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

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>
2026-08-15 18:25:50 -04:00
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+# Wiz-War (Chessex era) — Annotated Source List
+
+Compiled 2026-08-15. "Reliability" reflects how authoritative the source is for the
+Chessex 5th/6th/7th edition card pool.
+
+## Primary sources (official / designer-run)
+
+### 1. wizwar.com — Tom Jolly / Jolly Games' official Wiz-War site (via Wayback Machine)
+The single best source. The site is dead; all links below are Internet Archive captures.
+
+- **Card index with set tags and scan thumbnails** (alphabetical; every card tagged
+  Basic / 1st / 2nd expansion; each name links to a full-size PNG scan of the actual card):
+  https://web.archive.org/web/20160318081653/http://www.wizwar.com/cards/
+  - Full-size card scans follow the pattern
+    `https://web.archive.org/web/20160318081653im_/http://www.wizwar.com/cards/Cards/Basic/Fireball.png`
+    (also `.../Cards/1st/...` and `.../Cards/2nd/...`). These scans are the verbatim-text
+    source for every non-artifact card.
+  - Reliability: **authoritative** — designer's own site. Titled "Wiz-War: The 5th
+    Edition" but per BGG discussion it contains every non-fan card in circulation and
+    matches the 6e deck ("Basic" includes the 6e-only Speedstone).
+- **Card reference database** (all 208 cards — including the 16 Exp2 Artifacts — with
+  full rules text, Jolly's FAQ answers, and commentary; 
+  the numbered contents list at top doubles as a complete checklist):
+  https://web.archive.org/web/20160425040139/http://www.wizwar.com/cards/cards.html
+  - Reliability: **authoritative** for card text and rulings. Notes flag Speedstone and
+    Bomb as 6th-edition cards and explain Dispel Creation's move into the base deck.
+- **Card table sortable by type/set** (type + LOS + creation/object class per card):
+  https://web.archive.org/web/20160425032433/http://www.wizwar.com/cards/scans.php?sort=set
+- **Older one-page card database (2001)** — name / description / action / target table,
+  ~195 cards, predates the scans:
+  https://web.archive.org/web/20010309120048/http://www.wizwar.com/cards.htm
+- **Board scans**: https://web.archive.org/web/20160318081653/http://www.wizwar.com/cards/boards.php
+  (Boards I–IV plus the Expansion "Brownboards" I–II).
+- What's missing here: **no per-card quantities**, and no scans of the 16 Artifacts
+  (text only, in cards.html).
+
+## Edition / expansion identification
+
+### 2. BoardGameGeek — version and expansion pages
+- Wiz-War main page (game id 589): https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/589/wiz-war
+- 6th edition version page (box back: 1 rulebook, 4 boards, 2 token sheets, **125 spell
+  cards**, 1 die; 1993, Phil Morrissey art):
+  https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameversion/27352/chessex-sixth-edition
+- 7th "classic" edition 1997 (box back: **130 spell cards** "including spells, stones &
+  hazard cards", 4 stands): https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameversion/28612/chessex-classic-edition-1997
+- Expansion Set #1 (item 28071; orig. Jolly Games 1985/88):
+  https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28071/wiz-war-expansion-set-1
+  - Chessex "English third edition" 1993 purple box — **75 spell cards, 2 boards,
+    2 token sheets**, "for use with the 6th edition set":
+    https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameversion/35412/english-third-edition
+- Expansion Set #2 (item 38450; 1993): **85 cards featuring Artifacts**, new tokens/rules,
+  "Mad Wizard" rules digest; page notes it's only valid for 5th edition and earlier and
+  that most of it (the Artifacts) never appeared in Chessex editions:
+  https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/38450/wiz-war-expansion-set-2
+- Reliability: **good** — component counts quote the box backs.
+- Note: BGG blocks plain fetches (403); the JSON API at
+  `https://api.geekdo.com/api/geekitems?objectid=<id>&objecttype=thing|version` works.
+
+### 3. Wikipedia — Wiz-War
+https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiz-War — edition timeline: Jolly Games eds. 1–4
+(1983–1985) with expansions 1988 and 1991; Chessex 5e 1991, 6e 1993 (blue box), expansion
+reprint 1993 (purple box), 7e 1997; FFG 8e 2012 (full redesign, different cards; expansions
+Malefic Curses / Bestial Forces); SJG 9e 2023. Reliability: good for history, no card data.
+
+## Card-list discussion / quantity hints
+
+### 4. BGG forum thread "6th Edition Chessex Card List" (2020, thread 2356205)
+https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2356205/6th-edition-chessex-card-list
+- A buyer of an unpunched 6e copy had 121 of the stated 125 cards; by comparison with a
+  list he was missing **1 of 2 Blunt, 1 of 2 Create Wall, the single Brainstone
+  ("brainstorm"), the single Dagger**, and had an extra Drag (2 instead of 1) — the only
+  per-card quantity data found anywhere online.
+- Also the pointer to the archived wizwar.com/cards/ list, described by a poster as
+  containing "all the non-fan-designed cards" despite its 5th-edition label.
+- Reliability: fair (fan recollection), but firsthand physical counts.
+
+## Fan reconstructions and print-and-play files (BGG Files section, game 589)
+https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/589/wiz-war/files — **downloads require a free BGG
+login.** Useful for cross-checking card pools and for verbatim-adjacent text:
+
+- **Kwanchai's Wiz War Redesign** (filepage 35997) — full redesigned PnP deck of the
+  Chessex-era card pool: https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/35997/kwanchais-wiz-war-redesign
+- **WizWar "Magic Stone" Basic Set** (filepage 54028) — Ilya 77's redesign: boards + tokens:
+  https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/54028/wizwar-magic-stone-basic-set
+- **WizWar MStone Cards Basic** (filepage 48093) — basic card set incl. number cards:
+  https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/48093/wizwar-mstone-cards-basic
+- **WizWar "Magic Stone" Expansion 1** (filepage 54029) — all Exp1 cards + tokens:
+  https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/54029/wizwar-magic-stone-expansion-1
+- **WizWar "Magic Stone" Expansion 2** (filepage 60781) — all Exp2 cards + tokens:
+  https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/60781/wizwar-magic-stone-expansion-2
+- **Community Expansion+** (filepage 98753) — fan-designed extra cards (not official):
+  https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/98753/wizwar-magic-stone-community-expansion-plus
+- **Wiz War FAQ.doc** (filepage 2537, 2003) — comprehensive FAQ, quotes rulings:
+  https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/2537/wiz-war-faqdoc
+- **English rules Doc1.doc** (filepage 4689): https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/4689/doc1doc
+- Reliability: redesigns are faithful to the Chessex card pool (the wizwar.com list matches
+  them), but art/wording are fan-made; quantities in the PnP decks may not match retail.
+
+## Fan-designed extra cards (NOT official — exclude from the 6e list)
+- The Game Cabinet, "Wiz War Additional Cards" (1990s Usenet compilations by Merlyn LeRoy,
+  Timothy Cain, Kerim Aydin, Moonpile; plus Charlie Prince's PostScript card typesetter):
+  - http://www.gamecabinet.com/rules/WizWarCardsStart.html (index; pages 1–5 linked)
+  - Reliability: authentic period documents, but all homebrew content.
+- wiki.wizwar.net (https://wiki.wizwar.net/doku.php?id=decks) — thorough wiki but covers
+  the **FFG 8th edition only** (7 base schools + 6 expansion schools); not applicable to
+  Chessex decks. Same for wizwarmastered.blogspot.com card lists and Dized rules pages.
+
+## Marketplace confirmations (component lists)
+- Noble Knight, Wiz-War 6th Edition: https://www.nobleknight.com/P/2147384243/Wiz-War-6th-Edition
+- Noble Knight, 6e + Expansion #1 bundle:
+  https://www.nobleknight.com/P/2148330144/Wiz-War-Collection-2---Base-Game-6th-Edition-w-Expansion-1
+- Reliability: fine for what shipped in a box, no card detail.
+
+## Access notes
+- boardgamegeek.com and api.geekdo.com reject default fetchers; send a browser User-Agent.
+  Forum posts are readable without login via
+  `https://api.geekdo.com/api/articles?threadid=<id>`; file downloads need a login.
+- Wayback CDX index for wizwar.com (to find more captures):
+  `http://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url=wizwar.com&matchType=domain&collapse=urlkey`
+- The live wizwar.com domain is now unrelated/parked; use archived captures only.
+
+## Follow-up: BGG thread 2356205 ("6th Edition Chessex Card List") — CLOSED, no new data
+
+Retrieved 2026-08-15 via `api.geekdo.com/api/articles?threadid=2356205` (raw JSON saved
+as `bgg-thread-2356205.json`). Six posts, Jan 2020. Contains NO card list: an owner of an
+incomplete 6E copy (121 of 125 cards) asks for one, and is pointed at the archived
+wizwar.com/cards database already mined above. Only data: the owner's inventory delta
+(missing 1-of-2 Blunt... actually 2x Blunt, 1x Brainstorm, 1-of-2 Create Wall, 1x Dagger;
+one EXTRA Drag, 2 instead of 1) — matches the quantity fragments already recorded. Do not
+re-chase this thread.