Knight Moves Cafe, Pandemonium Books, & Compleat Strategist Boston

Posted on Wednesday, Sep 23 2015 9:21AM by Justin De Witt — Leave a comment

The Village Crone in play at Knight Moves games

Over the weekend Anne-Marie and Justin made the first two store visits for the Something Wicked Tour.

We have started this tour in Boston and the surrounding boroughs and our first stop was at Knight Moves Cafe in Brookline, MA. Knight Moves is a game cafe that focuses on providing a friendly hangout for gamers (both new and veteran) to have a snack, a drink, and a good time playing games together.

We arrived early and the shop was relatively quiet. That would change as the night went on when it was standing room only and we got in several games of The Village Crone and earned some new fans for the game
The owner, Devon, was very helpful and kept directing gamers to our tables as well as serving delicious drinks and snacks all night long.

Their demo library is made of multiple bookcases that are literally overflowing with games. If you want to try out a game in the Brookline area, this is the place to do it!

While they don’t sell games at Knight Moves Cafe, they do work with Eureka Puzzles & Games, a game store down the street, to promote gaming in the Brookline area.

On Sunday evening they ventured to the Harvard University area to visit Pandemonium Books & Games in Cambridge.

We played with all the local board game night attendees, squeezing in 4 games over the night.

The first game of the night had a tremendous finish with one player scoring all three of his Witches Schemes on his last turn in an amazing combination of spellcasting!

Thanks to all who came out!

On Tuesday night we visited the Compleat Strategist in Boston.

Unfortunately we lost the video for this event, so we only have a few photos we grabbed while we were there. Must have been some of those ghosts we met earlier on the Trolley Tour!

We met some local gamers and showed them what it takes to become The Village Crone. They were pretty good at being witches as it turns out since Justin got trounced soundly!

Up next is our visit to Sarge’s Comics in New London, CT on Friday (6–10pm) and then we will be visiting the legendary New York store of the Compleat Strategist this Saturday from 1pm to 5pm!

Casting the Spell

Posted on Sunday, Sep 06 2015 12:35PM by Justin De Witt — Leave a comment

What fun would a game about witches be without spell-casting? Don’t worry, The Village Crone, is chock full of this kind of fun!

You main objective in The Village Crone is to score 13 points first by completing Witch’s Schemes. To do so, you will be sending out your Familiars to harvest Ingredients you need to cast a variety of spells to achieve the objectives on your Witch’s Scheme cards.

There are 8 different spell types you can cast, each requiring a different mix of Ingredients and a special incantation. We have provided incantations for you, but you are permitted to make up your own if you are feeling particularly witchy while playing.

Pages 4 & 5 of the rule book go into detail about each spell, giving examples of how they work and how they affect the Villagers, and possibly your Familiars.

Let’s take a look at a specific spell-casting scenario: Continue reading Casting the Spell

Reaping the Rewards – Harvesting Ingredients

Posted on Thursday, Sep 03 2015 1:12PMWednesday, Jul 13 2016 5:39PM by Justin De Witt — Leave a comment

We’ve recently discussed the importance of using your Familiars to gather the Ingredients you need to cast Spells in The Village Crone. Let’s take a closer look at the Ingredients and how you will be using them.

There are five types of Ingredients: Fire, Flour, Silver, Soil, and Eye of Newt.

Fire is created at the Forge, Flour at the Mill, Silver is found at the Lord’s Manor, and Soil is harvested at the Farm. Eye of Newt is a wild card and can be used in place of any of the other Ingredients to complete your Spells.

Three Eye of Newt cards are shuffled into each of the other Ingredient decks at the beginning of the game. These will be drawn at random during the Harvest phase, so you may or may not end up with one.

village-crone-familiars-harvest — You receive 2 Ingredient cards from each location in which you have a Familiar. If you have more than one Familiar in the same location, you get 2 cards for EACH Familiar.

You receive Ingredients during the Harvest phase of a round. Remember, you only get Ingredients from locations in which you have a Familiar during the Harvest phase. If you do not have any Familiars in a location to receive Ingredients, you may take 3 Ingredients from the Tithe Barn as charity. There is also a rule that allows witches to trade Ingredients during the Move & Cast Spells phase, but the rate of trade is negotiated between players. You may be able to “buy” an Ingredient you need from another player, but it can cost you!

When you cast a Spell, you discard those Ingredients. If another player blocks your Spell with a Protection Spell, you still lose those Ingredients.

Don’t forget to consult your Book of Spells often to remember the Ingredients you will need to be collecting to cast the Spells on your Witch’s Scheme cards. And remember there are multiple ways to achieve some of your Schemes, so get creative and use your resources wisely!

Happy Casting!

Scheming Witches: Anatomy of a Witch’s Scheme Card

Posted on Tuesday, Aug 25 2015 4:30PM by Justin De Witt — 3 Comments

The main objective in The Village Crone is to be the first witch to score 13 victory points. You score points by completing Witch’s Schemes valued at 1, 2, or 3 points, depending on the difficulty level of the objectives in the scheme.

In order to score a Scheme, all conditions on the card must be met in the same turn. Cards contain both Active and Passive Schemes. What’s the difference? Active Schemes must be completed by the Witch scoring the card, Passive Schemes may be met by conditions existing on the board or by the Witch scoring the card.

Let’s take a look at an example: Continue reading Scheming Witches: Anatomy of a Witch’s Scheme Card