A duel in the Lodge with a touch of Lovecraft

If you think of 🌹 Black Rose Wars, you probably think of a mountain of cardboard boxes, filled to the brim with plastic miniatures. But what if I told you could give the game a go in a smaller “introductory” package? 😮 That’s exactly what Black Rose Wars: Duel gives you - just enough stuff for 2-players to duke it out in the Lodge! 😉

There are actually 3 different Duel boxes out now, and I am here to talk about 🐙 Black Rose Wars: Duel - Void! This one puts a bit of a Lovecraftian twist on the theming, and introduces the Void school of magic.

The core gameplay is similar: 🧐 Each round you draw spell cards both from your personal deck and the school deck, so you keep learning new spells. Then, both players simultaneously plan their turns by playing up to 4 cards facedown onto the respective spell slots (you also select which of the two sides of the card you want to cast), then the action begins! 🌀 You can cast your 4 pre-programmed spells, but only in the given order, and you can use your 2 physical actions to move around, attack and activate the different rooms of the Lodge for their effects.

⚔️One part of the game is about arena combat: summoning and controlling creatures, and dealing damage to the opponent so you can claim trophies and points. 
🛡️The other part is area control, as with spells you cast and things you do you fill up slots of the rooms with instability cubes. If they’re filled they flip to a stronger side, and you also hand out points according to majority.

The main difference is how Events and Quests work. In big BRW these are individual cards - here this is much more streamlined, with just a few cards showing multiple Events that happen each round, and a few Quests to be solved for extra points.

Our main gripe with the big BRW was the rulebook 📓 and the many rule ambiguities. Unfortunately that is present here too, even though there is less going on. Also, there is less variability, as you have less Events, Quests and only the Void school. On the flipside, if you like the gameplay and decide to invest in the bigger game, you can use the characters and Void school there too! 🙃