensures that few can challenge them deep in the otherworldly city jungle. 

But this isn’t to mean they don’t have their own problems.

A group of Treeminders have moved into one of the “jewels” and become a political nuisance. While reservists see the wilderness as open grounds for exploitation, the Treeminders have a completely different philosophy. Determined to stop logging, poaching and hunting of the natural life, they have frustrated the reservists expanding economic ambitions. Furthermore, the Treeminders display an equal level of skill in living amongst the plants and animals despite their refusal to kill the creatures. No greater point of contention is the conflict between the reservists and Treeminders over the fates of Dinai and Kamaia. Blocking waterways and trapping hunters, they have successfully stopped efforts to kill the two ghoulified lion brothers. Since being mutated by radiation, Dinai and Kamaia have since become as undying as any human ghoul and their unnaturally long lifespan lends them experience in stalking the fens of the reserve that makes them almost mystical. Needless to say, they are the area’s apex predator and are not concerned with ambushing a full Franklin Reserve patrol and wiping them out to the last member. 

Adding further to the reservists problems are the encroaching Pilgrims who naturally side with the Treeminders over the issue of the wildlife. The ghoul Pilgrims see the mutated creatures almost as kin and also take a position of preservation towards the irradiated crocodiles and mutated cassowary birds who are much larger, meaner and deadlier than they were to pre-war populations. However, unlike the Treeminders, the Pilgrims do not have the training or knowledge of the reservists radio frequency which irritates the cassowaries and keeps them from attacking, so their advance is currently stopped by the vicious wildlife.

Gameplay wise, the Reserve would offer players a varied environment, deadly enemies and opportunities for unique quests. Hunting the legendary lions would certainly be a great end game achievement. Diamond City merchants could have some unique quests where their supply of game meat is being disrupted or drying up, prompting players to head to the vine choked waterways to discover the culprits. Smuggling and poaching, either stopping or committing, could be a lucrative endeavour within the reserve. Of course, resolving the tension between the Treeminders and reservists would benefit greatly the Brahmin of Diamond City or any of the major factions looking to sway these potent rangers to their side.

Skyward Freepass

Also known as Skypass, this small community is built at the top of Boston’s highway overpass soaring over the old financial district. The bombs and general decay has crumbled much of the city’s extensive freeway system. Thus with a limited and treacherous ascent to Skypass, the settlement offered a uniquely defensible position for early survivors. With a great height advantage over dangers and easy access to rain and sunlight, Skypass became an ideal location to test low soil crop growth. As such, the Kennedy family provided the settlement with new seeds and such to test if they would also allow the family to build a satellite research center within their community. At the time, Skypass had little to offer the communities spreading around them and, seeing the wealth funnelling to Diamond City, recognized an opportunity to expand beyond a meagre outpost to a prosperous centre. 

Skypass is the only central ruins city that is not on the Massol line and thus their produce is harder to reach Diamond City residents. Transport is exposed to ghouls and raiders in the ruins. But those that make it through find a very successful agricultural settlement. Skypass is so bountiful with their modified crops that they toss their excess food (and compost) over the edge to attract natural animals that they can hunt from their lofty perch. A complex mechanical elevator offers an alternative entrance from the long slog up the crumbling freepass itself but both are heavily guarded by Skypass’ snipers that they have largely been left alone by the villains of the Boston ruins. 

The Skypass Research station has also provided additional benefits to the settlement through their top secret projects. Wind turbines give the people a comfortable supply of power free from the rare gas or nuclear fuelled generators of other settlements. The centre also has a radio station in contact with Diamond City that helps monitor the weather so the farmers can better improve their yields. Skypass welcomes the researchers with open arms as, given its secluded location, they spend most of their time in Skypass, hiring mercenaries for infrequent trips back to Diamond City to share results of their projects.

Skypass offers the player another unique and interesting location to explore and base from even if it would likely have less happening in it than other places. The Kennedys are also ripe for unique quest opportunities, whether it is exploring their secret science projects or their shady drug connections with the local raiders. More generic quests could involve an escort of traders or researchers from Skypass to Diamond City or even simple delivery and retrieval of vital supplies to the expansive farming community. More unique opportunities could be available given the people developed for the community. 

And that concludes the major settlements in Boston. From these, the game could offer small farms and homesteads that players could build up and develop which could be integrated with the rest of the area depending on how robust a trading and supply system the development team would be interested in creating. If it were just to keep the basic systems in place, then these would simply be building spaces for generic villages and farms like Abernathy Farm or The Slog.