Epic Spell Wars of The Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre

This weekend Tony (Caleb's Dad) got new game for his birthday Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre. This game has a mouthful for a title but it is an epic game with incredible art work. The instructions for this one are quite lengthy and very involved thankfully Tony, Caleb, and I have played once before but it will be new for Angie (Caleb's Step-mom). In this game there is a draw pile in the center full of spell cards and each play gets eight cards. Health points on your character cards are used to keep of track of health throughout the round until you die. Spells can consist of one to three cards and there are three main types of cards Source (beginning), Quality (middle), and Delivery (end). In your spell you must have no doubles such as you cannot have two source cards. For my character I have chosen to be Princess Holiday and her Furicorn, Tony was Fey Ticklebottom the Enchanter, Angie was Lady Lazervere of the Space Kingdom, and Caleb was Jung Jung the Spirit Master. With this game there is no dice roll to see who goes first each round instead you have numbers on the delivery card. The highest number plays first which adds a strategy to going first or last.

Once everyone has their spells ready Angie is the first wizard to cast her spell and she plays Beard’o Blasty’s Ritualistic Chicken. Her source card copies the delivery of her spell, the quality card is dealing damage to a foe of her choice (It was Tony), and her delivery targeted her strongest foe. The damage decided on these cards is done so via a power roll using dice. The number of dice you get is based on the glyphs in your spell for each matching glyph you get an additional die. For Angie’s spell she only had on dark glyph in her hand for the quality so she only rolled one die.

Everyone plays their spells and a new round of casting begins and for almost the whole first game I have no end cards so I only play two cards. The person with the least amount of cards in their spell plays first unless another player has an Impatience quality card.  My spell was Dr. Rooty Bark’s Explodifying healing me three HP and giving the others an opportunity to roll for health points also. My Quality card damages a foe of my choice.

Few rounds later and Tony play’s Ben Voodoo’s Two-Faced Death Wish with his source card dealing everyone damage and causing him to destroy one of his treasures. 

Treasures are like power cards they add a bonus to your hand such as adding more dice to a power roll or giving you an extra glyph to add to your spell. Through his quality card he deals out a treasure to a foe but it comes with two damage points for each treasure card the foe has, which could be fatal. His delivery card goes to the foe on his right and Tony will roll two dice because he has two dark glyphs in his hand. He rolled eight and dealt Caleb three damage points and one damage point to himself. Caleb is now dead and receives one of the less favorable dead wizard cards. His card comes with no perks saying "You're dead. Live with it.” This card has no perks unlike the other dead wizard cards. Most of the dead wizard cards give you a treasure but others give you extra health or damage to deal out other players. Tony wins that round receiving a last wizard standing chip and we begin a new game. In the end Tony won over all by winning three games earing three last wizard standing chips.

Rummy

This week Caleb and I played rummy for the first time so there was learning curve but it made for a good game of calling Rummy. This game reminded me of playing Phase 10 where you focus on runs and sets. With Rummy the way we played runs had to be the same suit in sequential order so 2-3-4 all diamonds. Sets are three or four of a kind both sets and runs have a minimum of three card to be played.
The game starts with a draw pile in the middle and everyone getting seven cards. When it is your turn you have the choice to pick up the last card or cards that were discarded or draw from the draw pile. In my case I do not want the card on the top of the discard pile so I draw and what I get is not much better so I discard it. Caleb takes his turn drawing and discarding as well.

Mike then draws and plays a set of kings but is still required to discard. Tiffany draws and discards. Luckily I have a king in my hand and can play it off of the set of kings Mike laid down. During Caleb’s turn he likes what was discarded and picks up the top two cards. No that he has picked up more than one he must play the bottom card that he picked-up. With those cards he plays a run of hearts. 

Few turns pass and me not really paying attention to the discard pile I throw down a jack on top of other jacks. It is Caleb’s turn and he picks all them up to lay down thirty points more points for himself. 

More rounds pass and I lay down a seven of clubs and Tiffany calls Rummy on me because it can be played one of Caleb' runs. This does not count as a turn for her so she would not get to discard anything. Lucky for me because she only has one card left and I have a bunch of points in my hand.

Then it gets down to where both Mike and Tiffany are left with one card in their hand. At this point Caleb and I are trying to discard any cards that may cost us points. Aces are worth 15pts unless they are used as ones, face cards are 10pts, and number cards are worth their face value by the house rules. The cards in your hand are subtracted from the total amount of points that you played. Another round goes by and I pick up two Aces giving me three of a kind. I still have quite a hand full of points but Tiffany runs out of cards. This round the aces saved my butt so I was not in dead last I actually tied with Mike. 

We play where the first one to five hundred wins and during this game Caleb and I got our butts kicked by Mike. I ended the game with less than one hundred points.