Black Rose Wars Review

A magical battle for supremacy.

Black Rose Wars is a beast on the table. From the moment you look at the box, you know this game is massive. You'll start out by building the lodge, this is your battlefield. Then you'll select your mage and their starting school of magic. There are 6 total schools with various types of spells and a forgotten school when you reach a next phase of the game. These cards are the bulk of your skillset. Each round of the game, an event card is drawn and resolved. Players will then draw 4 cards from the different schools and select 2 to keep. Next, the preparation phase, this is where you'll be planning ahead for what to do. You must play at least two cards facedown in your quick spell slot or your standard spell slots. After this, the actions phase begins where you'll either cast spells or do physical actions. Physical actions allow you to move and activate rooms if you choose to do so. Each room has its own abilities that you can use. If you cast spells, you can only choose to cast your quick spell and a standard but never two standard ones in a row. Then, your evocations will activate and they'll do some damage to the other players. Finally, clean up. The board will reset and players will keep going until someone reaches 30 power points. This triggers the endgame and players will tally their scores. There are multiple stages to the game that will change certain decks around and unlock the Black Rose room. This will grant access to the forgotten spells.

The Good: Something that Ludus Magnus does better than just about everyone in the industry is produce incredible minis. This is no different for Black Rose Wars. Each character model is impressive and high quality and the evocations are just ridiculous. There's so many cool models. If I were better with painting I would consider it. There's a ton of variety involved with the different schools of magic meaning you can come up with some powerful combinations. On that note, choosing which part of the spell you'll use ahead of time, top or bottom, is fantastic. It gives you even more options. I love that rooms can take damage from certain spells and if they become destroyed they cannot be activated anymore. The advantage here is that if you did the most damage, you get to take the token for it and score points at the end of the game for all of them. The overall incentive to take away actions is unique and wonderful. For a game box the size that it is, it's not nearly as daunting as it looks. I'll be honest, I've been sitting on it for months because I was slightly intimidated. After a few plays though, it's really quite simple elegant.

The Okay: Another thing that Ludus Magnus does that's not as great is missing some details in the rulebook. The general core game is pretty well written but there are some details that completely were omitted. For example, when your physical action tokens are reset. This has no mention in the rulebook at all (it's during cleanup FYI). This is far from a dealbreaker here, but it's worth noting. The game itself plays okay at two. It's designed for more players in mind to sow even more chaos but for that overall size of the game, the chase is pretty well executed.

The Not So Good: For a box this size, you better believe you'll be spending some time setting it up. Between shuffling all of the various decks and laying out the tiles and components, you'll be setting up for about 30 minutes on your first go around. You'll be at the table for a while so the set up vs play time is offset. I don't know that I loved the use of placing your tiny little rose pieces onto the miniatures to indicate which is yours. They're a good look but as the board gets busier they get harder to make out and some fit a little funny. Rings would have been a simpler option.

Final Thoughts: I mentioned that I was intimidated by this game. There's plenty to be intimidated by, sure, but the elegance and gameplay far outweigh that intimidation. This isn't a game you can just learn on a whim during a game night but it's one that if you understand the foundation, you'll be able to teach it quickly. This gets bonus points in my book for it because I love a chunky game but most of my friends do not. I couldn't recommend this enough. You can even look into Black Rose Wars: Rebirth or Duel - Lex for a 2 player experience.

A huge thank you to Ludus Magnus for providing a review copy.