28th April 2009 Session Report: The One Which We Dueled With Wizards & Dragons

Vanessa and I tried the final expansion from the Settlers of Catan card game. The Wizards and Dragons was unlike the other expansions in that they introduced Citadels which was an alternate upgrade of settlements apart from cities. Citadels do not allow red buildings to be built but allow special Wizard cards to be played. These wizards are placed above matching region cards and allow resources to be transferred as magic points to the wizards. These wizards can then utilize Spell Books which can be placed for free in spaces accorded in each Citadel. 

The spells available range from searching the expansion decks to manipulating the Event die. The one that stood out was the Countermagic card which allowed actions played by the opponent to be denied at the cost of 2 magic points. There are also purple buildings and magic action cards that can be played through the use of these magic points. The card I found extremely useful was Materialization which allowed a free city upgrade with a mere 2 magic points provided the player possesses at least 2 wizards in his or her principality. 

While I lost a close game to Van 12-13, it was an interesting experience playing with this expansion deck and I look forward to incorporating some of these cards into my Tournament deck the next time round.