By Dale Medhurst
Summoner Wars is a board and card game where two players use units represented by cards on a board to defeat the other’s leader, the eponymous Summoner.
As a player destroys an enemies card, they place it in their Magic pile which they can use to summon more troops to the battlefield. When the game first came out, there were two starter sets, each with two different sets of faction decks, each with it’s own set of abilities, represented on their cards.
Since then their have been fourteen different Faction decks released and most of these have had extra cards added in special expansion packs. These packs contained extra unit cards for two existing Factions plus cards that could be used with any Faction: the Mercenary Cards.
Now, the Mercenaries have their own Faction deck, led by the enigmatic Summoner, Rallul. The 36 cards in this deck have a large Magic flavour, with Walls being drained to give the Mercenaries more Magic and lots of arcane-themed Commons and Champions.
Walls are moved around the board with spells, magic is stolen from opponent’s Magic or Draw piles and great, lumbering Stone Golems suddenly have allies summoned from them.
The Mercenaries are a tricky little Faction. If you take your eye off one unit, it is soon stealing from you, leaving you with little or no resources. They have a mixture of cheap and middle- cost units and, Mercenaries cards have been released with EVERY Expansion pack, when deck-building, you
have an access to a vast variety of different units!
The cards are well-produced and a joy to look at. Whenever, I get a new set of Summoner Wars cards, I can’t wait to open them, read them then, most importantly, play with them. The Mercenaries are no different. Summoner Wars has a very basic rules set but each card adds its own set of rules tweaks. All the rules needed for the unit are clearly written on the cards and the art and design is a delight.
Well done, Plaid Hat, for another cracking addition to a brilliant game!
The Mercenaries Faction Deck is released by Plaid Hat Games and should be on general release around the time of this review being published. Check out GMS Magazine’s interview with Plaid Hat Games, Colby Dauch, on the G*M*S Magazine podcast.