SPALDING WARGAMING CLUB
off you go, blasting people, transforming yourself into monsters, creating walls out of nowhere, blasting holes in those walls and arming yourself with a range of magical bling Wiz-War is a game I shouldn't really like, but somehow, goddammit, it wins my heart with its feral puppy dog charms.
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It's another one of those wizards-fighting-each-other games, but this time in an underground dungeon and you can win by killing 2 enemies or stealing 2 treasures or a combination.
You fill your hand with spell cards and each turn you move and cast them. The only restrictions are that you can make just one attack per turn and that the maximum number of cards you can have (in your hand plus those in play) is 7, encouraging some modicum of restraint. Then off you go, blasting people, transforming yourself into monsters, creating walls out of nowhere, blasting holes in those walls and arming yourself with a range of magical bling.
The modular board is tricksy, with portals enabling you to step off one board and onto another, sometimes in unexpected places. The game is characterised by grand reversals of fortune, with spells being cast, dispelled, stolen and reversed, the whole dungeon becoming flooded or fog-bound and players nipping into each other's havens to steal treasures or strike low blows.
Wiz-War is a '80s game which originally had cheap-as-chips production values but attracted a dedicated fan base who supplemented the game with their own card ideas. It spent 15 years out of print but Fantasy Flight has recently acquired it and given it their top-notch production values.
I shouldn't like this game because it's luck-driven, features player elimination and is characterised by gang-ups and bash-the-leader. But it's so fast and furious that these criticisms don't really matter. If you get eliminated, the game usually ends next turn anyway. So Tora! Tora! Tora! - go blast somebody and steal their treasure!