Which Witch
You’ve gathered to celebrate the equinox…
… and as Dusk settles, the potion brewing competition begins. You are here with witches from your coven, but you want to win - you want to reach the Witching Hour with 5 potions of the same colour before anyone else does. But you won’t do it alone - you will beseech the powers of ancient witches from around the globe to help you!
Setup
First, choose your witches
In your first game we recommend the Purrfect Start curated setup - with 3 or 4 players you will play with Hecate, Tamano-No-Mae, Morrigan, Freyja, Circe, Morgan Le Fey, and Isis Ennead.
The Witches are arranged in numerical order, with Dusk and Veil before all the witches, and the Witching Hour last of all. You’ll need one colour of potions for each player playing, and the Cat and Crow Familiars from the Moon suit.
We like this clock format for arranging the cards, but you could go with a straight line or, if space starved, stack the cards up in a deck to flip through.
Each player starts with 1 potion of their colour, and a hand of witches that exactly matches the set of witches on the table.
Dusk
Each night begins at Dusk
Dusk is a phase of the turn where any Dusk abilities activate. For this first setup, Moon Cat has a Dusk ability that is immediately relevant: If unbonded, bond the Cat Familiar to the player with the fewest total potions.
At the start of the game, everyone has the same number of potions, so choose who has the Cat randomly, or feel free to give the Cat to the youngest player as you see fit.
There are other Dusk abilities, I’ll revisit Dusk at the beginning of turn 2.
The Veiling
Veil your intentions, and your witches
Each turn you’re going to call on the power of one of the ancient witches in your hand. However, you do so secretly - every player chooses their witch for this turn and places it face down in front of them.
The card you choose will be your power for this turn, but it does not automatically return to your hand - that witch remains played until you do something to recall her.
You must choose carefully when to use witch number 13 - Isis Ennead - to pick your hand back up and replenish your choices.
The Calling
Once everyone has veiled we call on the ancient witches to aid us
Witches are called in numerical order, that’s always Hecate first. If anyone veiled Hecate earlier, they should reveal her now. If nobody chose Hecate, we move on to the next witch.
If more than 1 player chose Hecate, that’s going to cause a clash. Hecate has been called to aid 2 (or more) players, and cannot help them all, so she stays at home and helps no-one.
Unless one of the clashing players had the Cat. All witches love cats, right? If one of the clashing players has the Cat they still get to use the power of Hecate, but the Cat will unbond and wander off in the process.
If exactly one player chose Hecate, they execute her power now, by choosing a player at the table and naming Which Witch they think that player has played. BUT - don’t reveal whether they are correct just yet! Wait until that witch is called. If you’d like an aide-memoire, place a potion of the guessed player’s colour on the guessed witch.
The Calling continues through the witches in numerical order, so after Hecate is resolved we have:
Tamano-No-Mae - swaps witches around and can give away potions to brew others.
Morrigan - gets you the Crow Familiar, and a potion if you already had a Familiar.
Freyja - brews a potion that you don’t need (it’s always the wrong colour) but bonds the Cat Familiar to you.
Circe - simply brews a potion. Any colour you like. She’s that powerful.
Morgan Le Fey - steals a potion from another player, but brews a replacement of your colour.
Isis Ennead - allows you to trade 2 off-colour potions for 1 that you really want, and also has an important ability at Dusk…
The Witching Hour
Check for victory and undo shenanigans
First of all in the Witching Hour we check to see if any player has won the game yet. To win, they must have 5 potions of the same colour at this point of the turn. Having 5 potions but getting one stolen by Morgan Le Fey before the end of the night is not quite good enough.
It’s common for players to win with 5 potions of their own colour, because everyone started the game with 1 potion of their own colour - but it’s not necessary. You can win with 5 potions of any colour, just so long as they are the same.
Should more than one player reach 5 (or more!) potions of the same colour in the same night, if one of them has the Cat Familiar bonded to them then they win. Otherwise, if one of them has the Crow Familiar, then they win.
If players are tied and both the Cat and Crow are either unbonded or bonded to a player not involved in the tie… then it remains a genuine tie. The players involved begin a lifelong pact to seek revenge at a later date.
If nobody has won yet - there is still one more function in the Witching Hour. Should anyone have a card in front of them that doesn’t belong to them (because Tamano-No-Mae caused shenanigans during the Calling) then return those cards to the correct player. Check the colour of the card backs.
Back to Dusk
The cycle continues
If no-one has yet won, we continue into another turn. Remember - the witch that was played in turn 1 does not automatically come back to your hand, you need a power for that to happen, and we’re at Dusk so check these now.
If anyone played Isis Ennead they will now have Isis in front of them revealed. All players who originally veiled Isis should pick up their hand - even if they clashed on the regular ability, even if Tamano-No-Mae switched them during the Calling.
Does anyone have both the Cat and Crow Familiars bonded? If so the Crow Familiar will unbond, flying away to fetch that player a potion of any colour. If that is their 5th potion of a colour don’t forget they don’t win yet! They just missed the Witching Hour and have to survive with that potion for another night.
Is the Cat Familiar lonely? If he’s unbonded in the centre of the table (perhaps because a clash happened, perhaps because Morrigan used the bond to make a potion) then the Cat will bond with the player who currently has the fewest potions. Choose randomly if there’s a tie.
Now you can continue to the Veiling, the Calling, and the Witching Hour. Keep playing until someone wins!
That’s it for this week.
We hope you enjoyed this mechanical insight into your first game of Which Witch. We hope many of you fondly remember having the game demoed to you at one of the conventions we have visited like the UK Games Expo or Tabletop Scotland. If you haven’t had the chance to see a demo yet then maybe at our next stop - Essen in late October!
There is also a playthrough video in the works, you’ll be the first to know about it when it’s ready.
If you would like to take a deeper dive into the rulebook of Which Witch we have uploaded a draft pre-production copy of the rulebook to BoardGameGeek and it lives here. We welcome any and all feedback, so send us a Geekmail on BGG!