Episode 219: Wonderland’s War

In Wonderland’s war designed by Tim and Ben Eisner, Ian Moss, and Manny Trembley published by Druid City and Skybound games, you take on the role of The Red Queen, Alice, The Mad Hatter, Cheshire Cat, or the Jabberwock to…you know I am not even sure, there is a tea party, there madness, and there is fighting. Possibly to right the wrong that have befallen Wonderland.

Wonderland’s War is a card drafting, area majority, press your luck, bag builder with asymmetrical player powers. The game is played over 3 rounds and each round is spilt two phases The tea party phase and the war phase. Every player has a bag of starting chips. Most of the chips will increase your battle strength during the war phase. Some of these chips will activate certain powers on the cards and you unlock abilities and some of the chips will give you madness. Madness is bad.

Now I am going to give you the rules gist, but know there are many exceptions to these rules, as the different characters, allies, and Wonderlandians you play and pick up in the game break these rules into many pieces, curiouser and curiouser.

In the tea party phase you are going around the table and drafting 4 cards (1 at a time in player order). These cards will give you a bunch of different things like allies, units and wonderlandians which will give you battle strength and special abilities during the war phase. Cards also help you unlock faction abilities, place castles, increase your leader strength, discard madness, gets quests (which are end game scoring) and discard shards. Shards are also bad. You get those in various ways throughout the game.

In the battle phase, you are fighting over 5 different areas one at a time. Everyone who has some type of unit in an area will participate in that battle. Units consist of basic units, certain wonderlandians, and your leader. Players draw chips out of the bag simultaneously and increasing battle strength, activating abilities, and a bunch of other shenanigans. Draw madness token? You lose one of your units from the battle. Lose all your units, you are out of the battle. If you win a battle you can put one of your castles in the area and earn some points. Castles could help with future battles, but are also end game points.

At the end of 3 rounds, who ever has the most points wins. Will game make us wish we lost our heads or be content with the knowledge that we are all mad here. Lets get back to the table and find out what the Pegs think of Wonderland’s war.