❥ Witchstone
2 - 4 players
60 - 90 min
Age: 12 +
Weight: 2.71/5
Publisher: HUCH!
Once every 100 years, several wizards and witches congregate in a remote area, the location of which has been kept a top secret for generations. The purpose of this gathering is to regenerate the energy field of the legendary Witch Stone. By using magical spells and rituals, you ensure the preservation and enhancement of your own magical powers.
In Witchstone, you play as a witch (or wizard) who has gathered around an Ancient Sacred Stone: the Witchstone. The goal is to use your powers to become the Master of the Witch Stone!
Each player gets his own cauldron and corresponding playing pieces in his own color. Also, each player occupies one of the four towers surrounding the Witchstone on the game board. On your turn, you may place a tile of your own color in your cauldron. Six action symbols are depicted in the cauldron. This is where you will build the associated bee. Each tile has two action symbols. When the tiles form groups with the same symbol, you may perform the action more!
The actions of the symbols are:
⌘ Magical Wand action (Magic Wand)
This refers to the magic wand on the track at the bottom of the game board. If you are allowed to perform this action, move the owl meeple in steps on this track. Here are several actions to earn that are listed below. The player who leads the way also gets extra actions, for example something twice.
⌘ Pentagram Action (Circle Symbol)
This refers to the circle at the top of the board. Here you also move your owl-meeple in steps, every time you pass a chip you can take it.
⌘ Energy action (connection piece)
These are the pieces that you have in your own color. You will build this in the Crystal Ball. You always start from your chief witch or from a route you already have lying. You can only work on 1 route at a time.
⌘ Witch action (Witch/meeple)
In this action you may place a witch with the chief witch or move a witch. For example, to take your route that you have made with the connecting pieces.
⌘ Scroll action (card symbol)
If you have this action you may take the bottom card from the 'market'. These cards give you bonuses or extra victory points. If you have multiple symbols, for example three, you can choose a card from the bottom three.
⌘ Crystal action
In your cauldron are 6 crystals in your own color and in the middle a black one. You may not place tiles on a crystal. You will therefore try to move the crystals to the exits around the board. If you have a crystal action, you may move the crystal to an adjacent square. The exits belong to the 'closet' on the player board. When you have taken a crystal from your cauldron, you can put it in the cupboard, next to the corresponding symbol. This also gives you bonus actions.
The game ends after 11 rounds, when each player has only 4 tiles left in front of them. After that, all points are counted and the player with the most victory points is the Master of the Witchstone!
❥ My Thoughts
I think Witchstone is a super fun game. It is basically quite simple. You put down the tiles and you perform the different actions. There are many actions, but it is certainly not complex. It quickly became clear to me how and when which actions should be performed. In the game you have to focus on certain actions and find out what works well with each other. You just can't do everything.
The game has some kind of combo actions. You do a certain action that allows you to perform bonus actions again, so you can perform different actions in one turn. I really like that. The game also looks beautiful, I'm always a fan of that! As far as I'm concerned, it's a fun game that plays quickly and easily. I did the game in total with two players, which took less than 60 minutes.