So I thought I would get in a game of Malifaux....but Mage Wars got in the way.....

   So I was all set to pick up another good game of Malifaux.  It was going to be a 50 stone Jack Daw vs Misaki  against my friend Steve.  I wanted to see how he played with a master I knew nothing about.  I have never played against her, and I was in the same position that Matt was in against Jack Daw; I never even read her cards.  I do know from listening to various pod casts that she is a melee heavy master and so I was looking forward to trying a master like Jack against her, especially with hoo well he went against Lady J.

Dueling game from Arcane Wonders

   But I also told Matt that I wanted to try out Mage Wars.  It is moving through our local gaming store pretty quickly and a lot of times if you don't get into a new game, it will come and go before you get a change to try it.  I have missed my shot at Mice and Mystics because I was involved with something else.  So I wanted in.

Lots of bit in the game plus Spell Books

   Now lets talk about what kind of game it is.  It is a card game, and a board game, and you could almost call it a miniature game, but it comes with no minis.  I could definitely see them releasing an expansion with minis to use instead of the cards on the board.  I have heard that many other people say, "Man, if you just replaced the cards with minis you would have a much better looking game".  So we will see what happens in the future.  In this game you are playing a mage of one type of another, and you have a certain number of life points.  You eventual goal is to reduce the opposing mage to 0 hit points.  You do this by attacking the mage instead of the creatures and objects that they have summoned.  The rule book is online for free download, so if you want a much more in depth explanation of how to play, just down load it here. 

So what is the gist of playing this game.  In the base game you can play a Beastmaster, Priestess, Warlock, or Wizard.  Matt had a couple of the expansions so he has the added choices of Forcemaster, Warlord, Druid, or Necromancer.  I realize that a lot of you readers don't know me yet, but as soon as I heard Necromancer, I knew what I was playing and Matt chose Priestess and we were ready.  In this game each mage gets a spellbook and there is a basic spellbook laid out for each mage as part of the basic setup of the game.  So Matt passed out the spellbooks that we needed and then gave us the all the action counters that we need.  The action counters are an interesting way to show "tapped" cards for each player as they are small wooden cylinders with a starburst on one end, and a blank on the other.  You just flip the counter over once you have acted, and flip it back on the refresh stage.  Once the board is laid out, the mage is chosen, and the spellbook has been given you are ready to play.  So while the unboxing takes a while, the actual setup is not to long at all.
   Now you take your mage cards, there are 2, out of your spellbook and put
them down on the board.  The first one is the picture of your mage and the second is a lit of his/her stats and special abilities.  The board is divided into 12 squares and you start in the lower right corner.  The turn is then divided into 7 stages.  Initiative, Reset, Channeling, Upkeep, Planning, Deployment, and Actions.  Initiative is just passing the initiative token back and forth.  We found it can be difficult to remember for sure if you passed the token, so when you do play make sure to THINK about this step.  The reset phase is just what it sounds like, every object on the board has the token flipped so the sunburst is on the top.  Channeling adds your channeling score to your mana pool.  The two mages we played started at 10, and you can cast spells to summon objects or creatures to increase that number.  Upkeep phase is when you pay your upkeep costs on any creatures or objects you have summoned.
   Then you come to the Planning phase.  Now this is where you are going to spend most of the time in your game.  This is when you go through your spellbook and find up to two spells for your mage to cast, and if you have any spawnpoints, and creatures that it will cast.  I think i had about 40 spells in my "starter" spellbook, so going through and looking at all those spells to figure what to cast can be a bit time consuming.  Especially when you have to consider what your opponent could be casting, or what he has already cast.  After that you hit the Deployment phase.  This is when you take a spell you want your spellpoint to cast, and cast it.  You can take any mana that the spawnpoint contains and use that, but the remaining mana comes from your mana pool.
   FINALLY, we get to actions where you get to do something.  And what you get to do is a lot actually.  You get a couple little choices about in what order you want to do things.  Your mage can cast a quick action.  Now we haven't talked about the two different kinds of actions, a quick action and a full action.  Each card and/or ability has either a lightning bolt, quick action, or an hourglass, full action.  So your mage can pick any lightning bolt spell and cast it or you can wait and pass your quick action until another time.  You can then use a full action on any creature or your mage, and this is where it can be a little weird. If you are choosing to use your mage, you can cast any full action spell or do a move and a quick action, or if you are using a creature you summoned that has an action, you may move a square if you choose and then use a quick action or if the creature has a full action, then use that.  Most "attacks" are quick actions.  The move always comes before the swing, so no stab and run away.  After that, if you chose to delay your mage's quick action, you can do it then.
   So now lets talk for a second about attacking.  How it works is you look at the attack value on the card.  There will usually be a lightning bolt, a sword (melee) or a bow (range), a number in a red box that is your attack dice, and for some cards an effect number like 8+ to show a special ability if you roll higher then that number on a 12 sided die, finally there can be a trait which is an extra ability that is always active.  When you attack you just roll the number of red dice shown in the box on the card and also the 12 sided if you also have an effect like rot or taint and then take your trait into account if necessary.  There are a number of effects and traits that you can have and each is shown on the specific card that needs to show the effect.  It sounds a lot more cumbersome then it really is and after a few turns you will just be grabbing the dice you need and rolling when you need.
   After you have gone through ALL your creatures and mage, you go back to step one and start all over again.   You start with 10 mana in your pool and you start turn 1just like any other turn, so you add your channeling to your starting pool and get a starting mana pool of 20.  You can do the first five steps at the same time and it can save you a bit of time since the planning step is the longest, but especially the first few times, it is a LONG game.

   For my first game we clocked in 3.5 hours, but I feel it could have been shorter, and it is a good game that I would play again, and look forward to trying a few other mages, like the Warlord and the Beastmaster.  I enjoyed playing the Necromancer, although after reading a few different strategy guides I should have selected either skeletons OR zombies, and I played a mix.  By being more specific with what you summon you can more easily focus your plan.  That being said, I did win in the end, after almost giving up in the middle due to what felt like an unbeatable creature showing up out of Matt's spellbook.  She was a flying angel and I had nothing that could even hit he besides a single skeleton archer I had out.  Once Matt talked me down from the ledge I went on to cast a couple of acid balls, and got another archer out, so with some great die rolling I got that angel out of the game.
   Now to talk about the parts of the game I didn't like.  Honestly there was VERY little of this that I didn't like and i believe that about 80 percent was just how the starter spell book was created.  I felt like it should really be an all comers type of deck, and it just didn't feel like it was. The other problem was the cells on the board filling up. Near the end of the game Matt and I together had about 10-12 cards in a single cell and of course it wouldn't hold it all, so it just kinda ended up being a .....well they are all in this cell, even though they were in 2 cells and off the board.....but that is a very small complaint.

Dreamblade, another Mage dueling game

Now here is the part that is the biggest surprise for me.  I just to play a game that was VERY similar to this game and it was one of my favorite games I have played, so much so that I even break it out on occasion and still play.  It is called Dreamblade and is from Wizards of the Coast.  The difference is that you play with miniatures and a warband is 16 models.  You pick a range of models for the cost and deploy them to spawn points, or where you have other creatures and you score depending on the cell you are in rather then attacking the controller.  But if you have ever played dreamblade, and if you want a GREAT demo with a turn that you can play to learn the game just visit
here, click "Learn to Play" and play a round, you will know exactly what I mean.  With the move and attack actions you can take in Mage Wars it feels a lot like dreamblade.  You have a smaller pool to choose from, but it is the same mechanics.  Trust me, go and try the demo of dreamblade and see if you like it.  Then if you are ever in Toledo at The Game Room, stop in and I will have two warbands ready to go.  Then again if you want to play Mage Wars, you will have to bring the game along because while I enjoyed the game, and I would play it again, I will not be adding it to my collection.  Enough other people in the group have copies and I am sure I can get a game in whenever I want.

   Let me know if you have played Dreamblade or Mage Wars and tell me what you think.  Thanx for reading.  Talk to you again soon.