Just starting a compilation of effective strategies and combos for the Chaos Kingdoms. More input is certainly welcome.

Combos:

Valkia the Bloody and Cloud of Flies (soften up the enemy while defending your quest zone)

Malketh the Changer and Warpstone Meteor Site (corrupt enemy units and cause Malketh to be more powerfull in any zone you choose.

Strategies:

The game seems to be all about units. So the bulk of your deck should effective low to moderate cost units. Support cards and heros should be limited to the combos you feel best work for you. So just because armories and cemetaries are nice to have doesn't mean they should be the first things in the deck. You should never have want for attacking units and sneaky ways to get them in to do damage.

I've also found Shrine to Nurgle is great to corrupt enemy units on defense. When the opponent attacks, defend and spread your damage across all of the attackers, and they are all corrupted so you can smash through to their zone next turn.

A key strategy with Chaos is building up your QZ and KZ. Your battlefield can generally wait a turn or two, but getting your draw up high enough to get a nice fistful of cards and the resources to play them early helps tons. I'm not saying ignore your BZ just that it is not as important as the other two, especially if you are running a deck using corruption effects or a lot of peons.

I'm currently working on a Chaos Control Deck. In most games I've played so far it seems like building the kingdom zone first is generally the way to go. However, I've been building up my quest zone first with Chaos and have had some success. My current deck is mostly Chaos with a splash of Orc for Troll Vomit, support destruction, and their quest.

Chaos is really weird right now because unit for unit they are the weaker than the other factions. I think if you were to try and make a deck consisting only Chaos and neutral cards it would loose to any of the other factions by themselves. You can forget winning against the crazy Empire/Dwarf decks that seem popular right now.

Actually pure Chaos can beat Empire, Dawrf, and Empire/Dawrf but it takes a lot of games to get the right mix of cards down and the right strategy. You are right that building up your QZ is of paramount importance. Developing your Battlefield is also important. You want to be able to deploy some Savage Gors and have an immediate boost to them. Don't forget to build up you KZ though. You really want to be pulling in at least 6 resources a turn and probably closer to 8 if you can manage it. You should probably be drawing about 5 cards a turn with Chaos against a Emp/Dw deck.

It is hard to manage but they can win, and even with some consistency. I have a feeling that when the Expansion and Battle Packs get released that Chaos will have enough cards to really become a force.

Dormouse you are right. So far, I've been able to win my fair share of games versus order, but greenskins are a rougher proposition. My brother plays an orc deck that is fairly resilient. I've found that my key card against him is actually Slaanesh's Dominance. With that I can get the Waaagh! he might be holding out of his hand.

A tight Orc Beat Down deck is going to be hard for a pure Chaos deck to handle. Against Order your corruption will usually be able to be reserved primarily to open them up to attack, but with Orcs you need to be able to use it defensively also keeping the number of units they can attack with down so any Waaarghs! that get through are not burning a zone immediately.

Bloodthirster and a supply of cannon-fodder can help thin their ranks, but still they are so fast and strong it can be hard to ever get properly established against them. I need to play more games to develop a deck and strategy that can handle that match-up.

Orks have unusually low health on most of their units. With Chaos it is a good idea to keep a side board with across the board damage type cards. Cards like the dark elf witch and cauldron of blood of are good to in order to dish out damage quickly against attacking units and finish off damaged units so that the orks don't get their usual bonuses. Just keep the heat on and use some of their own cards against them. Other than that you have to be patient and build up your quest and kingdom areas so that you too can spill a horde down upon their heads. I also that bumping off cards in their quest zone is some what more effective than bumping off cards in their kingdom zone. With low draws the unusually cheap orks can't seem to muster enough boys to do the job.

Harliquine said:

Reminds me of a session between a buddy playing the Orc race with some Chaos/neutral cards thrown into the mix vs my Dwarf/Empire hybrid build. He tried to rush me with the Ironclaw's Horde card early in game (turn 2 or 3) which I Forced Moved to his Kingdom zone. With continual pressure to his Quest zone, he ended up with the "shinies" (12 resources per turn) without any "****" (1 or 2 cards per turn) to spend on. You can guess the outcome.

It just goes to show you that even the rush prone Orcs need to work hard to fulfill their "shiny **** iz mine!" predicament.