by garypgary
I have been eagerly awaiting this game after seeing the pre-release details and then downloading the rules - Magic: the Gathering card play only better, combined with a Summoner Wars style card based miniatures wargame - plus deck building meta game but as a living card game rather than a CCG money pit - WOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!So, I got the game (2 base sets plus the core spells - one base set is all that is necessary to play and enjoy - just my OCD), read the rules again, made up the starting decks ot of the rule book, and we played our first 2 games. My opponent is a long term M:tG and miniatures player so despite having no familiarity with MW he picked up the game play after a quick 10 minute run down - I must congratulate the guys here - the rules are excellent - well laid out, clear card design and iconography, good examples to get you into the game play quickly - and a very comprehensive, if initailly daunting, index of all the "key-words" used on the cards to abbreviate the many effects that the guys have built into the game.
We played 2 games in 3 hours with really no major issues or anything that could not be quickly referenced - not at all bad for our first games with one player not even having read the rules before hand - a credit to the rules and game component design.
We played the Warlock (toast master) against the Beastmaster (master of, you guessed it, beasts). This is a good learning match-up and they play quite differently.
The Warlock has some powerful fireball spells that hit hard from range as well as up close - full marks to the guys for their creativity and attention to detail - one spell allows the Warlock to fry all enemies surrounding him - very useful against a creature rush.
The Beastmaster has good (mana and action efficient) summoning abilities and a lot of creature boosting spells.
All Mages are able to customise and enhance their abilities, strengths and defences with equipment that covers their bodies from head (helmets), to body (armour and cloaks), hands (gauntlets and rings), to their feet (boots) as well as sheilds, staffs and weapons.
Spells are very logically classified into creatures to be summoned, conjugations which are artifacts that give long term powers and can be destroyed by damage just like a crearure, equipment of all sorts, enchantments that have one-off or ongoing effects that are cast face down for a standard 2 mana points (another example of how well this game has been thought through) and then revealed when most opportune for a variable cost, incantations that give instant effects that are applied and then the spell is discarded (unless you embed it into a piece of equipment like a wand or staff in which case you can use it over again), and attacks that fry like those terrible fireballs and lightning bolts - ouch!
So far we have found little that is not covered in the rules and in fact we found play very intuitive and logical - we looked up a couple of things having a pre-conceived notion of the answer and invariably ended up nodding in approval at the answer in the rule book - well done you guys - I cannot praise the rules writing and editing and layout enough.
Apart from the great quality of the game components and the comprehensive rules, we really liked the way each Mage played differently and how you feel like you are really in a battle of magic power and cunning. The theme is very rich in the game and the game play enhances the feeling of the battle brilliantly. I very much like the way that attacks are resolved using the special dice - yes this adds some luck but it works in the context of the game. And the spell books - this is a brilliant innovation and what sets MW apart form the games it will I think be compared to - having every spell in your deck available to you from the get-go is awesume and just allows so much scope for setting up your tactics in your deck without the possibility of luck of the card draw flummuxing you.
This has instantly become my all time favourite 2-player game. I am hoping that 4 player will also work well but I suspect it could make it run a bit longish but that will need to be tried.
Congratulations to Bryan Pope and his team - and every success so that we see many more additions to this fantastic game - not requied as it plays great out of the box, but give us more so that we can dabble deeper in our fanatsy battles and give you more money. EXCELLENT game guys - well done.