Games Like Summoner Wars: 7 Skirmish Games for Faction Fans
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Summoner Wars is one of the great two-player skirmish games. Pick a faction, deploy units from your deck onto a small grid, hunt the enemy summoner while protecting your own, and be done in forty minutes. Once you have played every faction against every other, you want more of it, and not much else feels quite like it. Here are seven games that get close, with an honest note on where each one differs. One of them is ours, and we will say so when we get there.
What makes a game "like Summoner Wars"
Four things, roughly in order of importance. Factions with a personality: you pick a side before the game and that choice shapes how you play. A small battlefield where position is everything and the fight starts within a couple of turns. Units that arrive over time, so the game is about committing the right piece at the right moment rather than lining up an army. And a box that plays out of the shrink wrap: no painting, no assembly, no tape measure. Nobody below hits all four. The table says who hits which.
| Game | Battlefield | Units | Players | Dice? | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Summoner Wars (2nd ed.) | Square grid | Cards | 2 | Yes | In print |
| Heroscape: Age of Annihilation | Hex terrain, buildable | Pre-painted minis | 2+ | Yes | In print, stock varies |
| Barnburners & Noblemen | Hex board or neoprene mat | Acrylic standees | 2-4 | Yes | In print |
| Neuroshima Hex | Small hex board | Cardboard tiles | 2-4 | No | In print |
| Unmatched | Map of spaces | Colored plastic minis | 2-4 | No | In print |
| Warhammer Underworlds | Hex boards | Push-fit colored minis | 2 (up to 4) | Yes | In print |
| Tash-Kalar | Square grid | Cardboard tokens | 2-4 | No | Reprinted periodically |
| Mage Wars Arena | Grid of zones | Cards | 2 | Yes | Harder to find new |
1. Heroscape: Age of Annihilation
If Summoner Wars is the card game of faction skirmish, Heroscape is the toy. Renegade Game Studios revived it in 2024 with stackable hex terrain and pre-painted figures from every genre at once. You draft an army from a pool of unit cards, build the battlefield yourself, and resolve fights with dice in seconds. The trade-off is table space and price, and stock has come and gone more than once since the relaunch. If you want the Summoner Wars feel in three dimensions, this is the one.
2. Barnburners & Noblemen
Ours, so weigh this paragraph accordingly. Barnburners & Noblemen is a hex-map skirmish wargame for two to four players, and the part Summoner Wars players tend to recognize first is the draft. The Master Set has 24 character cards across two factions, and the Merchant and Alchemist expansions add ten more each. You draft a team before the game, by scenario, by random pull to an agreed skill total, or by snake-order fantasy draft, then start with two characters on your base and bring the rest in as reinforcements when a card falls. That reinforcement rhythm is the closest thing on this list to summoning. Combat is two-sided attack and defense dice: swords hit, shields block, and surplus shields counter. Every character hides its special abilities on the back of its card until it is defeated, so there is bluffing Summoner Wars does not have. What it does not have is a summoner to assassinate; you win by being the last player with characters standing. Acrylic standees, nothing to paint, $90.
3. Neuroshima Hex
Portal Games' post-apocalyptic tile battler is the most abstract game here and one of the cleverest. Each army is a stack of hex tiles with a headquarters to protect, and you place tiles onto a small shared board one or two at a time. Nothing happens until someone plays a battle tile, and then every unit on the board fires in initiative order all at once. Factions are wildly different, army packs are cheap, and a game takes half an hour. It supports up to four players but is at its sharpest at two.
4. Unmatched
Restoration Games' hero brawler is less a wargame than a duel, but the faction feel is strong: every fighter has a unique deck that plays like nothing else in the box, and learning a new one is the fun. Fighters move on maps divided into spaces rather than a strict grid, combat is simultaneous card play with no dice, and a match is twenty minutes. If what you love about Summoner Wars is the moment you realize how a new faction wants to be played, Unmatched gives you that every time you open a set.
5. Warhammer Underworlds
Games Workshop's board-game-sized skirmish puts two warbands on hex-tiled boards with decks of objective and power cards layered over the fight. The warbands are the factions, each with a distinct playstyle. It is the most competitive game on this list and the one that asks the most of you: the miniatures are push-fit colored plastic, so there is clipping and assembly, and the rules take a few games to settle. For a Summoner Wars veteran who wants more to chew on, it is the natural next step.
6. Tash-Kalar: Arena of Legends
Czech Games Edition's arena game is the quiet one. You place common pieces on a square grid, and when they line up in the pattern shown on one of your cards, you summon a legendary being that does something dramatic to the board. Each school of magic is a faction with its own cards, there are no dice, and the puzzle of setting up two summons at once is unlike anything else here. Availability comes and goes with reprints, so grab it when you see it.
7. Mage Wars Arena
Arcane Wonders' duel of two mages is the heavyweight. Each player builds a spellbook (a literal binder of cards), then summons creatures, casts enchantments and attacks across a small arena divided into zones. It shares a lot of DNA with Summoner Wars: one leader to kill, units that arrive over time, a deck that is yours to shape. It is also two or three times longer and considerably more complex. New copies are harder to find than they were, and the smaller Mage Wars Academy exists if you want the idea without the evening.
Which one is for you?
- You want Summoner Wars with terrain you can build: Heroscape: Age of Annihilation.
- You want a real draft, hexes and hidden abilities, with no painting: Barnburners & Noblemen.
- You want factions and tactics in thirty minutes with no dice: Neuroshima Hex.
- You want a new faction to learn every month: Unmatched.
- You want a competitive scene and gorgeous models: Warhammer Underworlds.
- You want a pattern puzzle disguised as a battle: Tash-Kalar.
- You want Summoner Wars, but bigger and longer: Mage Wars Arena.
Also worth a look: Riftforce, a quick two-player card game where you draft four factions from ten and fight along lanes, and the first edition of Summoner Wars itself, still excellent if you have never tried it.
Think we missed one? Tell us on Instagram. If you want to see whether ours is for you, the How to Play page has the video and the short rules, and the Master Set has everything in one box.