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Eric WagonerandClaude Fable 5 574c707798 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.

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