We Love Casting Spells!

Wily wizards, enraged enchanters, swag sorcerers, and nuclear necromancers duke it out in a no-holds-barred tactical arena rumble. Making your wizard is fast and fun, and setting up the battlefield channels your creativity. Cast spells with cards, position your wizards with clever tactics, create and move magical walls, nuke your opponents, and work your way to victory with epic gear, insane magical powers, and surprising spell combos! This game is utterly bonkers, and you won’t be able to stop playing.

Battle Wizard Magic Game is a tactical miniatures skirmish game about audacious wizards battling each other. BWMG is miniatures and components agnostic, allowing you to use your favorite miniatures and terrain, and can even be played with standard playing cards or basic land/energy cards from popular card games if you don't want to invest in the components! Accessibility and adhering to a punk rock and DIY vibe was a core design goal.



2D battle wizard pawn art by Osmotic Shock!
 

The Game is Ready to Go!

The game rules are 100% complete, and many of the print-and-play components are also complete. This campaign will help fund additional art and expedite the availability of physical spell card decks.

Rulebook Specs: 28 pages. Digest size (8.5" × 5.5" / half-US Letter) for easy printing and home zine-stapling. You will receive both full color and black & white versions!

What You Need To Play: If you only get the rulebook, then you will need the following components to play BWMG:

• A fistful of six-sided dice (about 6-10 per player should do).
• Miniatures, pawns, or meeples to represent your wizards (and minions if playing certain scenarios).
• 50 playing cards per player, grouped into 5 sets of 10 energy cards (Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Chaos) at standard playing card size (2.5" ×3.5"—these can be poker cards, basic land cards from Magic the Gathering, energy cards from Pokémon, etc.).
• An assortment of tokens to represent Burn tokens, objectives, and various scenario-specific features.
• Some scatter terrain (this can be wargaming terrain, homemade, or even just some salt shakers, knick-knacks, blocks, or the like).
• A pencil and some index cards.

What this Project Needs & What You Get

The game rules are complete! The 3D print-and-play components are complete!

This campaign is only to cover the costs of some additional art for the print-and-play cards and a few other components.

(I could release the game as-is, but I really want to offer print-and-play components for ALL elements of the game, for all the completionists like myself out there!) 
 

After campaign funds disburse, you will immediately receive:

• Both Perk Tiers receive:

1. A full-color PDF of the rulebook.
2. A black & white printer-friendly PDF of the rulebook.
3. A code to order an at-cost print copy of the rulebook (perfect-bound paperback) via DriveThru RPG (you only pay their wholesale cost + shipping).
4. An STL file for the card clips.

• The $20 Perk Tier receives the above items, PLUS:

1. A PDF of the print-and-play 2D battle wizard pawns (both in color and black & white).
2. ​STL files for over a dozen battle wizard meeples.
3. STL files for game components like wall card stands and burn tokens.
4. Within a few weeks of receiving your initial rewards, you will also receive:

• A PDF of the spell cards for print-and-play.
• A code to order an at-cost print copy of the physical deck of spell cards via DriveThru Cards (you only pay their wholesale cost + shipping).

• ​Within a few weeks the campaign funding, I'll also put together a playlist of punk, hip-hop, 80s, and electronic tracks with my friends to go along with your wizard battles, and share the Spotify list with you once it's done! Both tiers will get this!

Your Impact

Without your contribution, this game will still be released, but the custom cards and a few other pieces of art will not be finished in time to release all the components at one time. With your help, not only will you get the game and ALL the components at a discount, but you'll be helping this game hit tables much sooner!

Other Ways You Can Help

If you can't contribute, that doesn't mean you can't help:

• Help get the word out and make some noise about this game! Post on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, BGG and other gaming forums, share it with your local game clubs, D&D groups, EDH pods, and other game friends!
• Share via Indiegogo's share tools!
• In addition to this game, there are some add-on perks of other TTRPG PDFs for old-school gaming—if that's up your alley, you can get them as part of this campaign for a pretty sweet discount!

Check Out a Test Print of the Rulebook:

A Glimpse from the PDF (pre-editing): 









Unlike a lot of games, you get THREE actions per turn to come up with all sorts of insane strategies. Some actions, like attacking and casting spells, have diminishing returns for each time you repeat that action on your turn, but you're not disallowed from doing so, like in many TTRPGs.






The game uses card-based spellcasting! Each player has 5 draw piles of 10 cards, with each pile representing a different energy type: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Chaos. Each player begins the game with 2 of each card drawn and available in their Magic Pool. Throughout the game, players can draw more cards or exchange existing cards from their draw piles, and cast spells. Some spells require that you physically utilize a card from your magic pool on the battlefield as a wall, trap, or protective ward! You can later dismiss these effects, regaining that energy back to your magic pool at key moments to unleash surprising combos and counters that your opponents might not see coming!



Check Out Some Playtest Shots:

We used all sorts of game components, from Magic land cards to wooden cubes to D&D miniatures to salt and pepper shakers. We used Loke Battle Mats for most of our battlefields, since each page is 1 foot square and 2-4 player games are played on a 2 ft × 2 ft battlefield! 

We got creative with our terrain, depending on where we were playtesting! 

 

Risks & Challenges

The game is finished, thoroughly playtested, edited, etc. The only risk would be if I shed my mortal coil (knock on wood!).

• I have been a writer, designer, and editor in the TTRPG and wargaming space for 13 years.
• I have been in self-publishing for 5 years.

Flexible Funding

If the game does not reach its full funding goal, you will still get everything listed above when funds disburse, except for the print code for the physical print-on-demand cards. Further, the 2D print-and-play pawns and cards may be delivered later than anticipated, owing to needing to budget for their art at a later time.

Check Out Some of the Battle Meeps:

Battle Wizard meeples designed by E.S. Wynn (Ellie_Valkyrie) of Punkin' Figs! These were printed at normal meeple size, but you can scale them up to print them to be around the size of a normal gaming miniature!

You'll even get STL files for card clips / pawn stands no matter whether you pledge for just the PDF of the rules or the all-in!

Measure Distances & Cast Spells with Cards!




The short and long sides of cards are used for measuring distances for moving and spells! 2 Long sides + 2 Short sides = 1 Foot, which is super handy!



The Nuke spell is much like a classic "fireball" spell from fantasy RPGs. It's long range and can affect a number of targets within an area. After measuring to see if the point of origin for a Nuke spell is in range, you then orient the a playing card touching that point to determine your area of effect! No circle diameters, counting squares, or measuring radii!


The Ward spell is a defensive barrier you can create by drawing a card from your magic pool (your available cards in front of you) and placing it directly on the battlefield, face-down! While a Ward is in play, the wizard is treated as having Cover from all enemy spells, gains immunity to enemy Push spells, and other spell effects cannot be placed over or be moved on top of the active ward card (Ward, Trap, and Wall spells)!


Wall spells are one of the most versatile and innovative features of the game, allowing for many different tactics. By placing cards from your magic pool directly into play and into card holders, you create physical walls which have different effects based on their energy type! 


Trap spells allow you to place 1 or more cards of the same energy type from your magic pool face-up onto the battlefield, creating areas of battlefield control and nasty surprises for your enemies! Traps count as Hindering terrain, but also have an additional effect based on their energy type. Traps trigger for any opponent on top of them when they are cast, as well at the end of any combatant's turn in which they end their turn on top of a Trap! Of course, your foes can try to mitigate a Trap's effects if they have the ability to do so...



The print-friendly black & white PDF will also have an alternate cover:





More 2D pawn art by Osmotic Shock!






WE LOVE CASTING SPELLS!

STRETCH GOALS?

Eh. This game is done, I don't want to slow it down any. But, if we get over $2,000 in funding, I'll commission some more battle meeples and 2D pawns and write up some more Scenarios to include in a separate PDF and email it to you all at a future date!