"The summoning stones have been found and war is upon you. Carve out your empire - and let your enemies despair!"
In the land of Itharia, summoners rule the battlefield. A cross between a mage and a general, summoners use Summoning Stones to call their side's forces into battle. The sheer numbers that can be brought to bear with this power renders old armies obsolete.The first summoner, Ret-Talus, commands an undead horde, and for a thousand years went unchallenged. But eventually a second stone was found, and as the major nations rushed to find others, Ret-Talus was now merely powerful rather than unstoppable.But rather than uniting against this giant threat, the major factions of the world have instead turned to old rivalries and petty squabbles, as the quest for power consumes them all.Summoner Wars is a tabletop card game created by Colby Dauch, *
and published by his independent game company Plaid Hat Games. It combines elements of CCGs and tabletop strategy games and is played on a flat grid map.Each player has a deck of unit, event, and wall cards, and one summoner. At the beginning of each game players put their starting units on the board, then take turns made of drawing, summoning, moving, and attacking- the object being to kill your opponent's summoner. The game also has the interesting idea of letting any card from your hand act as mana, and having killed enemies go to your mana reserve.Recently got a spin-off, Dungeon Run, in which players battle as members of each faction to get a summoning stone of their very own.Noted for its unique concept, finely-tuned balance, and lack of blind purchase, Summoner Wars is found in stores and on its website.
Summoner Wars provides examples of the following tropes:
Also, some Guild Dwarves, such as Dorgan, who actually has an ability called "Xenophobia".
Batman Gambit: Forces are manipulating all the factions into fighting each other, but nearly all of said factions crave power and hate each other regardless.
The Chessmaster: Something (or some things) is actively pitting all the factions against each other for some mysterious purpose. In most of the fluff, their targets play right into their hands.
The Vanguards are an Elitist faction: all their units have at least 2 HP and they have a heavy focus on healing.
The Cloaks are a Guerrilla Faction: there is a dash of Elitist faction since their summoner is one of their main combatants.
All armies from the Master Set are different varieties of Technical Faction: Mountain Vargath are a Brute Force Technical faction, Shadow Elves are Guerrilla Technical, and Swamp Orcs are Spammer Technical (thanks to their vine walls).
Action Girl: Leah Goodwyn, Malidala, Malevolence, Kaeseall, Laleya and Maelena all qualify, but the Grand Prize has to go to Grok, with 7 life and a powerful ranged attack.
A minority of common units are female, but those that are tend to be tricky or powerful combatants, like Spear Grounders and Fencers.
Aerith and Bob: The Vanguards have Sera, Jacob, Raechel, Leah, Coleen...and Kalon.
All There in the Manual: The story is strictly manual-only, since the designer thinks plot shouldn't be mandatory. The plot summary above is page one of the manual, and all Flavor Text and plot are only on the website.
Always Accurate Attack: Any unit with Precise, nearly all of whom are Phoenix Elves. Elien can make a unit Precise for a turn with Spirit of the Phoenix.
Smashers are sooooo slowwww that all attacks against them are this by default.
Rygos: in addition to his regular melee attack, he is such a superb shot that he gets a free ranged attack after attacking, and it always hits.
Annoying Arrows: Not a single common archer has a base attack higher than one, and most champion archers only have one or two attack too.
Subverted by Makeinda Ru's Power Shot ability, which gives her the strongest ranged attack in the game.
Cool, but Inefficient: Leah Goodwin's ability is potentially really strong, but it takes planning and a lot of hard work to get it to work more than a couple times.
Cryptic Background Reference: The cities of Waels and Galnon. We know that Waels was the original home of the Vanguards, and that it was destroyed by Ret-Talus with the help of a Dragon, but that is all we know. Galnon produced steel, as well as the impressive Colossus of Galnon. It too was destroyed by Ret-Talus.
Deal with the Devil: How Malevolence got her sword and how the Filth cause their mutations, among others.
Demon Hands are demonic assassins who charge a piece of your soul instead of money for their services; they're potent common units but when they die your summoner takes damage.
Defend Command: The Vanguards have Guardian Knights, which always take the hit for their allies if possible. Strictly speaking it's an always on power, not a command, however.
The Admiral has a version that you activate, and it works in a much wider radius.
Difficult, But Awesome: The Cloaks often appear weak to a novice, at least until they play against someone who knows how to use them.
Every faction from the aptly named Master Set has this to one degree or another.
The Filth, thanks to their weak commons, costly resource use, but potent mutations and versatility.
The Vanguards and the Fallen Kingdom to a much lesser degree: they require much more patience and deliberate long-term planning than other factions, which can trip up novices.
Dirty Coward: Kreep, to the point that he has this as his ability.
Also, Horror Mutants which are so scary that they give even units with Fear pause. This leads to an amusing encounter between a Horror Mutant and Skhull, where both are hesitating to attack each other.
Eldritch Abomination: If his Bio is anything to go by, Tacullu could easily fall in this category. He's either that or an Energy Being.
The Demagogue (possibly).
Whatever the Beast is that Malgennon is/was keeping in check.
Everyone Calls Him Barkeep: The Filth have no name for themselves, so everyone else calls them that. Also all common units are called by their job/role/species rather than a proper name.
Excuse Plot: There's no flavor text in the game but there's plenty in the manual, so to speak*
The lead writer writes flavor text for all/most of the units, but so far they're only on the website
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Expansion Pack: The game is divided into faction decks (a basic army) and reinforcement packs (extra units).
Expy: The way The Seer operates is unnervingly similar to Weeping Angels.
Does the Filth seem reminiscent of Left 4 Dead and the Special Infected?
Full Frontal Assault: Her is as close to this as a Game intended for ages 12+ can have.
Fragile Speedster: Numerous units with low health but boosted movement capabilities, like Angels and Bounders, and a few champions like Rahlee.
Gameplay and Story Integration: In one story it's pointed out that all the walls in a battlefield have been destroyed, and that they couldn't have been summoned elsewhere because there's six (which is exactly how many are present in a standard game).
Good Wings, Evil Wings: Angels and Archangel have feathery wings like a bird, and fight for the Vanguards, one of the only really good factions in the game. Winged Mutants have leathery wings, and fights for the Filth, who are by and large the most evil faction.
Heal Thyself: The signature power of the Vanguards.
Hero Killer: Rukar, with the most impressively powerful attack in the game, and enough health to outlast his opponent. He even beats Krung 50% of the time in one on one.
Evil Versus Evil: Fallen Kingdom, Filth and Swamp Orcs can all fight each other canonically. Other nasty factions include Cave Goblins and Sand Goblins.
Good Versus Good: Vanguards, Shadow Elves and Mountain Vargath can all fight each other canonically. Some of the other factions qualify too, like Cloaks and Jungle Elves.
Grey and Gray Morality: Any of the less noble, less evil factions can fight the others too.
My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Any mercenary that comes from one of the main factions (especially Vargath mercenaries), and a few champions who switched sides in their backstory, such as Sin-Sin, Rygos and Saella.
Only Sane Man: Faction-scale version; the Vanguards are the only faction actually concerned with fighting Ret-Talus (who has been attacking stuff unchecked for 1000 years), the Shadow Elves are the only ones who realize that there's more to the summoning stones than meets the eye, and Rallul seems to be actively trying to end the Summoner Wars (using the same knowledge the Shadow Elves learned).
Our Goblins Are Different: Cave Goblins, who are by and large the weakest race in Itharia, but more than make up for it with numbers and cunning. At the other end of the spectrum, Sand Goblins are still at the bottom of the food chain, but they live in Tralia, so they're actually sturdy, and crafty in general, if a bit dim.
Our Gods Are Greater: And they have all been dead for at least a thousand years. This is a big part of the Meta Plot.
All Trolls Are Different: Itharian Trolls are very big, very strong, and very hard to kill. They come in two flavors: Ice Trolls (like Krung) and Rock Trolls (Which eat stone).
Painful Transformation: The Filth cause their mutations this way, if the screams coming from their camp are anything to go by.
Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: A few Mercenaries at a time can be put in any summoner's deck, but they have their own summoner if you want to make a deck of only mercenaries.
Frick's army is definitely this.
Religion of Evil: The Filth—they worship demons and have rituals to mutate themselves and their prisoners
Oldin's Heroic Feat events dramatically increase a unit's attack power for a turn.
Abua Shi's Chant of Growth buffs a unit for a turn.
The most impressive though, has got to be Sunderved's Command ability, which increases the strength of every nearby common.
Vlox's Cloak of Shadows event can improve the sturdiness of any unit for a turn.
Sneeks can give an almost stupidly powerful defensive buff to every unit on the field for one turn, in the form of his Gobllin Invinciblity event.
On the champion side of things, Tordok can give a defensive buff to every common next to him, and Coleen Brighton can do the same for any common near her.
Mook, generally considered one of the strongest units in the game, gives an offensive buff to all nearby allies.
Bragg does this for Tundra Orc Summoners, strengthening their walls, and making units harder to unfreeze.
Ulfric can make walls and everybody next to them sturdier, and Bolvi can also make walls and towers sturdier.
Stone Wall: Sword Grounders and Guild Dwarf Guardsmenhave the Tough ability.
A single Filth Anointed can be impressively hard to kill, with free regeneration, augmented by Demagogue's already decent Shield of the Hopeful, this becomes quite powerful.
Summon Magic: Holding a Summoning Stone allows a person to snatch people from somewhere, and put them somewhere else. Walls from Godshome are the best focus for this, but it has been shown that others are capable of acting as focii.
Inverted by Tacullu and Taliya, who are capable of unsummoning units. Interestingly, when Taliya does this, it heals whoever she sent back. Tacullu, on the other hand, just discards a unit.
If Kuldrid doesn't kill somebody, you either have to pay magic, or your Summoner takes a wound.
When a Demon Hand is destroyed, your summoner takes a wound.
Ret-Talus's Forced Summon events are the strongest/most detrimental of the bunch, putting four wounds on him together, but basically letting him summon up to two champions free of charge.
Wild Card: Magos, a very powerful wizard who randomly switches sides- his combat abilities are so renowned, that no summoner bothers to complain about his Wild Card tendencies.
We Have Reserves: The reason summoning is such a potent power in-universe. Reinforcements invokes this by letting you summon more if you have less units than your opponent.
Xanatos Gambit: Magic Drain and Reinforcements can function as short term versions. If your opponent starts beating you, you get some free magic or units!
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