Become a Witcher and immerse yourself in a world full of danger, secret magic and unusual places.
When I first played this fantasy adventure game at a convention I came away a bit unimpressed, but as I’ve played it I’ve enjoyed it more and more, to the point where I’ve spent considerable cash getting the deluxe edition and all the expansions. And it’s the expansions that make this game shine – adding the extra adventure cards, the more complex monster behaviours, and the more interesting winning condition makes all the difference.
That said, there’s plenty to enjoy in the base game, especially a lovely little card-driven combat system that allows you to chain combos of cards in a way that reminds me of Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon by Awaken Realms. There’s also a charming wry wit to the adventure card text, if you can get past the typos (unforgivable in these days of spellcheckers, and which seem to increase in the expansions). Unlike many fantasy worlds, that of the Witcher is relatively adult, pretty dark, and not always clear-cut in its definitions of good evil; all qualities I find refreshing.
I think my highest compliment is the fact I sold my original base game copy in order to buy the fancy edition with the monster miniatures. The Witcher: Old World is a combat-based fantasy adventure that gets it right, and will likely be my go-to game in that genre for some time. It took me quite a while to create these rules & reference sheets with all the expansions, and I rewrote and reorganised the fighting rules to make them easier to follow. Enjoy!
