This is a great grid based strategy battle game using cards to represent your troops. There are two base sets (Phoenix Elves vs Tundra Orcs and Guild Dwarves vs Cave Goblins), each of which include a fold out paper playing grid, two decks of cards themed to the faction, some dice and a handful of damage tokens.

The basics of the game are that you lay out the grid and place some starting units, after which your deck of cards acts as a resource. You draw cards into your hand, which include events that you play to boost your troops, and troop cards. Whenever your troops kill the enemy, that enemy card goes into your magic deck, at the end of your turn you can discard from your hand into the magic deck, and you spend the cards in your magic deck on a subsequent turn to place troop cards on the grid.

You place the troop cards next to a wall card, which acts as a spawning point, so an important part of game strategy is to surround your opponents’ walls with your troops so that your opponent cannot spawn new troops. Your troops can also destroy enemy walls, and your opponent can use his walls defensively to hinder your attacks.

There is also excellent synergy between the different troops and event cards, so that their special abilities interact to give you bonuses. You have to keep an eye on your opponent’s cards to remind yourself of what they can do, and it takes a while to get used to what your own troops are capable of.

Every faction has a Summoner who starts the game on the grid, theme wise it is the Summoner that spawns his troops next to his walls, so you have to protect him. If you manage to kill your opponent’s Summoner you win the game, simple as that. In a multiplayer game your troops disappear when your Summoner is killed, so it clears the grid for the remaining players.

There are also four expansion decks of new factions, the Vanguards, the Fallen Kingdom, the Jungle Elves and the Cloaks, and four expansion decks of reinforcement cards (including mercenaries). Coming later in 2011 is a boxed set including 6 new factions, a sturdy board with the grid on it, and plenty of tokens. Quite soon there are going to be loads of options for Summoner Wars, really expanding the theme and tactical options in the game.

The decks are also very balanced. Summoner Wars is not a collectible card game, so even though there are reinforcement decks, it is not as if one player could buy lots of cards and have a huge advantage. You have the option to build your own decks as well, mixing and matching from different sets, but because of the minimum requirements of certain units in your deck, it is not really possible to create an all powerful army, unless your opponents are generally unfamiliar with the rules. 

The game is essentially for two players, but you can lay two grid maps next to each other and play four players. This does of course require two base sets, or plenty of improvisation if you only have one base set and one expansion deck. You can move units from one grid to another, lay walls in your ally’s grid and so on. At this point you are effectively creating your own battles and missions, whether it is teams of two or all against all. In principle you could have a six player game with three maps and so on, or even draw your own maps.

The artwork is cool and the cards are good quality, but the only drawback is the paper map, which inevitably doesn’t flatten down, though this is a minor criticism given the cost of the game. Getting hold of the newer releases can be difficult outside of the United States, but several retailers are now carrying the range, so it is worth looking around, particularly on the internet.

Summoner Wars forces me to think and deliberate and make difficult choices. The combat is also fun, there is some random die rolling, but the combat factors are such that you can easily judge your odds of success. It rewards both cautious strategies and risky manoeuvres, and often has a very good back and forth of changing fortunes between one player and another. I enjoy it a lot