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Summoner Wars?
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Popularity Score: 7
This app was mentioned in 8 comments, with an average of 3.25 upvotes
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Summoner Wars
edit after getting downvoted: This is not the same game as Summoners War. Summoner Wars is a game where you move your units around on a board, you form your team before you play, and an element of randomness decides the battle. Seems like a good answer to the question to me.
Did you mean Summoners War, OP?
Summoner Wars is a different game.
Linkme: summoner Wars
Edit: -sigh- even the bot is confused. Here:
There is but it always either worked terrible or did not work at all. I actually never got it to work on any of my 3-4 mobile devices. My friend played it but said it's bugging out a lot.
There's an app for Summoner Wars, which is similar. I'm sure you are probably limited to a small set of decks for the free version.
Try Living Card Games (aka TCGs/CCGs without the collecting mechanics). Dunno which ones of them have decent Android versions, but I had a lot of fun with the cardboard version of this one: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.playdekgames.android.SummonerWars_Beta
(May or may not cost money.)
Out of all the questions ever asked on this subreddit, I feel most qualified in answering this one. I've had the opportunity to playtest for both of these games, and I'm intimately familiar with both systems on casual and more competitive levels.
Where to begin... Hmmm. Well I guess I'd be the first to say both. They are different games with similar flavor, and marketing/sales methods, but they both have distinct feels once they hit the table.
People who beat me to the punch have already given you the brief summaries of how each game plays, so we can skip that.
Ultimately, I prefer Summoner Wars, But I've been playing summoner Wars for 5 Years now, and ashes is pretty new with lots of room to grow, and I'm excited to see where PHG takes it in the future.
This will be a sort of compare and contrast between the two of both good qualities and bad qualities: (Update: So yeah, I kinda got carried away with this whole question answer thing. I have a bolded TL;DR answer for each section's question should anybody not wish to read the full reasoning.)
How deterministic do you like your dice rolling to be?
If you dislike dice having a factor in combat: Go play some Euros... JK. Both Games use dice a lot. Summoner Uses Dice to roll for hit confirm, and Ashes Uses dice as your resource, though there are lots of ways to manipulate dice in Ashes, not as many in Summoner Wars. (The Phoenix elves in Summoner Wars are a glass cannon faction all about circumventing the rolls of dice.) In both games it is in fact possible to get completely screwed over by successive turns of lousy luck. I personally really like dice rolling in summoner wars, as it means you never know for certain the outcome of the attack, and you always have to prepare a contingency plan. In Ashes, if the Dice don't like you, you can make sacrifices to help mitigate your lousy luck.So it really comes down to picking your poison, do you want dice to affect your economy (Ashes) or your Combat (SW)?
How important is art to you?
Both games are visually pleasing to me, but you need to understand the context of both games' productions periods. Summoner Wars was the Baby and brainchild of Colby Dauch, who was a big deal HeroScape Community and decided to have a crack at game design. Plaid Hat was initially his start up about 7-8 Years ago. I personally quite like the art John Ariosa did for Summoner Wars, that But I feel that his work on Mice and Mystics and Tail Feathers (Also both Excellent games btw) are better examples to showcase his tallent. But during the days of summoner wars, PHG didn't have the money to throw at complicated background art and the like, so the artwork for summoner wars is little more than walls and character portraits. Ashes comes on the heels of the Highly Successful Dead of Winter, which really put PHG on the map for people. to PHG found a very good artist for Ashes in Fernanda Suarez And she has continued to do excellent work for Ashes featuring compelling character designs and deeper more complicated spell cards with backgrounds to boot! **This is subjective, but I think Ashes pulls a little ahead in this department.*
What sort of setting do you want to play?
If you already have an existing group. Both Games have a lot of potential. Ashes has a "draft" variant that can be fun with medium sized groups. It also plays better in group play than Summoner Wars' 2v2 Variant. If you are wanting to play with larger groups in ashes, You may find yourself needing more dice. And if you Want to play with bigger groups of Summoner Wars, you will find yourself needing additional grid based playmats. All Multi faction box sets for summoner Wars include some sort of playmat board to play on, and additional custom dice for ashes are avaliable for sale individually on the plaidhatgames online store If you are a solo gamer without an existing playgroup looking to realling sink your teeth into competitive play you may be interested to know that PHG is starting organized play support at a FLGS near you for Ashes. Plaid hat has been putting together sets to send to brick and mortar shops that include alternate art promos, (optional) custom playmats, ect ect. Competitive Summoner Wars IRL is Mostly limited to occasional Events hosted by Plaid Hat Corps members, or Tournament Play at the larger board game conventions in the US. Both games have a little bit of digital presence in the online Vassal and Tabletop Simulator Communities, though it is generally frowned upon to play ways for free unless you have purchased the IRL copies of these games. Though there is an App for Summoner Wars that free to try which has microtransactions to purchase decks for $.99 a pop. (Or get them all for about $13? I think...) There are regularly free to enter tournaments organized for players of the App in which giftcards for the aforementioned plaid hat games store are awarded as prizes. The downside is that the makers of the app are quite a bit behind in producing factions for this game. Android Store Link ; Apple Store Link As far as play setting, play what your game group likes. If you want to find other players who are competing at a more "serious" and analytical level of strategic play, You're better off with Ashes budding organized play scene for face to face play, but the Summoner Wars app is the best online experience of the two.
Do you like to sleeve your cards?
Ashes Wins Easy Here. Their card size is just the same as MTG and lots of other games. So you can use your favorite sleeve with Ponies or Demons or whatever you like on the back. I like to use Mayday Green Premium Sleeves. Summoner Wars Cards were made by a novice game designer who knew very little about production when he got himself into this mess. (Much <3 to Colby) The cards were designed to fit the board, and the board was designed to fit on smaller tables. And as a result, we have some funky sized cards for Summoner Wars. PHG sells special sleeves for them in their store, but they are kinda expensive. I use Mayday Games' Blue Euro Card Sleeves for Summoner Wars and just deal with the sleeves being slightly too tall for the cards.
Do you want to binge all at once or enjoy a slow trickle?
So both games use the Living Card Game Format (LCG), where you buy boxes and expansions knowing exactly what is inside, with a handful of new installments coming each year. Both Games release content at a slow trickle, but Summoner Wars has a 6 1/2 year headstart on Ashes. However, Summoner Wars seems to be about 6 decks from the foreseeable end of summoner wars releases, And Ashes is only just over 6 decks In. Though ashes is currently poised to keep going a little longer than Summoner Wars with it's support in Organized Play, and PHG having been acquired by a larger company with more capital last year, they really seem to want to push this one far. Though Summoner Wars has a huge variety of cards already printed and available to buy to sate your potential obsession. Summoner Wars If you wanna open the floodgates and go in deep, Ashes if you want to see things trickle out for the next few years.
How do you like your deckbuilding?
Summoner Wars Has a more strict deck building ruleset than ashes does. Though because of the sheer amount of cards available for summoner wars, it has more options than ashes does right now. Ashes may have more card flexibility and even the ability to build your own dice pool, but it doesn't have as many cards under its belt yet to let the diversity of its deckbuilding system shine. As of now, Summoner Wars wins here, but I'd imagine Ashes will Pass it up in due time.
Where do I start with both of these delightful games?
Ashes makes this pretty easy, at time of writing there is only release for Ashes, the Rise of the Pheonixborn Boxset. Which will net you 6 Pheonix Born Decks, and 40 Custom Dice (10 for each of the 4 Current magic classifications.)
With Summoner Wars, that answer is a little bit trickier, If you are a veteran of strategy games, and really want to see what summoner wars has to offer, I think that the Summoner Wars Alliances set is a great place to start. This Box set contains 8 Summoner Decks representing an alliance of each of the games' 16 factions. This really gives you the feel for the art and playstyle of each of the different groups you may encounter, it also has the advantage of ensuring whatever else you buy will be compatible for deckbuilding with alliances. Included with this box is also the excellent Neoprine (Think Rubbery Mousepad) Play mats. If you want to be eased in a little more gently to Summoner wars, The Master Set is another great place to start with 6 unique factions. and a nice heavy duty cardboard play surface. Alternatively, the previously states app is a great place to go to learn how the games works without having to throw a whole lot of money to get a solid understanding of how the game really ticks.
So yeah... I guess that's the most of it. Let me know if you have any more questions, I'd be happy to answer whatever you could think to ask.
No, no, not that game. I said Summoner Wars.