So, we played our first two games tonight and they were a blast. We only had 3 players, so I'm sure that colored our experience a bit, but the color that most comes to mind is a sickly shade of green: Nurgle won both games in pretty crushing fashion with victory points totals over 50.

The first game saw Tzeentch and Slaanesh pitted against Nurgle and was the closer of the two. Tzeentch lagged behind while he figured out how to maximize his effectiveness between magic symbols and warpstone tokens, but there were only 3 that ever appeared on the board and one of those was from a dial upgrade. Slaanesh did well enough corrupting Nobles but as soon as Nurgle achieved the Great Unclean One upgrade, meaning that he could spend 3 power points per turn and automatically get a dial tick no matter what the other players did, he started moving ahead. More corruption meant a snowball of ruination in the next couple turns which he further capitalized upon with Provender of Ruin, so that even when Slaanesh won first place on a couple Ruin cards and hit 54 points, Nurgle was still 19 points ahead of that total.

The second game saw Slaanesh replaced with Khorne and we found that the Blood God was an excellent answer for Nurgle, simply by chasing his cultists everywhere with Bloodletters. However, the second Old World card that emerged was Electors Sue for Peace. As Nurgle had the lowest Threat at the time, he placed both Event tokens in Brettonia and The Empire, two populous regions in the center of the board. That card stayed in place for the rest of the game, so that his cultists could never be removed from those two regions, which meant he was constantly getting dial ticks and, of course, the first chance he took to get an upgrade brought out the Great Unclean One again. 3 points per turn sending the GUO to Kislev and Estalia meant 1 or 2 ticks per turn, as well as consistent plays of Plague Aura, giving him domination of The Empire and Brettonia every turn which neither of the other gods could do anything about (Khorne doesn't have enough cultists to ruin either and combat couldn't take place there; there was no Warpstone in either region so Tzeentch was hampered) and another runaway VP win.

I guess my question would be: why would you ever play any upgrade card before GUO? Nurgle's dial track may be the longest, but every step adds another bonus and if you can do it for an expenditure of points which is easily met, why wouldn't you? That expenditure of points also brings a combat monster and the use of that GUO also brings access to the other, lesser upgrade cards for virtually nothing. One of the things I really enjoy about the game is the variety of tough decisions that need to be made by each player in terms of playing cards and placing figures, but the use of the first upgrade for Nurgle is a virtual no-brainer. It opens up everything else that Nurgle can do and is relatively impossible for the other players to affect.

We're definitely going to try to get some 4-player games in to see if it changes the experience at all. Overall, it's an excellent game, but that one path to victory just strikes me as a bit too obvious.

The problem is that if one god is running away with it, then the other gods haven't realized their full potential.

As you found in your first game, Nurgle sits back with points and everyone thinks he isn't a threat. Then he come son strong and can kick butt in points. He actually wants to ruin his regions because by the time he does so, he can get some major points.

In your second game, you got a bit hosed by game circumstances. It is rare that an OW card wouldn't get moved off after a few rounds - and espacially rare that it came out when Nurgle was the least threat and stuck around. But there are still ways to counter it.

If Nurgle camps his figures in safe zones, you can play Khorne's Battle Cry to prevent the placement of corruption, you can use Tzeentch's Teleport to move his Cultist out of the region, and you can use Slaanesh's Sopoforic Musk to control the Cultist. All of these will prevent his ability to get dial tokens and slow him down enough to knock the threat dial victory out of his hands. Prevent him from gaining two advancements in a turn a few times and it is tough for him to win this way. And completely shut him down even for a turn or two with the dial advancements, and it becomes nearly impossible for him.

You can do less if he gets the GUO upgrade and then camps in these safe zones. But the advantage is that it drains 3 Power Points at a time and he is going to have to summon elsewhere to keep getting the points. Tzeentch's Drain Power can prevent him from doing this twice in one turn (unless he also manages to get the Pestilence upgrade). Temporal Statis will also help drain off the power and make this an expense summon. And again, A Battle Cry will prevent him from having the greatest effect as no corruption can be placed when the GUO is summoned to that region. Field of Carnage will also prevent him from hoping around.

If Nurgle is tearing it up on the threat scale, make sure Slaanesh is involved to move a hero or two into his regions. You might not be able to fight, but the heroes can take him down a notch or two.

If Nurgle is going for the points and ruination, beat him there as well. If Nurgle isn't getting the high points for Ruination, then an early end to the game is better for eveyone but him. He still gets a slower start on points. Khorne can compete on the domination by playing the Skull Throne and getting the Blood thirster upgrade. Slaanesh also has tricks to dominate often.

Each god has a clear cut path to victory but they all have subtle tricks to cut out their opponent's knees. The game is meant to highlight the need for the 4th player when only playing with 3. But it shold still be a tight and balanced game. You just need to figure out what strategy will work best given the circumstances and remember that the enemy of your enemy is your friend. So don't be afraid to work together to bring down the leader. Have Tzeentch move Bloodletters into a region where Nugle's followers are so Khorne can spend his points elsewhere trying to screw Nurgle.

Thanks, as always, for the feedback, CF. I was hoping you would respond.

Also, I'm assuming that Dwarf Trollslayers conforms to the purposeful limit on Old World tokens, such that when the card is resolved in the End phase, if there are no more Hero tokens to place, Heroes are not moved around simply to resolve the card. Is that right?

Jackwraith said:

You're welcome, and thanks as well!

Yes, DT conroms to the component list. There are a lot of cards that bring out Heroes - so much so that I think you would need well over a dozen tokens if all the cards came out. But the components are limited and that is a good thing. Those Heroes are tough.

We played our first full game on Sunday and it was great. I was playing Nurgle and I took advantage of 2 populus regions on the board next to each other while Slaneesh and Theengh started fighting between them over a warpstone in a contested area, anyway I was lucky to win as Theengh and me had oth over 50 VP at the same time, dial advancement gave me the 3 VP that broke our tie

Overall from reading on BBG it looks like the game is fairly balanced, it most have been hard for the game designer to do so.

Next game I will go for Khorne or Slaneesh to try a different Chaos Lord.

ColtsFan76 said:

I could of sworn that for hero tokens the game advises you to use "suitable" markers if you run out of tokens. I believe for the Old World events that is the only exception to the rule on the component restrictions . . . .

Correct me in this if I'm wrong.

mylastnerv said:

You are wrong ;-)

The suitable marker-remark concerns Corruption Tokens, it specifically states that the Old World Tokens are limited.

From the rules:

If the supply of dial advancement counters is ever
exhausted, any convenient markers, such as coins, can
be substituted. The supply of dial advancement counters
should be considered unlimited.

If any Ruinous Power ever runs out of corruption tokens,
then any convenient markers, such as coins, can be
used to represent more; the supply of corruption tokens
should be considered unlimited.

The quantities of the various Old World tokens are
purposely fixed. If a given type runs out, no additional
tokens of that type are placed while that stockpile remains
depleted.

Awesome, I think just cause they put all of that together I just lumped it all together in my mind.

That is great news . . . . it's only come up with Hero tokens once in our last game where the Troll Slayers card stayed out in my play for over half the game.

Hah, thanks for clearing that up.

Ugh unlimited Heroes

rapatpamp said:

Yeah, it wasn't pretty . . . glad we never really have to worry about that again.