How to Play Witchcraft

Game Objective

The objective of Witchcraft! is to lead a coven of witches in defending Wildegrens against supernatural threats. Players must complete missions each round to earn persuasion over the village jurors. Victory occurs when all jurors are convinced that magic is a good force. If they fail two missions, lose villages, or exhaust the curse deck, the game ends in defeat.

Setup

To set up the game, follow these steps:

• Jurors: Pack 8 Juror cards and deal 3 face-up to the display. The rest stay in the box.
• Persuasion: Place a persuasion marker at position 1 on each juror's track on the display.
• Conviction: Pack 12 Conviction cards and deal 2 face-up to each juror on the display. The rest form a face-down deck.
• Missions: Separate the 9 Mission cards by Acts (I, II, III). Turn over the 3 from Act I (Unease) and place them on the display. The rest stay in a face-down deck.
• Challenges: Shuffle 15 Challenge cards (linked to jurors) with 20 common ones. Distribute to each Mission on the display a number of cards equal to its Challenge value.
• Villagers: Pack 8 Villager cards and leave them face-down.
• Witches: Choose 12 Witch cards (using the starter list if it's the first game). Shuffle them and set aside 12 for the Coven deck and 12 for the Recruit deck.
• Curse: Pack 3 Curse cards into the Coven deck and leave 3 face-up.

Game Flow

The game is divided into rounds, each with 6 phases. The phases must be executed in order:

1. Play Witches: Play Witch cards from your hand.
2. Choose Mission: Select a Mission from the display and resolve its effects.
3. Play Remaining Witches: Play the remaining cards from your hand.
4. Resolve Mission: Calculate available power and overcome Challenges and the Mission.
5. Go to Trial? Decide whether to continue or go to the trial.
6. Recover: End the round, collect cards, and prepare the next one.

The game ends if: you fail two missions, lose 5 villages, exhaust the Curse deck, or have no witches in hand after the Recover phase.

Actions and How to Play

Players can perform the following actions:

• Play Witches: Choose to reveal or hide the played witches. Revealed witches go to the Jail stack at the end of the round.
• Choose Mission: Select a Mission from the display. Resolve its effects and those of its Challenges.
• Manage Curse: Remove Curse from your hand to the Coven deck or gain new ones when instructed.
• Collect Resources: During Recover, draw new Coven cards and adjust the Mission display.

The actions of each witch depend on its card. For example, Katherine Kent allows discarding Curse to draw new cards. The specific rules are in the manual.

End of Game and Scoring

The game ends in a trial if the player chooses to end or triggers a defeat condition. In the trial:

• Unveil all Conviction cards of each juror on the display.
• Compare the accumulated persuasion with the juror's total conviction.