Sunday, March 11, 2012

Played some of the new Wiz-War this past week and it was a lot of fun. Went over better than I expected. Looks pretty overwhelming at first - billions of cards - but the basic rules are pretty simple and there's not too much iconography to learn. I remember playing Wiz-War with Jon, Paul, and MAYBE JP... but it was mostly likely Jon and Paul. This looks incredibly different, but once you're in it, the sillyness is still there. Also feels more balanced, although at it's core, I don't think it's really one of those games that needs to be uber fair and balanced. One of the best parts of not knowing any of the cards was being so sure a plan was gonna work only to be thwarted by some nasty counter spells. There's one called Pain Link that makes you and the other wizard take the same damage. It's ridiculous.

I also picked up and played a bunch of games of Haggis, which is basically a 2-3 person Tichu-like game. There's no teams obviously, but it's similar to Tichu in some of the other mechanics like with bombs and placing bets before you play your first card. Not as elegant as Tichu, but it really scratched a similar itch and Silvia and I really enjoyed it. If we could regularly get 2 other people around for games, then Tichu would totally take it, but otherwise it's a really neat game for 2 or 3. Quick breakdown: In a 2 player game, there's 4 suits of 2-10 number cards. Each player also has in front of them face up a Jack, Queen, and King which are Wild AND/OR they can be used as bombs. And some other neat rules. The more I think about it, the more I like it. Plus it's from Indie Boards & Cards, makers of The Resistance, woo.