I don't know this person, and some people have raised concern that it may be a scam, but there is a post on boardgamegeek about a fellow Mage Wars player who has fallen on hard times. I tend to believe her, so thought I'd cross post to bring attention, but you should form your own judgement.

https://boardgamegeek.com/article/24436022#24436022

This idea was inspired by Sailor Vulcan's post here.

This format will be identical to normal Arena Play except as mentioned.

Setup
Each player will start with two Mages; one of which must be a Mage from Academy. Forward, these mages shall be referred to as Master and Apprentice, with the Apprentice being the Academy Mage. Each Mage will have it's own accompanying spellbook, with separate spellpoint counts as limited by their Mage Ability Cards. Both are allowed to use any spells legal in Arena.

When setting up the game, both Mages that one player controls shall begin in the same zone. Their Apprentice gets their own Action Marker but does not get a Quick Cast Marker. You will need a separate status board for each Mage. The dials provided in Academy may work, but being an Arena game you should be aware that changes to Life and Channeling values are possible which aren't tracked on the dials.

Game Play
During the Planning Stage, you will prepare 2 spells for your Master from the Master's Spellbook, and 1 spell for the Apprentice from the Apprentice's Spellbook. Each Mage must use their own mana supply to cast their prepared spells. For familiars and spawnpoints that cast spells, if they can't provide the entirety of the spell's mana cost themselves, then the remainder may come from either of your two mages regardless of which one first cast the Familiar or Spawnpoint.

Victory
The goal of the game is to kill both of your opponent's Mages. If your Apprentice is killed, you lose access to the Apprentice's Spellbook. Your Master continues to prepare 2 spells from their own spellbook each round. Similarly, if your Master is killed, you lose access to the Master's Spellbook. Your Apprentice continues to prepare only 1 spell from their own spellbook each round. Nothing happens to the cards in play whenever a mage is killed. The bond between Apprentice and Master is so strong, that they can take over each others spells. Any objects attached to the slain mage though are of course discarded.

I haven't scanned the entirety of the newly released Codex, but since the very first few pages stated that Sweeping had been clarified I did take a look at it. Overall, I think it is an improvement, but it could still cause some confusion with the following passages:

When a Flying creature uses a Sweeping attack, if the first target has Flying, the second target must also have Flying. Similarly, if the first target does not have Flying, the second target must also not have Flying.

If a creature uses a Sweeping attack that also has Reach or a Sweeping ranged attack, then the above restriction does not apply; the second target can be Flying or non-Flying, independent of the first target.

From what I understand, Reach does not negate the above restriction like this says. The only thing that Reach does is allow you to attack a Flying target, which flyers can already do. It thus has no effect on flyers. A Flying creature with Reach would have to attack only flyers with their Sweeping attack, because Reach does not allow them to attack non-flyers.

Now, a non-flyer with Reach could attack both, but the listed restriction does not apply to non-flyers anyways. Meaning, all mention of Reach is still unwarranted. A flyer who attacks a non-flyer loses the flying trait, and would then be able to utilize Reach to hit a second flying target with their Sweeping attack, but since they are now a non-flyer themselves and there is no restriction preventing a non-flyer from doing such a thing anyways, they don't need a special clause to over come a non-existent restriction.

This has actually all been discussed beforehand, which is why I'm a little confused by the update. Unless you guys have changed your stance on this, and are going to allow flyers to attack non-flyers without losing the flying trait first, then the codex entry should omit the mention of Reach entirely and only specify that ranged Sweeping attacks allow you to negate the stated restriction on flyers.

Some of you guys may notice a new tag by my name. I have recently switched sides, coerced by the offer of cookies. They're banana sticker flavored. I knew my addiction would lead me down a dark path one day.

Let me start by stating this is more of a plea for help than a posting of results and findings. Over a week ago, we conducted a series of discussions regarding current imbalances within the game and I became convinced that the source of these imbalances is in the discrepancies between the different schools of magic. I took it upon myself to try and evaluate the various schools. Real life has kept me from devoting too much focus towards this goal, but primarily I've run into an issue with inexperience. I really have no clue what I am doing, lol. Regardless, I figured I would post what I've come up with, and maybe somebody more skilled than I can do a better job with what I am attempting.

The first thing I did was attempt to break the various functionality of spells into categories. I came up with 14 total categories. Keep in mind, some spells may fulfill multiple functions.

1) Action Advantage: These are spells which provide you with additional actions you can perform. Spawnpoints, Familiars, and just Creatures in general all fit into this category.

2) Condition Removal: Self explanatory, I think. These are spells you may use to rid yourself of conditions.

3) Counterspells: These are spells which counter your opponents actions and prevent those actions from being performed.

4) Damage - Indirect: These are normal sources of damage such as Attack Spells, Creature Attacks, and Weapons.

5) Damage - Direct: These are sources of direct damage, such as many Curses.

6) Damage - Buff: These are spells which do not cause damage themselves, but do increase the damage other sources are capable of inflicting.

7) Damage - Reduction: These are spells which reduce damage, either by debuffing the source of the damage or by increasing a creatures ability to prevent damage.

8 ) Enchantment Removal: These are spells that negate the effects of enchantments.

9) Equipment Removal: Spells which negate the effects of equipment.

10) Increased Mobility: These are spells which help you to move things around.

11) Reduced Mobility: These are spells which prevent things from being moved around.

12) Healing: Spells which heal damage.

13) Mana Generation: Spells which increase your mana supply, either by increasing channeling or reducing spell costs.

14) Mana Denial: Spells which reduce a persons mana supply.

After creating these categories, I then set about the task of rating the different schools. I tried a few different routes with this, but my final solution was to simply put the schools in order of best to worst within each category. I decided to apply a letter grade to the results, with the best school being given an "A" and the worst given an "F". If the school of magic didn't really have spells that fulfilled the function, I gave it an automatic F. I then realized this only gave a partial picture, and decided to add in a "+" to the grade for any school I felt was self-sufficient within a category, meaning that it had no need to dip outside of that school to fulfill the function. The results were as follows:

Action Advantage: Nature (A+), Arcane (B+), Dark (C+), Holy (D+), War (E+), Mind (F)
Condition Removal: Holy (A+), Nature (B), Arcane (F), Dark (F), Mind (F), War (F)
Counterspells: Arcane (A+), Mind (B), Dark (C), Holy (D), Nature (F), War (F)
Damage-Indirect: Dark (A+), Nature (B+), Arcane (C+), War (D+), Holy (E+), Mind (F)
Damage-Direct: Dark (A+), Nature (B), Arcane (F), Holy (F), Mind (F), War (F)
Damage-Buff: Nature (A+), War (B+), Dark (C), Holy (D), Arcane (F), Mind (F)
Damage-Reduction: War (A+), Mind (B+), Nature (C+), Holy (D), Dark (E), Arcane (F)
Enchantment Removal: Arcane (A+), Holy (B), Dark (F), Mind (F), Nature (F), War(F)
Equipment Removal: Mind (A), Nature (B), Arcane (F), Dark (F), Holy (F), War (F)
Increased Mobility: Arcane (A+), Mind (B+), Nature (C), War (D), Holy (E), Dark (F)
Reduced Mobility: Nature (A+), Mind (B+), War (C), Dark (D), Arcane (E), Holy (F)
Healing: Holy (A+), Nature (B+), Dark (C+), Arcane (F), Mind (F), War (F)
Mana Generation: Arcane (A+), Nature (B+), Mind (C), Dark (D), Holy (E), War (F)
Mana Denial: Arcane (A+), Holy (B), Mind (C), War (D), Dark (F), Nature (F)

At first I thought this was going swimmingly. It seemed to wrap things up nice and neat and keep things simple. It might surprise a few people, but I'm a big fan of simplicity. However, I quickly realized this system was woefully inadequate and does not really allow for much comparison between the different Schools. First off, it is fairly subjective, which I would like to move away from if possible. Second, not all of the categories are equal in importance, so it is currently impossible to compare Arcane's A+ in mana generation to Dark's A+ in Direct Damage. Thirdly, the grades themselves have relative value and don't provide a stable model with which to judge. There could be miles of difference separating an A grade from a B grade, while the B and C grades might be virtually tied, since all I did was order them from best to worst. Finally, we might should expand our evaluation to include the Minor Schools as well as the Major.

So, this is not the best evaluation and I would love to hear from others on how we might do a better job. This does already hint at how Arcane is overpowered though. Arcane has been given roughly twice as many "A" grades as any other school of magic, being rated in first place for 5 out of the 14 categories. Arcane was also labeled by me as being self sufficient in half of the categories.

While I welcome all comments and would be glad to discuss the results of my evaluation, I'd really like to hear about ways we could improve the methodology and create a better evaluation. I know this one is flawed.

Wasn't sure where to ask this, since it is not mage wars related and the only non-mage-wars forum is for website support. I heard that arcane wonders will be publishing some other games in the near future besides mage wars. Is this true? If so, is there any place we can find info on upcoming releases?

Personally I think you guys are the best game company out there and look forward to anything you release. I know you will show it a lot of love and attention to excellence.

How would you like to have dinner with the creator of Mage Wars? How about if 4 other game designers came with you? What if they each gave you a signed copy of a game designed by them? All of this and more can be yours. All you have to do is win it in a contest of wallets for a great cause.

The Jack Vasel Memorial Fund is an organization that helps out gamers during their hour of need. It is currently holding an auction to raise funds, and one of the things up for bid is a dinner with 5 game designers including the creator of Mage Wars: Bryan Pope! It is currently going for $600 and is item #250. You can find it here: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/164052/jack-vasel-memorial-fund-auction-2013/page/10?

Feel free to browse the rest of the items up for auction as well. Help out a great cause and get cool prizes for doing so.