Overview:
In the magical world of Arunea, a place of wizards and mystique, a decisive battle is about to take place….
A battle royale game with 4 factions vie for control, the tactical Illusionists who strike from the shadows, the Necromancers are very much brute force and aggression, Elemantalists are a sound all-rounder for attack and defence and finally spiritualists er more on the side of healing an keeping their members alive and in the game.
To win in The Secret Relics of Wizards, you need to be the last one left standing or control two relics, having captured one from an opponent and brought it back to you fortress stronghold.
Game play:
OK now into the nitty gritty bit, I won’t run through all the bits and bobs as the rule book has a pretty comprehensive guide to all the actions and spells available.
All factions have six wizards at their disposal A Caster, Guardian, Healer, Invoker, Scout and Thief. Each wizard has their own specific set of skills displayed on their individual boards, also coming with their own markers and exhaust tokens. On their skill cards you’ll see various skills for example what they are primarily for, Attacking, defending, Eagle eye(can look at the contents of closed chest) Healing, Lightweight, Lockpicking, and how many steps they can move.
The setup is a lovely well written 10 step piece, nothing wild or extravagant like a 500 step Lego set.
During the game each player has 5 main actions they can perform, Move, Attack, Open Chest, Pick Up and Heal. Before your actions though you have to roll the dice, which could be trigger an event (whose knows what will happen here), cast a spell, or receive mana crystal (always helpful).
Your actions are straight forward:
Move: yup you guessed it you can move your wizards
Attack: well you aren’t going to be giving that rival faction wizard a friendly handshake that’s for sure.
Open Chest: its loot gathering time or relic finding time I should say
Pick up: well grab that relic then, or something else, but you’ll be hoping it’s the relic
Heal: well your wizards will get hurt so keep them in the fight.
There is a lovely chart showing exactly what each type of wizard is capable of so that a good one to have open. And there you go, of to war and glory gathering those relics and wiping every other wizard of the map.
A couple of key things to note Faction spells and relic spells, Each faction has three unique spells (two faction spells one relic spell) all with varying degrees of effect to opponents or allies. There is an appendix going through each one for you to review at your leisure. The relic spells require mana to cast and can be used multiple times in one round provided you have the mana to do so.
I wish your faction well……..you’ll need it.
Conclusion:
So to sum this all up, a fun fast paced dice rolling spell casting team action brawler for 2-4 players good fun lots of player interaction maybe not as much depth as some of the more involved games but none the less and good medium weight game to bring to the table for friends and family to enjoy.
