wizwar6e/research/rules-sources.md

Wiz-War 6th Edition — Annotated Source List

Research date: 2026-08-15. All Wayback Machine URLs were verified working on that date. BoardGameGeek pages currently block automated fetching (Cloudflare) — those URLs work fine in a normal browser.

Primary rules texts (archived fan/official sites)

wizwar.com — "Wiz War 5th Edition Rules" (full base-game rules transcription)

• URL: http://web.archive.org/web/20041205021940/http://www.wizwar.com/rules.htm
• What it is: Complete transcription of the 5th-edition (Jolly Games, "New 1991 Fifth Edition" Chessex printing) base rulebook: winning, equipment (124 cards), setup, board/doors, movement, objects/treasures, card types, turn, combat, map changes, card draw, die, death. This is the text the Chessex 6E rulebook lightly revises.
• Reliability: High. wizwar.com was the semi-official fan hub (maintained by D. Dugan & Company); Tom Jolly participated on its message board and the site linked to/was linked from his official pages.
• Edition: 5th (page header says so explicitly). Verbatim copy incorporated into rules-6e.md.

wizwar.com — Expansion Sets 1 & 2 rules (full transcription)

• URL: http://web.archive.org/web/20030208085508/http://www.wizwar.com/exp.html
• What it is: The complete combined rulebook for Expansion #1 (1991: monsters, magic sticks) and Expansion #2 (1993: artifacts, transformations), plus team-play/2-player/doors variants and complete Expansion 1 & 2 card name lists with number-card distributions. Ends with Tom Jolly's Jolly Games address — this is the actual printed expansion rulebook text.
• Reliability: High (same site). Edition: the expansions sold alongside 6E/7E. Verbatim copy in rules-6e.md.

Tom Jolly's official site — Wiz-War Rules FAQ (Sept 1, 2002)

• URL: http://web.archive.org/web/2004/http://www.silcom.com/~tomjolly/wizfaq.htm (Wayback; the live http://www.silcom.com/~tomjolly/wizfaq.htm no longer resolves)
• What it is: The designer's own FAQ: general rules questions (counteraction priority, lost turns, LOS corner-nicking, treasures, throwing objects, players-as-objects) plus ~90 per-card rulings. Contains the key 6E facts: "you can't attack yourself" first appears in the 6th-edition rules; 6E boards lack the LOS center dots; Dispel Creation moved into the basic set; 7E board-layout errata.
• Reliability: Highest — written by Tom Jolly. Covers 5E/6E/7E with edition callouts. Full text saved as official-faq-2002.txt.
• An earlier revision (Oct 8, 2001) is mirrored at http://web.archive.org/web/20060526100553/http://www.wizwar.com/faq.html — same document, older.

Tom Jolly's official site — other Wiz-War pages

• Wiz-War home: http://web.archive.org/web/2004/http://www.silcom.com/~tomjolly/wizhome.htm — game overview, component counts of the planned Chessex 8E (never released; 156 cards, 6 boards), status updates.
• Expansions page: http://web.archive.org/web/2004/http://www.silcom.com/~tomjolly/wwexp1.htm — Expansion 1 = 84 cards + 2 boards + tokens; Expansion 2 = 106 cards + tokens; full card lists; notes that the in-print (2001) 7th edition = "classic edition (with the yellow name-block on the box)".
• Replaced board: http://web.archive.org/web/2004/http://www.silcom.com/~tomjolly/wwbrdnu.htm — "Between printing the 6th edition and the 7th edition, a playing board was replaced in Wiz-War," with a link to the removed board's art (image capture not verified).
• Card credits: http://web.archive.org/web/2004/http://www.silcom.com/~tomjolly/wwcredit.htm — who designed which cards, per set.
• Reliability: Highest (designer's own site).

wizwar.com — card database (full card texts, base + Expansions 1 & 2)

• Card list with full rules text per card: http://web.archive.org/web/20040628113340/http://www.wizwar.com/cards/cards.html — ~200 cards, each with card type, full card text, FAQ notes, and commentary (including "I think that this is a 6th edition card" on Bomb). Saved locally as cards-5e-with-expansions.txt.
• Card scans indexed by set (Basic / 1st / 2nd) with quantities: http://web.archive.org/web/20040908071628/http://www.wizwar.com/cards/scans.php?sort=set — scans of actual 5E cards; source of the Basic-set inventory (90 spell/object/trap + 34 number = 124 cards) in rules-6e.md. Individual card scan pages exist under /cards/card.php?<Name> (hundreds archived, e.g. http://web.archive.org/web/20040310074151/http://www.wizwar.com/cards/card.php?Amplify).
• Boards: http://web.archive.org/web/20040502164014/http://www.wizwar.com/cards/boards.php and board images under /cards/Boards/ (e.g. http://web.archive.org/web/20180210221403/http://www.wizwar.com/cards/Boards/Board-I.png) — scans of board layouts.
• Reliability: High for 5E card text; the site header says "Wiz-War: The 5th Edition Cards".

Edition history / 6E identification

BoardGameGeek — Wiz-War (Chessex sixth edition) version page

• URL: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameversion/27352/chessex-sixth-edition (archived copy used: http://web.archive.org/web/20210123024942/https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameversion/27352/chessex-sixth-edition)
• What it contains: "New 1993 edition with revised rules and new cards! From the back of the box: The new Sixth Edition Wiz War contains: 1 rulebook, 4 boards, 2 sheets of tokens, 125 spell cards and 1 die. May be enjoyed by 2 to 4 players." Publisher Chessex, year 1993, product code 7000, box 10×8×1 in, English.
• Reliability: High for component/box facts (transcribed from the box).

League of Gamemakers — "A Brief History of Wiz-War" (by Tom Jolly)

• URL: https://www.leagueofgamemakers.com/a-brief-history-of-wiz-war/
• What it contains: Edition-by-edition history from the designer: 1st (1985 baggie, 100 copies) through 5th ("New 1991 Fifth Edition"), 6th (1993, Phil Morrissey art, larger blue box, ~2,000 copies, QC problems ~1 in 12), 7th (1997 "Classic Edition", made in Mexico), 8th (FFG 2012).
• Reliability: Highest (designer-authored). Live page.

Wikipedia — Wiz-War

• URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiz-War
• What it contains: Publication timeline (Jolly Games 1985–, Chessex editions 4–7 1993–2010, FFG 8E 2012, Steve Jackson Games 9E 2023), summary of 6E (new larger blue box, Morrissey art, revised rules) and 7E (same packaging, updated contents).
• Reliability: Good secondary source. Live page.

Noble Knight Games — Wiz-War (6th Edition) product listing

• URL: https://www.nobleknight.com/P/2147384243/Wiz-War-6th-Edition
• What it contains: Marketplace listing confirming the 6E product's existence/contents; useful for box photos. Also https://www.nobleknight.com/P/2148330144/Wiz-War-Collection-2---Base-Game-6th-Edition-w-Expansion-1 (6E + Expansion 1 bundle). eBay listings (e.g. https://www.ebay.com/itm/387028775381 "Wiz War (6th Edition) - Chessex 1993 - Complete") often include component photos.
• Reliability: Moderate (retail descriptions), good for photos.

Rules summaries and community material (mostly 7E-era "classic" Wiz-War)

• BGG files section (base Wiz-War, i.e. Chessex-era): https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/589/wiz-war/files — community files including "Wiz-War rules summary (.doc and .pdf)" (https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/24409/wiz-war-rules-summary-doc-and-pdf). Requires a browser/BGG login to download. Not edition-verified; almost certainly 6E/7E-era rules.
• Scribd — "Wiz-War Rules Summary": https://www.scribd.com/document/68073124/Wiz-War-Rules-Summary — appears to be the same community rules summary; login-walled.
• BGG thread — "6th Edition Chessex Card List" (thread 2356205): https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2356205/6th-edition-chessex-card-list — a 2020 thread about exactly the 6E card list. NOT retrievable by automation (Cloudflare; not in Wayback). Worth opening in a browser — it may answer the 124→125 card question directly.
• Jeff's Custom Wiz-War (jeloba.net): http://www.jeloba.net/wizwar/ (HTTP only, no HTTPS) — complete print-and-play remake based on the 5th edition + expansions, posted with Tom Jolly's permission: boards (all six 5E/expansion layouts + 2 originals), tokens, rewritten card texts (deliberately NOT matching official wording), Access/Excel spell databases. Direct files: http://www.jeloba.net/resources/wizwar/ww-all-files.zip (25 MB), .../ww-spells.txt (tab-delimited spell list), .../ww-boards.zip, .../ww-tokens.zip, .../ww-number-card-labels.pdf, .../ww-spell-cards-original-decks.pdf, .../ww-spell-cards-additional.pdf. Reliability: high-quality fan material, but card texts are rewritten — use the wizwar.com database for official wording.
• Kwanchai Moriya's Wiz War package (BGG file 35997): http://www.boardgamegeek.com/file/info/35997 — single PDF with rules, counters, boards, and cards (Jeff's card texts + Kwanchai's art). BGG login required.
• UltraBoardGames Wiz-War rules: https://www.ultraboardgames.com/wiz-war/game-rules.php — covers the FFG 8th edition, NOT 6E. Useful only for comparing how FFG changed the game.
• FFG 8E rulebook PDF (for edition comparison only): https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/wiz-war/WizWar_Rulebook%20v1-12%20low.pdf — official FFG 8th edition rulebook (not read/OCRed here; linked as reference).
• RPGnet review of Wiz-War Classic Edition (7E): https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/classic/rev_815.phtml — play impressions of the 7E "Classic Edition"; little rules detail.
• Tabletop Simulator workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=408527762 (classic, built from Kwanchai/Jeff fan materials — rewritten card text) and https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2063767485 (FFG 8E).

Dead ends checked

• Chessex's old site (chessex.com, 1997–): Wayback holds only Wiz-War logo/cover GIFs (e.g. http://web.archive.org/web/19970726190725/http://www.chessex.com/assets/duplicate1/wizcov.gif) — no rules pages archived.
• jollygames.com: the archived 2001–2003 site is an unrelated Italian toy company. Tom Jolly's actual site was silcom.com/~tomjolly (see above).
• No scanned 6E (or any Chessex-era) rulebook PDF was found anywhere public — not on BGG's visible file listings, archive.org's texts collection, or fan sites. The physical 6E booklet remains the only source for exact 6E wording.
• BGG XML API (/xmlapi2/thread) now requires authentication; direct page fetches return Cloudflare 403.

Local file copies in this directory

• rules-6e.md — assembled rules document (see its provenance labels).
• cards-5e-with-expansions.txt — full text dump of the wizwar.com card database (base + Exp 1 + Exp 2 card texts, ~200 cards, with FAQ notes).
• official-faq-2002.txt — full text of Tom Jolly's Wiz-War Rules FAQ (Sept 1, 2002 revision).