Magical tournament theme is getting more and more explored in recent books, movies and tabletop games. Audiences seem enamored with the idea of mysterious, otherworldly powers clashing and great wizards competing while shouting their lungs out with spell incantations.
It may be difficult to tackle this theme now and make something that would feel refreshing. Black Rose Wars, a game that recently took Kickstarter by storm, succeeds in that matter. The project started by Ludus Magnus Studio managed to get funded in less than 10 minutes and is getting more and more attention as the campaign progresses.
Magical Elections
Elections take place every ten years and it’s finally time, to choose a new ruler of the magical world. Eager mages are gathering in famous Black Rose Manor, polishing their wands, recalling incantations and cleaning their cauldrons.
Elections are serious business even in the world of Nova Aetas. The winner becomes the grand magister who oversees forgotten magic spells. We won’t be seeing any voting ballots or huge billboards with smiling faces here. Instead there will be lots of sparks, thunders, fireballs, curses and magically created monstrosities smashing everything around. The tournament is on!
Rules of Magic
2 to 4 mage candidates can try their luck in the tournament. The entirety of Black Rose Lodge will serve as an arena. The place is filled with magic and often changes shapes, so it’s up to players to create their own board from all available hexes representing bedrooms, halls, cells and other mysterious locations. After assembling the Lodge, players add power boards and event boards to the table. These will host measuring tokens and event cards corresponding with various phases of the moon.
Players study various spells that they get and place them on their character sheets. Magic comes from various schools: illusion, transmutation or even necromancy. All spell cards have 2 effects to choose from, which makes the game much deeper and less linear. Each mage has 2 action points per turn and can spend them either on walking, attacking or activating room effects.
All movement, spellcasting and combat leads to gathering victory points, and whoever gets 30 of these wins the game.
What Sets Black Rose Wars Apart
One of the biggest backer magnets here seems to be the art of the game. Buildings and large part of style choices reference italian renaissance. Figurines from Black Rose Wars look well made and you can proudly display them on your shelves when not playing. The tiles of the Lodge are also quite a sight to see. These are the work of Ludvigsen Henning known from games like “Star Wars Imperial Assault”, “Descent”, “Battlestar Galactica” or even “Warhammer 40K”. The game has an expansion in works already, and people can order “Black Rose Wars: Crono” along the main game.
High customization options also make the game attractive. You may assemble your board using suggestions from the manual or build something completely different, resulting in huge replayability and many unexpected turnabouts. Elements of deck building are also worth a mention here.
The amount of backers grows each hour and is currently well over 3 thousands. Plenty of stretch goals have been reached adding new quests, events and most importantly: figurines of mages and monsters. An open and customizable nature of the game makes it easy to create expansion packs and making your Black Rose Lodge even more unique and threatening.
