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Add 6th edition research: rules, cards, and board layouts

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Assembled from the Wayback Machine (Tom Jolly's wizwar.com), BGG, and
fan archives: 5E rules transcription (6E is a light revision), Jolly's
2002 FAQ, ~208-card Chessex-era card pool with mechanics, all six
sector board layouts reconstructed from photos + fan redraws, and
setup diagrams. Gaps flagged for verification against Eric's copy.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Eric Wagoner
2026-08-15 18:25:50 -04:00
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# Wiz-War 6th Edition (Chessex, 1993) — Maze Board Research
Research date: 2026-08-15. All source URLs are in `boards-sources.md`. Supporting images
(photos of the actual 6e tiles, the 6e/7e rulebook setup diagrams, and clean fan redraws)
are saved in `research/images/`.
## Confidence key
- **CONFIRMED** — verified from two independent primary/near-primary sources (photographs
of the actual 6th-edition components cross-checked against a faithful fan redraw, or
stated on the BGG version page / visible in rulebook scans).
- **LIKELY** — single good source, or inferred with high confidence.
- **UNCERTAIN** — needs verification against the physical copy.
---
## 1. What's in the box
- **6th edition (Chessex, 1993):** 1 rulebook, **4 sector boards**, 2 sheets of tokens,
125 spell cards, 1 die. *(CONFIRMED — BGG version page for "Chessex sixth edition";
corroborated by the rulebook setup diagram, which marks the 5- and 6-player layouts
"2 sets required".)*
- **Wiz-War Expansion Set #1** (originally for 4th/5th ed., reprinted by Chessex 1994 to
match the 6th ed.): 75 spell cards, **2 additional sector boards**, 2 sheets of tokens.
Base + Expansion #1 = the **6 distinct maze layouts** photographed on BGG.
*(CONFIRMED — BGG expansion page; a 5th-edition owner's photo caption: "The Six Sector
tiles. Each unique.")*
- **Wiz-War Expansion Set #2**: 85 cards ("Artifacts"), new tokens/rules — **no boards**.
*(CONFIRMED — BGG expansion page.)*
- **7th edition ("Classic Edition", Chessex, 1997):** 1 rulebook, **4 boards**, 2 sheets of
die-cut counters, 4 stands, 130 spell cards, 1 die. Same 5x5 sector system; its rulebook
adds printed configurations up to 8 players. *(CONFIRMED — BGG version page +
rulebook-page photo.)*
- The 5th, 6th, and 7th editions all use the **same maze layouts** (the 6th re-drew the art;
layout-level identity of 5e vs 6e boards is CONFIRMED by the machine comparison described
in section 3; 7e is LIKELY the same boards — same count, same era, art appears identical
in photos).
## 2. Sector board anatomy (CONFIRMED from photos of all six 6e tiles)
- Each sector board is a **5x5 grid of square spaces** (25 spaces). Total play area is
one sector per player (2p = 5x10, 4p = 10x10, etc.).
- **Perimeter:** each side of a sector is a solid outer wall with exactly **one one-space
opening centered on the middle space of each edge** (i.e., adjacent to row 3 / column 3).
All six boards share this — so however sectors are shuffled and rotated at setup, the
mid-edge corridors always line up with neighboring sectors and with the wraparound
connections at the outer edges of the whole map.
- **Home space ("start"):** the exact **center space (3,3)** of every sector, marked with a
large 8-pointed star. The sector's wizard starts there and returns stolen treasure there.
- **Treasure spaces:** **two per sector**, marked with an octagonal swirl/rosette glyph,
always **diagonally adjacent to the home space on the same diagonal** — at (2,2) and
(4,4) in the canonical orientation used below (photos of some tiles show them at
(2,4)/(4,2), which is just the same board rotated 90°). Each player's two treasure
tokens start on these. *(Glyph meaning is LIKELY from the parallel rule in every other
edition — 8e calls them "treasure start squares" — and the token counts; verify wording
in the 6e rulebook.)*
- **Interior walls:** thick stone walls sitting on edges between spaces (never diagonal,
never partial). Cell boundaries without walls are drawn as thin cracked lines (no game
effect).
- **Doors:** drawn as a wooden plank with hinge/knob circles filling a wall gap. Each
layout has **1 or 2 printed doors** (8 doors across the 6 boards).
- **No other special spaces.** Each space has a small centering dot (decorative). There are
no numbered spaces, portals, or terrain printed on the Chessex boards — everything else
(thornbushes, rocks, created walls/doors, etc.) is tokens placed during play.
- Boards are **single-sided**, black-and-white line art in 6e. *(Single-sidedness:
LIKELY — no photo or listing shows a printed back; the double-sided "classic/new"
boards are an 8th-edition (FFG) feature.)*
- Physical size: UNCERTAIN. A fan who reproduced them printed at 7.5 in square; the actual
Chessex boards' dimensions need measuring from the physical copy.
## 3. The six maze layouts (CONFIRMED, with caveats noted)
**Provenance / verification method.** Two independent sources were machine-read
pixel-by-pixel and compared:
1. **Photographs of the actual 6th-edition tiles** posted to BGG by user louping0 ca. 2006
(files `images/6e-photo-tile1..6.jpg`, BGG image IDs 184445, 184446, 184447, 184665,
184680, 184683).
2. **Jeff Barrett's (jeloba.com) clean 1500x1500 redraws** of "the standard boards from the
5th edition & expansions" (files `images/jeloba-board-1..6.jpg`, recovered via the
Wayback Machine).
Every boundary between adjacent spaces was classified wall/door/open by pixel sampling in
both sets, and each photo was matched against each redraw under all 8 rotations/reflections.
**Every 6e tile matched exactly one redraw under a pure rotation** — three pairs matched
perfectly on every edge, and the remaining differences were exactly the doors (thin light
planks that the photo classifier reads as "open") plus 2 near-threshold edges on the one
skewed photo (tile 4). Conclusion: the layouts below are the 6th-edition layouts, at very
high confidence.
**Caveats:** (a) door positions on layouts D and F rest on the photo + redraw agreeing but
with 2 low-quality edges on the tile-4 photo — worth eyeballing against the physical
boards; (b) which 4 of the 6 shipped in the 6e base box vs. which 2 came from Expansion
Set #1 is UNKNOWN (boards are unlabeled); (c) canonical orientation below is arbitrary —
boards are randomly rotated at setup anyway.
**Notation.** Spaces are (row, column), row 1 = top, column 1 = left. `H` = home star
(3,3). `T` = treasure space. `D` / `==D==` = door. Gaps in the outer border are the
mid-edge openings. "Walls V" lists vertical walls as (r,c)|(r,c+1); "Walls H" lists
horizontal walls as (r,c)|(r+1,c).
### Layout A — photo `6e-photo-tile5.jpg` (BGG pic184680) rotated 180°
```
+-----+-----+ +-----+-----+
| |
+ +-----+-----+-----+ +
| | T | |
+ + + +-----+-----+
| H |
+-----+==D==+ + +==D==+
| T | |
+ +-----+-----+-----+ +
| |
+-----+-----+ +-----+-----+
```
- Walls V: (2,1)|(2,2), (2,2)|(2,3), (3,2)|(3,3), (3,3)|(3,4), (4,4)|(4,5)
- Walls H: (1,2)|(2,2), (1,3)|(2,3), (1,4)|(2,4), (2,4)|(3,4), (2,5)|(3,5), (3,1)|(4,1), (4,2)|(5,2), (4,3)|(5,3), (4,4)|(5,4)
- Doors: (3,2)-(4,2), (3,5)-(4,5)
### Layout B — photo `6e-photo-tile1.jpg` (BGG pic184445) rotated 180°
```
+-----+-----+ +-----+-----+
| |
+ +-----+ +-----+==D==+
| T | | |
+ +-----+ + + +
| H | |
+ + + + +-----+
| | | | T |
+ + + +-----+ +
| | |
+-----+-----+ +-----+-----+
```
- Walls V: (2,2)|(2,3), (2,3)|(2,4), (3,1)|(3,2), (3,3)|(3,4), (3,4)|(3,5), (4,1)|(4,2), (4,2)|(4,3), (4,3)|(4,4), (5,2)|(5,3)
- Walls H: (1,2)|(2,2), (1,4)|(2,4), (2,2)|(3,2), (3,5)|(4,5), (4,4)|(5,4)
- Doors: (1,5)-(2,5)
### Layout C — photo `6e-photo-tile3.jpg` (BGG pic184447); rotate this diagram 90° CW to match the photo
```
+-----+-----+ +-----+-----+
| | |
+ + +-----+-----+ +
| T | | |
+==D==+-----+ + + +
H | |
+ +-----+-----+ + +
| | T | |
+ +-----+-----+ + +
| | |
+-----+-----+ +-----+-----+
```
- Walls V: (1,1)|(1,2), (2,2)|(2,3), (2,4)|(2,5), (3,3)|(3,4), (3,4)|(3,5), (4,1)|(4,2), (4,4)|(4,5), (5,3)|(5,4)
- Walls H: (1,3)|(2,3), (1,4)|(2,4), (2,2)|(3,2), (3,2)|(4,2), (3,3)|(4,3), (4,2)|(5,2), (4,3)|(5,3)
- Doors: (2,1)-(3,1)
### Layout D — photo `6e-photo-tile2.jpg` (BGG pic184446); rotate this diagram 90° CW to match the photo
```
+-----+-----+ +-----+-----+
| | |
+ + +-----+-----+ +
| | T |
+ +==D==+-----+-----+-----+
| H
+ + +-----+-----+-----+
| | T |
+ +-----+-----+-----+ +
| |
+-----+-----+ +-----+-----+
```
- Walls V: (1,2)|(1,3), (2,1)|(2,2), (3,1)|(3,2), (4,1)|(4,2)
- Walls H: (1,3)|(2,3), (1,4)|(2,4), (2,3)|(3,3), (2,4)|(3,4), (2,5)|(3,5), (3,3)|(4,3), (3,4)|(4,4), (3,5)|(4,5), (4,2)|(5,2), (4,3)|(5,3), (4,4)|(5,4)
- Doors: (2,2)-(3,2)
- Note the long east-west corridor through the home row — this board is unusually open
left-to-right.
### Layout E — photo `6e-photo-tile6.jpg` (BGG pic184683); rotate this diagram 270° CW (90° CCW) to match the photo
```
+-----+-----+ +-----+-----+
| |
+ +-----+ +-----+ +
| T | | |
+-----+ +-----+ + +
D | H |
+ + + + + +
| | | T |
+ +-----+-----+ +-----+
| |
+-----+-----+ +-----+-----+
```
- Walls V: (2,2)|(2,3), (2,4)|(2,5), (3,2)|(3,3), (3,4)|(3,5), (4,1)|(4,2), (4,3)|(4,4)
- Walls H: (1,2)|(2,2), (1,4)|(2,4), (2,1)|(3,1), (2,3)|(3,3), (4,2)|(5,2), (4,3)|(5,3), (4,5)|(5,5)
- Doors: (3,1)-(3,2) (a door on a vertical wall)
### Layout F — photo `6e-photo-tile4.jpg` (BGG pic184665); rotate this diagram 90° CW to match the photo
```
+-----+-----+ +-----+-----+
| |
+ +-----+==D==+-----+ +
| T | |
+-----+ + + +-----+
| H |
+-----+-----+ + +-----+
| | T | |
+ +-----+-----+ + +
| D |
+-----+-----+ +-----+-----+
```
- Walls V: (2,2)|(2,3), (3,2)|(3,3), (3,3)|(3,4), (4,3)|(4,4), (4,4)|(4,5)
- Walls H: (1,2)|(2,2), (1,4)|(2,4), (2,1)|(3,1), (2,5)|(3,5), (3,1)|(4,1), (3,2)|(4,2), (3,5)|(4,5), (4,2)|(5,2), (4,3)|(5,3)
- Doors: (1,3)-(2,3), (5,3)-(5,4) (this photo was the lowest quality; verify)
## 4. Board setup / sector connection rules
From the **6e rulebook's back-page "Set-Up Diagram"** (`images/6e-rules-setup-diagram.jpg`)
and the **7e rulebook pp. 8-9** (`images/7e-rules-setup-2-8-players.jpg`). CONFIRMED as
printed; interpretation of the letter labels is LIKELY (verify exact wording in the rules
text).
General procedure (from period rules summaries): boards are shuffled/randomly rotated under
the table and laid out in the configuration for the player count; each player is assigned
the sector containing their home star.
Configurations:
- **2 players:** 2 sectors stacked in a 1x2 column (5 wide x 10 tall). Edge labels:
top sector {top A, left C, right B}; bottom sector {left B, right C, bottom A}.
Matching letters are wraparound-connected: walking off opening A at the top re-enters at
opening A at the bottom; the top sector's right opening (B) connects to the bottom
sector's left opening (B), etc. The 7e rules also show a "two player variant" (B'/C')
with the pairings swapped straight-across.
- **3 players:** stair/L shape — one sector on the top row (offset right), two on the
bottom row. Convex outer openings pair by letter; at the concave corner, the two
openings that face the notch are joined by an "**Aisle Warp**" (drawn as an arc around
the corner — stepping out one opening brings you around the corner into the other).
- **4 players:** 2x2 square (10x10 spaces). Wraparound is straight across: left-edge
openings A,B pair with right-edge openings A,B on the same rows; top C,D pair with
bottom C,D on the same columns.
- **5 players:** plus/cross shape (4 arms + center). **Requires 2 sets** (i.e., more than
4 boards). Opposite arm tips wrap to each other (A-A top/bottom, B-B left/right);
arrows in the diagram show the concave corner openings warping around the corners.
- **6 players:** 3x2 rectangle. **Requires 2 sets.** Straight-across wrap: top A,B,C to
bottom A,B,C; left D,E to right D,E.
- **7 players** (7e rulebook): pinwheel arrangement of 7 sectors with aisle-warp arcs
around the notches.
- **8 players** (7e rulebook): two printed options — a large cross (doubled arms), or a
2x4 rectangle with straight-across wrap.
- **"Relocate Sector" spell card** can move a whole sector during play; the rulebooks show
a resulting offset/staggered configuration and how edges reconnect afterward.
Line-of-sight examples printed beside the 7e diagrams confirm: LOS is blocked by walls and
by board-edge except through the wrap connections (wrap-connected openings are treated as
adjacent).
## 5. Expansion boards summary
| Product | Era | Boards added |
|---|---|---|
| Expansion Set #1 (Jolly Games 1985 / Chessex 1994 reprint) | 4th/5th/6th ed. | **+2 sector boards** (the 2 extra layouts among the six above) |
| Expansion Set #2 | 5th/6th ed. | none (cards/tokens only) |
| 7th ed. "Classic Edition" (1997) | — | base has 4 boards; no separate board expansion found |
| 8th ed. (FFG 2012) | redesign | 4 **double-sided** sector boards (one side "classic" layout, one side new), still one home + two treasure spaces per sector |
| 8e: Malefic Curses (2013) | FFG | **+1 sector board** + portals (enables 5th player) |
| 8e: Bestial Forces (2014) | FFG | none (monsters/spells) |
## 6. What still needs the physical 6th-edition copy
1. **Door verification** on Layouts D and F (photo quality), and a general once-over of all
six ASCII maps against the real tiles (the machine read is high-confidence but the
photos are ~1024 px scans of hand-drawn art).
2. **Which 4 layouts are in the base box** (if the owner's copy is base-only, whichever 4
they have answers it; the other 2 are Expansion Set #1's).
3. **Exact rulebook wording** for: treasure-space setup, wraparound/aisle-warp movement and
LOS, sector assignment, and the 2-player variant.
4. **Physical dimensions** of a sector board, and whether the backs are blank.
5. Any **errata sheet** in the box (the 5th edition shipped one).