The Witches of Blackmore
The Witches of Blackmore Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Object of the Game
Try to win contests and control the Witches' Wheel for as long and as often as possible. Each contest victory brings Magic Points. The player who has the most Magic Points at the end of the game wins and will control the Witches' Wheel for all time.
Components
- 1 game board with the Witches' Wheel
- 54 cards in six colours, numbered 1 to 9
Setup
- Shuffle all the cards, then deal each player 6 cards face down.
- Place the remaining cards in a face-down stack on the table.
- Choose one of the two sides of the Witches' Wheel and place it in the middle of the table. If you are playing for the first time, choose the side of the Wheel with the numbers arranged in descending order from the edge of the Wheel towards its centre.
- After the cards are dealt, turn over the top card of the deck and place it next to the Wheel. This card determines the trump colour for the current round. Turn the Witches' Wheel so that the number on the card you turned over matches the number on the Wheel.
- Choose the First Player.
Gameplay
The game consists of several rounds, called contests. In each round, the player who plays the card with the highest number wins. During a round, the First Player plays a card from their hand, after which the other players do the same one after another in clockwise order. The card played by the First Player determines the lead colour for that contest. It may be a card of any colour. The other players may also play a card of any colour: their card may match the trump colour, match the First Player's card, or be of any other colour. All cards are played face up on the table.
Winning a Witches' Contest
The victory goes to the player who played the trump card with the highest number (see Card Ranking). If nobody played a trump card, the victory goes to the player who played the card of the lead colour with the highest number. The winner of the contest becomes the First Player in the next round.
Card Ranking
The ranking of the cards depends on the number of the current trump card and on the order of the numbers on the visible side of the Witches' Wheel. The contest is won by the card with the highest number of the trump or lead colour. Note: on the reverse side of the Witches' Wheel the numbers go in a different order: not descending, but ascending.
Example:
A five-player example with the Witches' Wheel showing the descending order. The Blue Witch with strength 7 is the trump card in this game, so the card ranking is 7-6-5-4-3-2-1-9-8, where 7 is the strongest card and 8 is the weakest.
Anna starts the game by playing the Yellow Witch with number 2, and the other players continue as shown in the illustration. The strongest card in this game is the Red Witch with number 7, but its colour matches neither the trump colour nor the lead colour of this round, so it cannot win the contest. The winner is David with his Blue Witch with number 4. This card is a trump, and its rank, according to the Witches' Wheel, is higher than the rank of Emma's card (Blue Witch with strength 9).
If the trump colour in their game had been green instead of blue, the winner of the contest would have been Brian, who played the card with the highest number of the lead colour.
Changing the Trump
The winner may choose one of the cards that took part in this contest and place it on top of the trump card, thereby changing both the colour and the number of the trump card. Then the Wheel must be turned so that the number of the new trump card again matches the number on the Wheel.
End of a Round
At the end of a contest, place the cards that took part in it face down in front of the winner. Starting with the winner of the contest and going clockwise, the players restore the number of cards in their hand by drawing one card at a time from the deck.
If the deck runs out at the end of a round, the final stage of the game begins. If one or more players are short of cards at that point, they take them from the trump stack, and the trump for the next round changes! During the final stage of the game, players play their cards, but they no longer restore their previous number of cards after a contest.
Scoring
The game ends when all players have played their last card.
Players add up the values of the cards they won in contests. The player with the most Magic Points is declared the Winner, and from then on and for ever will control the Witches' Wheel...