This is a review I posted on the amazon.com listing of the DvN expansion. Please tell me what you think, how it could be improved, etc.
The Review
First of all, this is an expansion to the game Mage Wars, not a standalone product. If you are interested in this game but do not have any of it yet, you must buy the "starter set" first.
Now onto the Druid vs Necromancer (DvN) expansion. I believe this is my favorite expansion yet to this game. Both mages are fantastically themed and the cards that come with them are great.
WHAT COMES IN THE BOX
1) Upon first opening the box, you will see a new codex book explaining the two new mages, their basic spellbooks, and all of the new rules and traits that are introduced in this set. It is designed well and the artwork, as usual, is beautiful. There are quite a few new rules and traits which all are themed brilliantly. For example, many of the Necromancer's creatures are zombies. Zombies have a trait called "resilient" where they ignore all damage that isn't a critical hit. This is awesome because when you think of zombies in general, you usually think about how they are hard to kill (having to bash their head in, etc). Many of the Druid's plants are "rooted" which means they cannot take move actions, but some of them have an "uproot X" trait where you pay X mana and they lose the rooted trait for that turn. There are many more traits and abilities that are all thematically perfect and make logical sense.
2) The next thing you will see is a thing of condition markers and other markers as well. There are new conditions such as tainted, corrode, zombie, growth, etc.
3) Next you will see the spellbooks. This is my only problem with this set. The Druid's spellbook is fine, it's themed like a tree with things such as flowers growing on it. The Necromancer's spellbook however, I do not like. It's basically a stretched out face. Really ugly and dark looking, which I suppose was the point. But if there are younger kids who play this game, this could possibly give them nightmares. I wouldn't show it to my children if I had any. Secondly, it's the exact same art as one of the Necro's cards, Libro Mortuos. It's the EXACT same. Come on guys.
4) Finally, onto the cards. There are 216 of them! That's alot! Most of them are new also, which is awesome. There are many duplicates of cards, so you will be able to add most of these to other Mages without having to take apart your existing DvN spellbooks. It always bothered me when I would have like 1 or 2 copies of a card and I would have to choose which deck to put it in. But no more, there are multiple copies of almost every card, which is great.
THE MAGES
Druid
-The artwork on the Druid card is fantastic. Most people are saying that she looks like a "Poison Ivy" cosplay character, and that definitely holds merit.
-120 spellbooks points, 30 life, 0 armor and 9 channeling.
-She is trained in the nature school and level 1 of the water school, which makes it very easy to place dissolve spells in her deck, which is always nice to have. Fire and War spells cost triple. She is the standard nature mage, against fighting and combat, but will defend her forests when forced to.
-Her first ability is called "Spreading vines". It allows her to place one vine marker in her zone, or adjacent to a zone that already has a vine marker. By doing this, she will be spreading vines across the board very quickly. The benefit of this is that when the Druid casts a "Vine" spell, she may target a zone containing one of her vine markers, regardless of how far away it is. The vine marker is then destroyed. This can allow her to be halfway across the board but still be casting spells in your face.
-Her other ability is called "Treebond". The Druid has access to 4 different tree conjurations, all of which are very different from one another. When one of those trees comes into play, the Druid may choose to bond with it by placing the Treebond marker on top of it. The Druid then gains "Innate life +4" and "Channel +1". The tree gains "Innate life +4, Armor +1, and Lifebond +2". Lifebond +2 means that when the tree or the Druid are damaged, up to 2 of that damage can be transferred to the other bonded object. Example, if the tree took 4 damage, 2 of that could be placed on the Druid instead, meaning they both took 2 damage instead of the tree taking all 4. If the tree that has the Treebond marker on it is destroyed, the marker is permanently destroyed.
-As mentioned previously, most of the Druid's cards are of the Nature school. Many of them are vines, which lets you fully utilize her vine placement ability. She has many plants, trees and flower conjurations, but also has some very cool creatures. She has a creature called "Kralathor, The Devourer", who has a +2 vs undead and the devour ability, which permanently removes creatures he destroys from the game. Also, when he devours a creature, he places a growth token on himself, which gives him "Innate life +3" and "Melee +1". Needless to say, after he eats a few creatures, he can get pretty unstoppable. She also has a giant tree called "Togorah" (think of an "Ent" from Lord of the Rings), she has creatues that looks like giant Venus Fly Traps, etc etc. Her main weakness if that almost all of her creatures and conjurations have a +2 to fire, which means a Warlock or a Fire Wizard will have a huge advantage over her. However, to make up for that, she has cards like "Renewing Rain" which targets the entire arena and removes all Burn markers. Then, all of her creatures and conjurations can heal 2 damage.
Necromancer
-I really like the artwork on the Necro, personally. It's dark enough that you know he's evil but it doesn't go over the top, in my opinion.
-120 spellbook point, 32 life, 0 armor, and 10 channeling.
-The Necro is trained in the Dark school, of course. And unsurprisingly, Holy spells cost triple. He is all about summoning low-cost zombies and skeletons to swarm the opponent.
-His first ability is called "Plague Master". This ability gives him poison immunity, and more importantly, allows him to place 1 direct damage on objects with a poison condition marker on it during the upkeep phase, by paying 1 mana for each object. This is a great ability. Many of his cards deal some type of poison condition marker, and this ability allows him to very easily damage creatures during the upkeep phase. This ability, combined with some of his end-game cards, make for great combos.
-His other ability is "Eternal Servant". This allows him to make an undead creature his Eternal Servant for free, which gives that creature "Piercing +1". Once that creature is destroyed, the Necromancer can pay it's casting cost to "Reanimate" it, which means that it comes back into play. This essentially could allow for a creature that never dies, as long as the Necro has enough mana to keep bringing it back.
-The Necro's main focus, I believe, is to summon many, many creatures and simply swarm the opponent. Many of his creates are low cost, and he has 2 additional spawnpoints he can play which will help him get them out very quickly. Most of his creatures are not very powerful, but they can be hard to kill. All of the zombie creatures have the "resilient" trait, which was talked about before. However, they are all either slow or lumbering, which means they do not move around the board very quickly at all. The skeletons, on the other hand, aren't as hard to kill, but are not slow either. The Necromancer also has quite a few cards that allow him to bring back creatures from the dead to fight for him. However, they come back as zombies (if they weren't one already) and usually have some amount of damage placed on them as they come back to the board. The Necro's main weakness is going to be the Priest/Priestess, or any other mage that has holy spells. Many holy spells have +2 to undead, which will make killing his zombies and skeletons much easier. He also does not have any flying creatures. So the Angels will run all over him, especially Samandriel with her +1 vs Dark objects. To counteract this, the Necromancer has the "Cloak of Shadows", an equipment card that gives him "Light -2". So, all light-based attacks will roll 2 less die against him. It also gives him the "Obscured" trait, which means that he cannot be targeted from more than one zone away. This means you will have to get up close and personal to attack the Necromancer.
I am very impressed with both of these Mages overall. I highly enjoy everything about both of them. They have a very different feel from the rest of the Mages that are currently available.
Overall I would highly recommend getting this set if you are a fan of Mage Wars, and if you have not ever played the game, I do recommend that you try playing it! It is my favorite game ever because of it's diversity and strategic gameplay.
10/10. It's an amazing expansion.
