We managed to get a streak of gaming on every weekend in February, which was nice. Although, this week’s gaming session was shorter than usual as we made time to go for the last free concert put on by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl. Prior to the concert, Jinwei and I managed to sneak in a couple of games of Summoner Wars.

Summoner Wars

We played 2 games of Summoner Wars, and with last week’s game ended up using each faction included in the Master Set. First game, I played Mountain Vargath while Jinwei  played Sand Goblins. Mountain Vargath are very aggressive and primarily melee-focused. The Summoner provides a bonus to the attacks of Common units around it, and the Event cards are very focused around increasing the effectiveness of the Summoner. The Sand Goblins on the other hand are more fragile but also more mobile. I overextended in the mid-game, putting my Summoner near the Goblin walls without blocking the available summoning spaces around them which allowed Jinwei to muster more troops and kill off my Summoner.

In the second game, Jinwei played Shadow Elves while I commanded the Swamp Orcs. These two factions provided an interesting match up as well. Once again Jinwei picked the more mobile army, with 0-cost Scouts that could increase the number of moves and Swordsmen that could move 3 spaces. The Swamp Orcs on the other hand have a very unique special ability to place Vine Walls, which hinder movement. The Orcs also start with a common 3 Attack Savager which also provides area control as Common units that move adjacent to it have a chance of just dying. Jinwei started harassing early game, and I forgot to leave my units next to a wall to spawn Vine Walls. Shadow Elves also had a very annoying Event that prevents your enemy from gaining Magic Points, which Jinwei used twice in the early game, stunting my development. Eventually though I managed to spawn a whole line of Walls and Vine Walls on my side of the board and chased Jinwei’s Summoner with my one lone Savager, who managed to finish the job, netting me my first win at Summoner Wars.

After 3 plays, I am really liking Summoner Wars. The basic gameplay is elegant and easy to learn, while each faction provides interesting new ways to play. My only complaint is that it only plays two so far, but if I get another map we can play a team game. I’m looking forward to trying out the team game and the different match ups.

7 Wonders

After the concert, which was a really good time, we headed back to the apartment to watch videos of Fus Ro Dah in anticipation of the Video Games Unplugged event by the MSO which some of us would be attending in April. We then played a couple of games of 7 Wonders. The first game was a full 7 player affair which Jinwei won. His Wonder was Giza (B Side) and he managed to build all 4 stages of his Wonder and amassed a plethora of Blue civic cards which provided an impressive total of 80 points. I believe that is the highest score total that our group has seen so far. I had Rhodes, Tomyris, Alexander and Caesar in this game, but did not manage to do well in warfare as CK on my left had Pericles and a whole heap of Red buildings.

The second game only involved 5 players as Jinwei had to leave and Jon sat out. Heng Lin had Halicarnassus (Side B) and a large pile of coins from Vitruvius. He also managed to get 3 sets of Science cards and Aristotle, which gave him a huge Science score, allowing him to claim victory with 77 total points. This game I had Alexandria, Justinian, Leonidas and Hannibal but made some dodgy plays to try and missed out on enough Blue civic cards to make Justinian work.

As always, 7 Wonders is a treat to play and handles large groups very well in a reasonable amount of time. I treat the Leaders expansion as a necessary addition at this point as it adds a lot more replay value to the game. Shorter games this week, but overall a great Saturday filled with god games, fun friends, melliflous music and FUS RO DAH!

Until next week, have fun gaming!