Campaign

[Terrazas]

I've been trying to come up with a idea to start a campaign with 2 - 4 players. The idea that I have so far is that mages start of very weak and each round when the game is over they can spend points to increase health, mana, channeling spellbook points, ect. Also mages would start with no school of magic the idea is you build your mage from the ground up and choose what school of magic they would like to be a part of. So has anyone tried this or come up with a similar idea?

[Lord0fWinter]

A somewhat similar idea has been proposed on BGG.

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1014658/archmage-career-mode

Slightly different, but you can alter the rules to what you want to do pretty easily.

[Hey_Daralon]

Does anyone play story campaigns with Mage Wars? I don't have enough people to get one going, but I bet it would be really fun. The cards would serve a huge variety of functions if you just use your imagination. The board also adds a very visual element to the enjoyment of the game.

"No you can't go through here, too many rocks" JET STREAM
"Oh crap, we need weapons." BATTLEFORGE
"Guys, we need to go to this town by this time" no problem, just summon highland unicorn

I imagine there would be lots of combat sections where the game would be the same, but also during story sections, you could be allowed to get creative. Say if the GM or Archmage makes a comment about something in the distance, you can cast Hawkeye on yourself and see a camp of skeletons, so you summon your Cloak of Shadows to sneak around and check it out.

[lettucemode]

I used to run little scenarios in Heroscape (similar to HeroClix) for my friends. Heroscape let you build a board out of modular pieces, so I'd do something like build a castle surrounded by hills, and tell my players that they had to rescue someone in the castle. There were no separate story sections, but certain pre-planned events would occur, like guards alerting or a giant showing up.

Mage Wars doesn't have modular boards yet, nor does it have things like trees or rocks. If you wanted to recreate the feel of adventuring through a certain area you'd need a ton of boards and a ton of floor space, so it is probably more feasible to only use the boards for combat as Hey_Daralon suggests.

The first scenario that comes to mind is "A Forcemaster has kidnapped Felalla!" or something, then when you get to the cave where she's hiding out, Fellala has a revealed Mind Control on her (GMs are allowed to bend the rules) and maybe a few other enchantments or creatures around, and the GM plays as the Forcemaster against the players. Throw in a few scripted events (Psylocks swoop from the sides, other defenses the FM set up in advance) and a larger storyline and it could actually be pretty fun.

Since all the players are working together against you I'd say limit their books to 50 points or so, otherwise standard deckbuilding rules. For even more fun, take out the Warlocks as an option when choosing characters, and make the story about uncovering some sort of Arraxian plot.

Personally I wouldn't let the players "level up" their characters' stats at all except maybe once or twice during the entirety of the campaign. Letting them use more bookbuilding points as things go on and they encounter more spells sounds fine, though.

[lettucemode]

And now I have even more ideas...set up a Pentagram in a central zone, surrounded on all four sides by Acolytes. A Warlock defends this setup against the players, who try to kill the Acolytes before they can complete their summoning. But then it turns out that blood is exactly what is needed to summon Adramelech, Lord of Fire!!!! omgggg

I should get back to work....

[Moloch]

Sorry for the Necro but I think the idea of campaigns in magewars is just barely scratched and I like many of the ideas so far.

But when I hear Campaign in conjunction with Mage Wars I get a differend vision:
Instead of a GM manipulating the campaign a small set of matches linked in a tree style. Most of those will play out like regular matches but the campaign provides an overarching story to enrich the games and migth shake up those matches a little.

I think 4 players for 2v2 games would be great, here is an example for a campaign start I came up with:

There have been reports of devasted villages, abductions and evil rituals in the countryside of Westlock. A Priest begins his Journy to end the suffering and purge the evil. His good friend, a Forcemaster acompanies him, driven by curiosity. Everywhere they go they see the wake of destruction but their prey is alredy gone.
They find another village, houses still burning and they know this is their chance to strike as the smoke reveals two figures: A Wizard, fire burning in his eyes and a Warlock with a whip made of Adramalechs pure essence. There is Nothing left to proteckt here, just  to avenge

- The first Battle begins, standart rules, maybe limited spellbooks (100 Points). Game is over when first mage of a team falls -

Evil wins the first game: The Survivor had to retreat so he wouldn't fall as well but no retret could be fast enough to escape the high pitched taunting of the warlock who got hold of his companions unconcious body and revealed he would make a far better sacrifice than those worthless villagers. Before there was a chance to reengage there was a series of blue flashing ligths, teleport spells and the survivor was suddenly all alone.
There was a chance to redeem himself, there is a spell that would find his captured ally and their enemys hideout as well. But he would need help and even though few are brave enough to enter Wychwood without invitation the Druid migth be the only one around who could help in time...A few hours later a Tataree enchanted to find to find the missing companion guids the way towards a hidden valley in which darkness glooms. The figth will be on their enemys turf but this time they come prepared

- This battle could start with the evil side each mage having 20 mana worth of conjurations and 10 mana of creatures summoned at turn 0 and the good team 20 mana worth of creatures and 10 mana worth of enchantments or equipment.
Up to five unspend mana can be added to starting mana instead or up to five starting mana added to summon starting units (so druid could start with  Togorah, Forest Sentinel  ) -
 
Good wins the first game: A stream of intense flames erupts from the body of the fallen Mage. As the Priest and the Forcemaster wait inside a protective sphere of energy until the onslaugth of fire ends the Fallen is completly desintegrated but there is no sign of the other, he must have escaped. But his power is low, he couldn't use teleport and for the trained eye of the Forcemaster its easy to follow his tracks...which lead to a strip of desolated land. Trained in Westlocks history the Priest knows of the War a few centurys ago which had its climax in these plains and scared the land for all eternity. In the distance they see strange shapes rising from the grounds, shapes made of bones. It seems the escaped Mage lead them rigth to his master but as they heard the rustling of bones reassembling they were not so sure if the powerfull necromancer was surprised at their arrival at all.

- Maybe in this battle the surviving evil mage starts with 5 mana less but the necromancer beginns the game with a Graveyard and the Altar of Skulls already on the board. The good Mages get to start with 8 mana worth of equipment each +-5 mana of their starting mana -

Now depending of the outcomes of those battles manybe 4 more scenarios are possible and so on 

[sIKE]

Have you guys seen this campaign?

http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=14166.0

[V10lentray]

Those guys have a FB group, I follow them, I would love to get a dozen players to do something like that.

Each week they have a match and it has top be played within the week. you can play when ever where ever, just need to report the results. So it doesn't tie anyone down to a specific day of the week.

[Moloch]

Those guys have a FB group, I follow them, I would love to get a dozen players to do something like that.

Each week they have a match and it has top be played within the week. you can play when ever where ever, just need to report the results. So it doesn't tie anyone down to a specific day of the week.

Sounds great but I'm in Berlin where the mage wars scene is just starting to develope. I couldn't find the FB Page of that group. Their progression system sounds like tons of fun but do they incorporate a plot into their games as well?

I love it when storys and lore sweep into a game. Games Workshop with warhammer (and 40k) make something like that hapen where worldwide results of staged matches are collected and used to deside how an epic story arch in their universe will conclude and leave marks that will be found in future publications.

Imagine that for Mage Wars, for example a giant sige of a Westlock city and depending on which side wins the next expansion will
- feature a holy veteran soldier who fougth on the walls to help defend the city
- a dark temple conjuration "Shrine of the Bog Queen", beeing a conquered and desecrated Hand of Bim Shala (ready marker: deal one poison damage to a creature or give it attack-1 for the turn or give it the lumbering trait until end of turn)