RE.Lee

I’ve been playing Warhammer for quite some time now, and have seen starting sets for editions 4-8. I never felt the need to buy one though, they either didn’t have the right models, the right quality or the right price. This time its different – this starting set is great!

Components: Fantastic. Simply fantastic – I was relieved to find the quality of the miniatures is much better than the ones in Battle for Skull Pass (7th edition box). The variation in the types of units is also very welcome – newcomers can try out infantry, elites, cavalry, monstrous infantry, monsters, heroes and mages. The quality of the extra bits (dice, measures, templates) is also fine. I’m a big fan of the small rule book – much more handy then the hardcover one…

Gameplay: Well…its warhammer. 8th edition brings back memories of epic battles from editions 4-5 – cataclysmic magic phases, carnage in hand to hand, monsters and characters rampaging through the battlefield. I’m fine with it, personally, to me this is a game to play with good friends, beer in hand. Tournament players might disagree, though.

Overall, this is and introduction to warhammer at its best – great miniatures, colorful books and a load of fun for many years. Cons? If you’re a WHFB fan – none, if not – the complexity of the rules might be discouraging.

Ankh Morpork is an area control game set in the Diskworld universe greated by Terry Pratchett. Simple rules, beautiful components and reasonable gameplay time makes it a very easily approachable game, suitable for experienced gamers and newbies alike (2-4 players – scales very well).

Components:
Solid box, colourful wooden pieces, sturdy board, a lot of cards (I’d advise sleeves, there’s quite some shuffling) – very impressive overall. The map and meeples are a bit dull, though, I’d prefer something more graphic, more like the cards

Gameplay:
Players randomly pick a secret identity (each has other goals), draw 5 cards and take turns to play one from their hand (sometimes more is allowed). These can allow to place agents, remove agents, gain money, build or do other described stuff. In addition some of the cards trigger special, random events. The game continues until somebody reaches their objective or the card deck runs out (points for agents, building and money are used to determine the winner).

Fun?
Lots. The hidden identities are entertaining and its often worth to mislead others even if it means you’re not marching towards victory as fast as you could. The level of interaction well balanced as well. On top of that there’s the hilarious theme – I’m a longtime Pratchett fan, so can’t say if everybody would get it, but I can only assume so.

Less fun?
There’s quite some randomness involved – not as much as to make the game less fun, but enough to frustrate more competitive players. Also, in the 4 player game, after the group gains some experience, its very difficult to win before the deck runs out. This means one of the characters (Vimes) wins more much more often. We now drop him for 4 player games.

Overall:
Light theme, easy to grasp rules – Ankh Morpork makes for a great gateway game and can be pretty entertaining for more experienced gamers too.

At first it seems the expansion simply adds a fifth playable character (chaos god, though the horned rat is not technically one in the warhammer universe). But its so much more.

First things first, tough. The horned rat (dial, greater daemon, 3 warriors, 10 cultists, chaos cards, upgrade cards) is here to stay – very mobile, very numerous, very tricky – he feels a bit like Tzeench. He can be played along the original four or replace one of the gods in a 4 player game. Adds interesting variation and the models are great (no breaking banners on his cultists, too!)

But the coolest thing is the morslieb upgrade pack. New chaos cards and new upgrade cards for each of the chaos gods from the main box turn it into a completely different game. Khorne can win by VP’s, Nurgle can win by dial, Tzeench and Slaneesh summon warriors and daemons – a revolution in the old world! On top of that we get a couple of new old world cards that are more demanding, you can mix then into the deck or play just with them.

Pros? Great components, 5th exciting player, a variant game that plays in a very different way adding replayability to an already viciously replayable game.

Cons? Some of the new old world cards are to harsh on particular gods (closing the portal is death for tzeench), the Khorne bloodletter upgrade seemed overpowered in the first couple of games – perhaps its just getting used to the change, though

Overall – highly recommended to everybody who liked the original game.

Maybe its my warhammer background or my dark side slowly taking hold of me but this is by far my favourite game. A must have.

First of all, the components are beautiful (if somewhat grim) – the board, the tokens, finally the miniatures – they’re all colourful and finely detailed making Chaos in the Old World a very visually impressive game. The only downside is that the banners on the cultist models tend to break. Not that they need them, though.

Setup is fast: pick a chaos god (each one is different), put a random token in each region, draw 3 (chaos/action) cards – GO!

The gameplay is quite easy: draw an (old world) card that sets rules for the turn, draw action cards, use power points to either play cards or palce deamons (one action at a time, rounds until everybody is out of points), fight (rolling dice), score victory points for being the most dominant force in a given region, place corruption (this gives bonuses: upgrades or more vp’s later on), wrap up any end of turn stuff (heroes, cards), check if anybody won (either more than 50 vp’s or end of upgrade dial track).

It took us about 2-3 games to get the hang of it. The good thing is that, as opposed to many other area control games, Chaos in the Old World plays quite fast – 60-90 min on average. This way you can fit 3 games in one evening without any problems and, believe me, you’ll soon want more…

The best about CitOW?
1) All the Chaos Gods are different – different deamons, different cards, different upgrades, different style. This way every game you play is different even when its with the same 4 players every time. Just rotating the gods makes it a very replayable game.
2) Great theme. Ok, pretty objective, but the game reeks of character.
3) Sneaky, underhand and backstabbing – the game revolves around conflict and stopping your opponents from winning is just as, if not more, important than winning yourself. All players have almost unlimited means of making others life miserable – there’s rarely a clear leader at the end of the game. Beware however – if nobody claims the old world in 7 turns you all loose!

The downsides?
1) May seem unbalanced – depending on the metagame Khorne or Nurgle tend to dominate early games. This changes as you figure out the tactics for more demanding gods.
2) Doesn’t scale well. This is a 4 player game – period.
3) Some cards/deamons are rarely played. Tzeench and Slaneesh only play the weakest cultists and all the gods have one upgrade card that is clearly better than the others. I guess the designer could have figured it out better but it doesn’t really make the game worse.

Who will like it? – IMO, almost everybody (most of my friends love it)!

Who won’t? – gamers not into conflict. If even one of the players is not into direct or indirect conflict the game will often be imbalanced and boring. This is not Ticket to Ride.