Flashback Friday - Wiz-War - Love It Or Hate It? Do You Still Play It?

I got this in '91 or '92 and loved it. We played so many games of this. Then when the new version was coming out, I traded out the old version and now I have the FFG version with both expansions. We play old style, of course.

It's so fun because of all the crazy cards and the way the game gives you license to use your creativity when playing those cards. A solid block of stone can block a passage, sure, but it can also trap a treasure or a wizard in a dead-end. And rotating one of the boards is always good for a surprise move (even a win!)

It's one of those games that is not only crazy fun while you play it but also sticks in your memory as you love to be able to say "Remember that time when...?"

I remember that time. It was so much fun!

@quozl

Do you ever regret trading away your old copy. I kind of get a hankering for it's simplicity sometimes. We still have ours, but no one wants to play it,

I have the FFG edition, complete, and fully painted. I love this game, and wish I could play it more.

I do think it's a bit hard to teach. It seems like it should be really simple but there are actually a lot of rules. Some of the cards have a lot of text on them that can overwhelm a new player.

I have never played the FFG version of Wiz-War. I downloaded and printed some PnP files from BGG in 2007 and made my own set. It hasn't hit the table a lot over the years, because it's harder to get a PnP game on the table then a game with professional production quality components. But every game that we played was fun, even the time when we played a six-player game that ran nearly 3 hours. I keep forgetting that I have this game, because I store the components in a box swiped from an rpg in my collection. Will bring Wiz-War to the the monthly hipster boardgame meetup in July or August.

Yes I still play and yes I miss my old copy with the one color boards, crappy parchment cards, and ugly Foglio illustrations. It was quaint and charming in a way that games rarely ate anymore.

The FFG Edition is fine, complete, and has some decent revisions. But it’s somehow lacking because it’s not cheap and crude. It’s like an HD remaster of a low budget film- it loses the grit and grain that made it unique.

Such a volatile game...I’ve had sessions where I was ready to burn the game in a fire and then others that were incredible.

It’s a masterpiece.

We still play this regularly (last week I pulled out a rare win). One of my top games and one my entire group is behind.

When I played the older version of Wiz War at age 11 I had a blast. I've since played FFG's version quite a bit and have had some great times with it. I agree though that it can be frustrating to play - there often seem to be a lot of misinterpreting cards.
An amazing game when it's at it's best. Really frustrating at it's worst.

Look at my face. What do you think?

"Masterpiece" is a good word for it. It's the game that brought me back into gaming after a long time away.

This thread does remind me that we haven't seen Colorcrayons around in a while. Another victim of site drama, I guess.

I do miss my old set a little. I wonder what we'd play if I'd kept it. Some sort of combination of old and new? I don't know. I'm perfectly happy with the new stuff though.

And I find it easy enough to teach. We just throw in new players. Sometimes they're hesitant to play cards but they usually get into it by the end of the game. Then you have to play again.

An all-time great. Haven't played in a bit, but it's in the mix, for sure. It's never not fun. I like that it can be quick. I see a lot of games that have the time down to like, microseconds: 75 to 90 minutes. WIZ-WAR is more like 5 to 65 minutes.

I love it.
It’s not a game to get into arguments over.
Is winning a wacky, chaotic game of dueling wizards so important to you?

I LOVE WIZ-WAR
LONG LIVE WIZ-WAR

It's epic, and randy, and absurd, and shaking up a can of beer and cracking it open beside the face of a sleeping toddler.

The only thing I can complain about Wiz-War is FFG's stupid decision to stop short with their expansions. God damn did I want that sixth board, sixth Wizard, and a few more monster minis. Stag! Stag! Stag!

A classic for a reason, though admittedly I'm basing that off of one play from a while ago. Such a blast. When this game inevitably comes back into print I'll seriously consider nabbing it. Then again, do I really need it when I have Zimby Mojo?

Vysetron wrote: Then again, do I really need it when I have Zimby Mojo?

I think there are similarities, but they still vary quite a bit. The pacing is completely different as Wiz-War is fast and brutal while Zimby Mojo is more strategic and lengthy.

Picking up on other points
- I love it. My kids love it especially.
- it just creates those funny, memorable situationss like almost nothing else
- teaching is fine for me, like quozl said, just drop someone in, and then it doesn't last that long anyway, it's fine.
- yes it creates arguments and THAT IS PART OF THE FUN. "I'll never forget" the furious argument I had with my 6 year old son about whether he could astrally project through a wall into the next board, use another spell to grab the treasure out of my hands, and retain it when he finished projecting so he could drop it in his own square and win. I was always going to let him win, because, nice move, but ARGUING ABOUT FICTIONAL ASTRO PHYSICS is part of it.
-house rules galore then.

Aside from maybe Talisman, there aren't many games I can see 10-year-old Nate enjoying up through junior high, high school, college, young adult years, and now creeping into middle age. But Wiz-War is definitely there. It's the sort of game I have always assumed SHOULD exist, even when I didn't know about it.

I definitely see the appeal of an old set. It's the sort of game that might actually benefit from fewer attempts to clarity rules, rather than FFG's constant attempt to make sense out of nonsense like they have done with so many games from this time period.

But their version is still very nice. Shoot, my box has painted minis and everything. I trot it out quite a bit.

This is a game that doesn't get played nearly enough around here. I would play any version of this game any time. A true classic.

Does anyone remember the "Thumb of God" card?

One of the best games ever. I will always play (and often win.) I have:

- Done the famous lightning bolt through a wall to take an opponent from full health to zero in one shot.
- Been killed with a Powerthrust by a Big Man (innuendo, FTW!)
- Had four totems running in my sector that no one would enter for the rest of the game.
- Trapped someone in a closet behind a Stone Block too many times to count.
- Had 5 different magic stones in my hands until someone Fire Darted me from Around the Corner.
- Etc.
- Etc.

Yes, I remember the Thumb of God and I'm also disappointed that FFG didn't continue with expansions. The Big Book of Spells should be even larger. Except shield spells. Fuck that noise. More blood!

My favorite death was the time someone played a card that let them control my wizard, and then they dragged me over a rose bush over and over until I died

Here's another departure. I played this a couple times and found it just okay. But I'd play again.

Had such a great time with this. Sure it's random but it's so fast, so fun and so chaotic. And while there's not much "strategy" as such, creative use of your spells often pays off.

Surprisingly, given that I'm an old-time gamer, the FFG edition was the first I ever played. That may be why I'm actually on board with a lot of their changes - particularly like the spell schools over One Big Deck.

I soured on it a couple of years ago through no fault of the game itself. I played it a couple of times with my daughter who loved it, partly because it's so silly and partly because she won both, purely out of luck. So she became convinced that she was brilliant at it and I had to keep on throwing game after game to keep her happy - she wasn't old enough to deal with the fallout at the time.

Hopefully, I'll pick it up again with some adults sometime. But. Too many games.

This is a game that I want to love but every time I play it, it's just okay. I think a lot of that is coming to it fairly late in the hobby. If I'd discovered it when I was a kid I probably would've loved it.