The Witch is the mistress of natural and demonic powers. Nearly helpless in combat, she must select some spells that allow her to fight or avoid combat. She usually does best by going off by herself, preferably to some place where she can find grey magic.

Chits

Stats

Weight/Vulnerability: Light

Spells: Three Spells (Type II, Type V, Type VIII)

Starting Gold Value: 10

Special: Knowledge (subtract one from Reading Runes rolls), Familiar (invisible companion)

Start: Inn

Ally: Company

Friendly: Bashkars

Unfriendly: Order, Lancers, Soldiers, Shaman

Enemy: none

Strategy

The Witch can make Grey and Black magic. Favourite spells are Absorb Essence (V/Black), Remedy (VIII/Grey) and Broomstick (V/Black). There doesn't seem to be any reason to take any other spells, although a case can be made for Stones Fly. Start with plenty of Grey and Black magic (all three II chits and two of three V chits). Take Fame, Notoriety and Spells. It is certainly worth enchanting a convenient Valley tile to save on Grey magic. Use Broomstick to hie back to the Valley to cast your Remedies. Or Absorb a flying monster.

Remember that you have only three V chits. If you cast Absorb Essence and Broomstick, that will leave you with only one source of Black magic. It may be worth eschewing Broomstick for this reason. It's not good for the Witch to be caught without a source of Black magic to energise Absorb Essence. If you Absorb a flying monster, you don't need Broomstick anyway.

Take care when assigning VCs. Although it may seem that you can assign them anywhere you like, actually fulfilling them is surprisingly difficult. You can put VPs into Great Treasures, but you have to find them first, and some are heavier than you can carry. You can put VPs into Spells, but again you have to find them and they are frequently guarded by a lot of monsters. Then you have to Read Runes, then you have to get rid of the Curses you receive. You can put VPs into Fame and Notoriety, but this is dependent on finding a nasty enough monster to Absorb. If you're lucky enough to run into the T Flying Dragon, you can celebrate, but it's not nice being caught by a horde of Goblins. In fact, it's probably safest to put VPs into Gold - that way you can just sell everything you can find.

An ideal situation would be to Locate the Horde early, Absorb the dragon, Loot the heck out of it, then rock up to the Lancers or the Bashkars, sell her excess stuff and eat them.

The Witch's Familiar can be used as a superlative scout, finding the locations of the treasure sites and the good Absorb targets, which the Witch can then Fly to using Broomstick. The only problem with using Broomstick is landing in a random clearing. Take this into account when setting up the board. It is possible to join unconnected paths with Woods tiles.

Sources of spells: Scroll of Nature, Black Book, Eye of the Idol, Blasted Jewel, Beast Pipes, Altar, Shrine, Statue, Shaman unfriendly, Crone neutral.

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