WIZARD TAG

Game Night: Mage Wars – Druid vs. Necromancer

Last week I gave a lengthy review of Mage Wars, so this week, I will tell you how our most recent Mage War turned out.  It is probably about the fifth meeting of magic in this house under this Mage Wars system, which is now called Mage Wars Arena (versus Mage Wars Academy).  The game was not short, but it was a great battle!

In this episode of Mage Wars, we finally saw the Druid confronting the Necromancer!

Mage Wars game setup, Druid vs Necromancer (or Plants vs Zombies)!

Mage Wars - Druid vs. Necromancer

…or Plants vs Zombies…

In this matchup of Mage Wars, we decided to play an unopened expansion, Druid vs. Necromancer.

The set came with stacks of spells, a new rule supplement, and pre-selected decks (spell books).  Although building the spell book is a fun part of this game, it is also time consuming.  Since we were not familiar with the Druid or Necromancer spells, we decided to just go with their selections and put the spells into the book as suggested.

Cally chose the Druid and I was happy to play the Necromancer.  You can guess that this was the Dark School against the Nature School.  Each of our spell books contained multiples of all of the spell types:

  • Equipment 
  • Attacks
  • Incantations
  • Creatures
  • Conjurations
  • Enchantments

What were the advantages of the Druid?

  • Ability to spread vines all over that hinder opponents and increase Druid range
  • Lots of conjurations that fight like monsters
  • Armor destroying zone effects
  • Regeneration and immunity to water
  • Lots of powerful trees and plants

What were some disadvantages of the Druid?

  • Plants are rooted, although some can uproot themselves with a mana cost
  • Vulnerable to fire
  • Mostly medium and large creatures in the premade spell book

What were the advantages of the Necromancer?

  • Great equipment such as the Cloak of Shadows that make it harder to target Necromancer
  • Incantations that can rebuild skeletons
  • Spawn Points that help assemble armies quickly
  • Great undead abilities such as poison immunity

What were the disadvantages of the Necromancer?

  • Zombies are slow
  • Undead cannot heal normally
  • Few direct attack spells in premade spell book
Mage Wars arena in the middle of the battle

How did this matchup play out?

Cally quickly brought out spawn points which let her summon multiple plant creatures per round and conjurations that enhanced her channeling, or mana production.  Then she focused on spreading vines all over the battlefield to enhance her range.

She used area denial by placing corrosive clouds that effectively closed off certain zones to the undead.  She further channeled the undead movements by putting up walls of thorns.  

The game progressed with Cally’s forces, including her Druid, inching closer while constantly producing heavy-duty trees near the cemetery that could pull undead out and crunch them up into tree-enhancing bits!

The Necromancer’s army of the undead prepares to march!

During that time I was able to build up a small army of undead; mostly skeletons.  The medium to large ones were fairly robust, although they did not have great attack strength.  The small ones turned out to just be food for trees, so I decided to build up the army as much as possible before venturing out to confront the Druid.

Cally had other plans and managed to get close enough to throw a vine whip around me (the Necromancer) and pulled me into the middle of the battle.  Since the Druid was standing next to a huge tree creature with “vigilance”, I was unable to target anything but that tree.  It took about seven skeletons and four zombies to take down the tree, but in the meantime, Cally was able to focus her smaller army of plants directly on the Necromancer and chewed through his hit points quickly!

The Druid cast one last conjuration to finish off the Necromancer as he tried to flee!
In the end, the Necromancer tried to run from the plants, but died with a still-large undead army that was probably torn apart by vines!  When he died, the cemetery was overrun with vines and the stones were smashed to bits until there was no evidence remaining that the undead had ever ventured into that forest!

Share your thoughts in the comments below!

  1. Would you have chosen Druid or Necromancer in this matchup?
  2. What do you think of Cally’s strategy?
  3. Would you want to know all of your opponents spells in advance or not?

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