The Cave Goblins can be very fun to play as they excel at swarming opponents. This is by no means an easy feat as Sneeks units are fragile. To play him well you will need to learn when to summon your cheap commons and how to exert pressure on your opponent. This guide will go into more detail on how to play to do this. It will not include second summoner units and mercenaries. Those will probably be added in an update to this post once I have had experience with them. Summoner Wars is a game by Plaid Hat Games. It’s available on android / iOS / Vassal.
Basic idea
All your events and most of the commons scream out one thing: Swarm your opponent. This is a good idea. Ideally you’ll be pressuring your opponent from start to finish. However, to win with Sneeks you need to do it goal oriented / carefully. You are generally not going to win if every common you summon instantly becomes magic for your opponent. So make sure the units you lose serve a greater purpose (planned aggression). Goals can include making sure no strong counter push is possible by swarming his summoning positions, killing a big champion in one turn, caging his summoner to kill the next turn or even kill your own units to prevent your opponent from getting the magic.
Having said all that, I don’t think Sneeks is one the stronger summoners. This is because he has a number of weaknesses. First of all he’s pretty dependent on getting the right units / events as without them his units are way weaker. Secondly he’s very vulnerable to catch up events / area attacks and you will give away a decent amount of magic because of your commons dying. Thirdly the move / attack limitation in summoner wars means him having many more units doesn’t necessarily mean he gets to do more moves / attacks (this is why Fighters are important). All this together means that if your opponent manages to fend off your onslaught you’ll probably be left in a bad position.
Basic tactic and combo suggestions:
– Use Sneeks. As the Cave Goblins are aggression oriented, the early extra pressure a three dice, seven health unit can give is essential. And he can easily move out of harm’s way where necessary. If possible you want to do this every single turn, so don’t go back to the back line with Sly. Ideally he’s not completely at the front lines, although you can allow some openings to protect your commons by sacrificing Sneeks health.
– Positioning is essential with the Cave Goblins. Know which commons can get killed / who can’t. Plan ahead for the next turn and don’t have them bunched together if the opponent has area attacks. This at least makes protecting your champions slightly easier.
Deck build (10 / 6 magic for the champions / commons)
– 1 Mook
– 1 Blarf
– 1 The Eater
– 6 Fighter (3 initially)
– 6 Slinger (2 initially)
– 2 Berserker (1 initially)
– 2 Climber
– 2 Beast Rider
The idea in this deck build is to make use of the zero cost commons to get the most out of your event cards and leave the rest of the magic for the excellent champions the Cave Goblins have. Mook is an auto include in this regard as he’s easily the best common heavy champion in the game. Although he’s more of a support champion his seven health means he can be pretty useful against other champions as well. For the second champion I’ve included Blarf as he’s dirt cheap to summon and you don’t need to immediately boost him. He’s also good to get even more dice on walls or go head to head with a big enemy champion. For the last champion I’ve included The Eater. The reasoning here is that he’s incredibly useful against any faction with relatively strong commons like the Mountain Vargath. And even if they don’t use commons or retreat, he’s creating room for your own units. If I’d have to switch a champion out I’d probably consider Reeker or Krag instead of The Eater; not sure yet which of the two is better though (probably Krag). Scagg I don’t like.
The commons gives you an interesting choice. Except for the Fighters and Slingers all the other commons are situational and not zero cost, so not usable with all your events. Because of that I’ve included mostly Fighters and Slingers. Which out of Climbers, Berserkers or Beast Riders are most useful really depends on the wall positioning / your opponent / unit composition. In general I’ll build all of them unless I am in situation in which they are (about to become) useful. As their number in the deck is very low, you’ll need to decide whether you can afford to build them or not. So far I haven’t had much use out of the Beast Rider or Climber so I might replace some of them for more Berserkers.
Playing the faction
Against most factions you can start moving your commons forward to crowd their first wall. Move Sneeks in as well so you can hit with him the next turn. Try to do this in such a way that you are not exposing too many of your own commons. Naturally if you can take out your opponents commons, that’s great. Hitting the summoner isn’t too important yet as you want to control the board / you can’t afford to give an opponent space. One problem with your initial setup is that some of your units are in the back. This can mean killing for instance the bottom left Slinger can be a good idea (having one magic is useful for a possible Blarf hand). Finally don’t be afraid to build units instead of summoning them. Mook, the Eater and Blarf can add insane amounts of pressure and require magic. As a rule of thumb you should be using most of your cards each turn. This also means you should not wait too long with using events; even if it’s not a perfect situation. Note: Some factions, like the Phoenix Elves / the Tundra Orcs, will require a more champion heavy attack.
If you get to the mid game, your best situation is that you have most of your units on his side and that you are crowding his walls. To allow this to happen you should not place your walls in such a way that you create choke points. Those are to the advantage of the enemy. Ideally you are able to hit any target from three sides when you want to hit it. It doesn’t matter how much magic he has if he has no summoning spots (even only having 1 makes what happens next much more predictable). In terms of event usage I’d recommend using Rage and Horde together as those do great damage. Rush and Rage also go together well. Be especially careful with Rush as once you have used both, your movement becomes much more predictable. One of the most important things to remember is that you can only move three units / attack with three units (Fighters excluded). So there’s no point in having eight units summoned unless they are blocking off walls and don’t need to move. This is also one of the reasons the Cave Goblins aren’t the strongest faction as well playing opponents can often create choke points pretty effectively.
An eventual end game is generally not good for the Cave Goblins as they have no mechanisms to gain an economic advantage (killing Blarf yourself will give you a decent amount of magic though). However, don’t underestimate Mook together with Sneeks as an end game tag team. Blarf also is pretty useful in an end game as the magic won’t mater as much, while The Eater is generally useless as he’ll die quickly.
Match up analysis
I might do a faction by faction analysis eventually, but I’ll start this off with a few general observations. Factions that prevent wall crowding and can do easy damage to multiple targets in one turn are hard matchups. Phoenix Elves and Tundra Orcs for instance.
First summoner specific cards
Generic cards
References
– All Cave Goblins cards (especially strategy section and comments are useful)
– A Doug’s Guide To Summoner Wars podcast (strategy discussion and community news)
– Mythacle Battleplan for Summoner Wars (deck builder)
Do the Sneeks count as a 0 cost unit, since he is the summoner?
No, summoners don’t have a summon cost.
Reference:
http://www.plaidhatgames.com/sum_forums/showthread.php?135-The-Book-of-Sneeks/page2