Chaos in the Old World - Tips & Strategies

As a four-player game with completely different strategies to win for each player, Chaos in the Old World is remarkably balanced. In fact, I cannot think of another game where four players are forced to behave differently that gives each as fair a shot at winning.

However, from reading the reviews I see a few people have the opinion that Khorne has a distinct advantage. While this is certainly true if all four players are focused on battling, if you’re using Tzeentch, Slaneesh or Nurgle with a “battle first” approach, not only have you missed the point, but you probably didn’t finish reading the rulebook.

If you are one of these Khorne-aphobic players (and presumably not playing as Khorne), he’s actually the easiest of the characters to knock out early. A four-player game takes place over 7 rounds, and Khorne needs to advance his dial 9 times to win. Given that he can advance his dial up to twice per round, the earliest he can win is the 5th round. However, Khorne has the distinct disadvantage (atleast during the summoning phase) of having to go first… and the disadvantage of having his fighters cost 2 to summon. You should always focus on letting the Khorne player run his/her summoning power down and then running away once they’re out of moves.

Doing this, it is possible to make it so that Khorne’s dial only moves once over the first 3 rounds. The Khorne player will only be able to get out 3 Bloodletters in the 1st round. These should be easy to dodge as long as you don’t care about your own dial advancement conditions. By the second round, Khorne should have all of them out – but a well-played card by Slaneesh can keep Khorne from battling in Slaneesh’s region, and a well-played card by Nurgle can boost his cultist defense to 2, making a kill much harder. If the Tzeentch player runs to any of the non-Khorne-occupied spots, it’s going to be a very long game for the Khorne player. If the Khorne player has only advanced the dial twice by the end of the 4th round, he/she will be mathematically eliminated from winning barring a highly improbable victory point win.

I don’t worry about Khorne any more than the others. I’m completely fine letting him kill one of my cultists in a region I’m trying to corrupt during the first round. But if all players have this attitude, and Khorne has already advanced his dial 4 times by the end of the 3rd round, the Khorne player will have an excellent chance of winning regardless of how far behind he/she appears on the victory point track.

If you are not playing Khorne, keep in mind that cultists are very passive with each other, most of the time they can coexist with other opposing cultists and just do their evil worshipping/recruiting in peace. Use this to everyone’s advantage and pile your cultists with some from the other players. This will limit the locations that Khorne can attack at, and while he very well may show up at your party, he can only take out so many at a time (and his goal only needs to kill one anyway). You also increase the chances that someone will play a defensive card that may protect everybody. Another benefit from this grouping strategy is the region will corrupt faster and points should start to add up at a higher rate than if everybody was spread over the entire map.

So next time you play, pick a nice populous region with some royalty and magic in it and throw a Corruption Party. Feel free to invite Khorne even. He may get rowdy, but he will only crack a few skulls!

Don’t underestimate Tzeentch’s ability to move warpstones around the map with his cultists. This is a very useful move for setting up dial ticks in remote areas of the map, but coupled with a few lucky events where there are 4-5 warpstones on the map and you can single-handedly ruin a region by yourself in one turn. Just drop a Temporal Stasis on a zone to keep others from cheaply leaching your ruination points and laugh as you bring the region to it’s knees.

Note: This advice is for those going for a Khorne dial win. If you’re going for a Khorne VP win then this won’t necessarily apply to you.

Often times when playing with new Khorne players they get enamored by the Bloodthirster and want to bring that big guy into play ASAP. Remember though, with Khorne it’s much better to kill one guy in ten regions then to kill ten guys in one region. You should be taking the Khorne cultist upgrade ASAP and trying to always hold a presence in as many regions as you can. Other players are equipped greatly to run away from Khorne but when you have your guys all over the map that becomes a little more challenging. Remember: all it takes is ONE kill on a region to get you that precious dial advancement counter.

A preference for local own board games to play and which the public site is among adolescents / adults. Not recommend taking this game to a friend’s house if you do not know your parents, spouse or relatives who live with him.

Speaking of fiends is a taboo for many people, the more playing a board game that comes to this matter.

This is the insertion of a “character” (or NPC for RPG players) in the game to give a spice on things and it is a rule of the house that I and a staff use that was very cool.

To begin with, anyone who does not know the figure of the Paladin is a slight basic description: Paladins are champions of justice, kindness and loyalty. They have combat skills as a warrior, have the strength of a Berserker, and pledge devotion to a god (or gods), thus obtaining power to cast spells in the same way as a cleric. However, unlike the clerics, a paladin can never serve an evil god. The Paladin is a holy warrior who promotes good. He has powerful fighting abilities, just like the warrior, and some magical abilities just like the cleric. His unwavering faith bestows unique powers, varying according to the RPG system used.

And the rule itself consists of the following:

– In the game setup, replace one of the initial peasant by the paladin. Do this at random as you would put the peasant in the game. The Paladin will be treated as a hero token eliminating the greatest threat of the area … however, it will not disappear as a game card and can not be affected by any spell or ability of any player. Briefly: he will not concede any bonuses to any player and will give all the deviations that a hero makes at the table. Yes, the paladin is only to ruin the lives of the players and is an indestructible guy.

– After the first round, move the Paladin to the next area and so on subsequently. When he gets to The Badlands, the next turn moves him to Norsca and continues the move.

Tip: Add a unique miniature to your liking by identifying it.