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Wiz-War Returns from Fantasy Flight Games

This week brings the return of the classic Tom Jolly design, Wiz-War, to store shelves courtesy of Fantasy Flight Games. The original was released abck in 1983 and this new edition features upgrades not only to the compnents but to game play as well.

From FFG:

Created by Tom Jolly in 1983, Wiz-War has delighted players for decades with its light tone and fast, imaginative play. Now Fantasy Flight Games brings Wiz-War back, better than ever!

Staying true to the spirit of the game that has entertained players for years, as well inspiring an entire genre of games, Wiz-War caters to the imagination and the funny bone. Casting a wide array of spells, your wizards race through an underground maze, avoiding fireballs, werewolves, and psychic storms. Wizards can discover new and interesting interactions between their spells, wield magical items, and manipulate the maze itself as they seek every advantage possible to win the Wiz-War.

Meanwhile, Fantasy Flight Games has added to the game with a number of small, subtle enhancements. Kevin Wilson and Tom Jolly have worked toward faster game play, clarified card text, and the addition of new spells. Four sculpted wizard miniatures allow players to visualize their wizards on the board, and if your wizard wants to transform into a slime? No problem. Players can use additional sculpted miniatures to represent transformations into slime, werewolf, giant, golem, and shrunken wizard forms.

Wiz-War sets wizards in a magical labyrinth deep underground, which players build from maze sector boards. Each wizard has a home base and two treasures to defend within that home base. While other wizards seek to steal your treasures, your wizard must venture into the maze to steal their treasures, or destroy them.

To protect your treasures, make your way to your opponents’ treasures, and to fell those wizards you face in the maze, you draw spells from a spell deck and cast spells from your hand. Spells are divided into four types–attacks, counters, items, and neutrals–and each belongs to a school of magic:

  • Cantrip: The cantrip school is a special school containing spells known by all wizards who enter the labyrinth.
  • Alchemy: The school of Alchemy specializes in creating items. In particular, magic stones are a primary feature of alchemy.
  • Conjuring: Conjurers are adept at creating inanimate objects, such as walls and thornbushes.
  • Elemental: Of all the schools, Elemental is the most deadly in combat, containing as it does mighty fireballs and lightning blasts.
  • Mentalism: Mentalism is the school of the mind. Using it, spells can be erased or even stolen from other wizards’ minds.
  • Mutation: A wizard who has mastered the school of Mutation can change his shape as easily as his clothes.
  • Thaumaturgy: The most ancient school of magic, thaumaturgy contains a well-balanced mix of traditional spells.

In Wiz-War, players build a spell deck from Cantrips and three other schools of magic. The rich interactions between the different schools of magic provide tremendous novelty for each new replay experience, and variant rules allow players to explore the interactions between spells in games with all the schools of magic combined into a single spell deck.

Each turn, your wizard can move, cast spells, and make a single attack. The rules are easy to learn, but with a little imagination, they can transport you to a fantastic underground labyrinth where wizards duel to steal each other’s treasure and exert their magical supremacy.

Welcome to Wiz-War!

Jeff McAleer

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