Welcome to Lancre, where thrones are given to bastards
and witches are married to kings. But don't worry, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny
Ogg are here and everything is under control. Almost...
Witches is a board game for 1 to 4 people from the designer Martin Wallace and published by a bunch of publishers among which Paladium, Mayfair Games, Zvezda, Treefrog Games and others.
Components
- Rules
- Playing board
- 4 witch pieces
- 4 dices
- 4 board apprentice withces displays
- 55 cards
- 3 witch skills tokens
- 80 counters
May be here is the place to say that the components
are very good quality, made of nice thick cardboard, well done pieces, dice and
cards. What I really liked is that the cards are not from paper or cardboard,
but instead they're plastic which is great because this way they won't get
easily damaged from sweat and long holding in hand.
Brooms, magic and problems
As you probably know the stories from Discworld are
heavily inspired by real life history, people, myths and events. Lancre and Witches
are no different. The kingdom is inspired by North England and many other
mountain regions and the three main Witches (Magrat, Nanny Ogg and Granny
Weatherwax) are inspired by the ideas of modern paganism.
Because of this on the Disc the Witches are actually
from the good guys and they most of the time use their knowledge and skills to
help people. And this will be you role too as an apprentice witch. Yes, you
will not play as one of the legends, but instead you will have to choose
between Tiffany Aching, Angrama Hawkin, Dimmity Hubbub and Petulia Gristle. Every
one of them with her own special ability(including the amazing ability to start
first).
But don't think that because you're still apprentices
you will have to handle just small problems. Oh, no no! You will have you hands
full with all kind of Problems - from sick farm animals to dealing with
thieving elves and fighting evil spirits like Hive and The Cunning man.
But despite the nature of the problem you will solve
them in the same way - by rolling the four dices. To solve a problem you will
need a certain number which is indicated on every problem counter. To get that
number you will roll the dice, but as we all know dice are very moody some
times and some of the more serious Problems require rather high results so you
will need help. That help will come from the cards. With them you will be able
to get bonus to your roll when dealing with problems. That will happen by
playing cards which have skills giving roll bonus and playing magical cards(the
ones with pentagrams on top) or headology( the ones with glasses on top). Every
Magic will give you +2 to your roll but will slowly drive you crazy. And every
headology will give you +1 with no side effect. You can play as many cards as
you want per turn.
But if despite all the help and tricks you don't
manage to solve the Problem at hand (and believe me even 7 is often too much),
you must retreat to the nearest free space and take one Cackle counter. Sadly
sometimes when failing Big Problems the consequences are a lot heavier.
Also if you think that your witch honour is not so
precious to you there is the possibility to escape. You can do that between the
two dice rolls or at the end if you have a card giving you the Escape
ability.
At the beginning of every player turn a new problem
and eventually a crisis is placed. When all crisis tokens are placed the
Witches lose the game. Crisis occur when Problem must be placed on a space which
already have a Problem.
The game ends well for the Witches when all problems
at the bottom of the board are placed in game. I say well because now all
Witches count the points from their solved problems and the one with most wins.
The game can also be played fully co-op and then all Witches win together.
Drinking tea, Cackle and Black Alice
Witches dislike magic and rarely use it even if
they're skilled in it. May be that's the reason why there is side effect (Cackle
counter) from using it in the game or may be the reason is the Black Alice. A
witch so skilled in magic that she could easily rival a Wizard, but in the end
driven crazy by her "gift".
In other words doing magic will
"reward" you with Cackle, too many Cackles and you will turn in the
next Black Alice, which will lead to loosing points.
Of course there is way to prevent this. And it is done
by meeting and drinking tea with your fellow Witches. But even if you don't need
to remove Cackle and meet another Witch you will have to stop and drink tea,
because you're obligated by etiquette. And as Nanny Ogg will tell you "Etiquette
is something very important."
Conclusion
Witches is extremely thematic board game about the
small (or not so small) kingdom of Lancre and its...Witches. The rules are easy
to explain to both experienced and new players. At the same time the game is
merciless and will not let you waste time and leave too many unsolved Problems
on the board. This will force you to work together although in the end there
can be only one winner.
Witches is for 1 to 4 players and honestly it is fun
with all number of people, excluding may be one. Also the time it takes doesn't
differ much once the players get used to it.
And as I already said the components are well made, the
art sticks to the theme. It is obvious that the creators of Witches have put a
lot of effort in it.
But...
There is almost no strategies in the game - solve
problems quick and don't leave crises for long on the board. But that is not
really the problem. The problem is that you can lose purely by bad luck and not
because of the dice, but because of the Problem putting mechanic. That can be
easily solved by a simple "house rule", but...
Also at first you may decide that the game is good for
kids, but it is actually not. And there two reasons for it - Bad Ass and The
Long Man.
And last but not least one thing that for some people
will be good and for some will be bad - thematic. Witches is very thematic
game, heavily leaning on Terry Pratchett’s stories. Truly mechanically it's not
dependant on them, but it is a lot more enjoyable if you're familiar with the
Discworld.
I recommend you the game if you're fans of the
Discworld or know such people.
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