I see quite a few people claiming that such and such is balanced/broken.

From playing the game I've found Khorne really hard to beat. Now, I may be playing the rules wrong but as I see it:

Khorne needs 1 kill per section to get a wheel turn.

Everyone else requires 1 corruption placed THAT TURN in a zone in addition to other factors (warpstone etc)

Cultists are the only things that put down corruption

Combat happens before cultists put down corruption

You choose which enemy models take the hits

If the above is correct, we have found it very difficult to beat Khorne. He deploys a daemon/upgraded cultist in a zone, places his kill on the cultist in that zone and not only scores a wheel turn but prevents other players placing corruption to turn their own wheels.

No one else can get VPs/wheel turns/ruination faster than that in our games. No matter who plays Khorne he always wins due to the ability to stop other players placing corruption and thus getting their own wheel turns.

If this is the correct way to play we haven't seen a way to defeat Khorne. At his best he can win in 3 rounds (that's 3 kills a round).

Is this right? If so, how do you compete with that? Shouldn't Khorne, like the other gods require 1 corruption placed that turn AND a kill to get the wheel turn?

Hellebore

Khorne does not need nerfing.

The rest of the players must make a cordinated effort to limit Khorn's killing. If everyone focuses on just few regions and piles their cultist on them then that limits how many different regions Khron can score kills in. Also if at least ONE other player scores an equal number of dial tokens as Khorne then NO ONE gets the extra dial turn.

For instance, if Slaanesh plays Fields of Ecstasy (FoE) then that immediatly creates a safe have for all other players as figures do not roll battle dice. Nurgle can play Rain of Puss in order to strengthen units then add at least four cultists to a region, now Khrone player needs 6 hits in order to prevent a dial turn. Tzeentch could use Teleport, Power Drain and Stasis to further drain resources and make it expensive to move in, while hiding in FoE areas.

Tzeentch and Nurgle can put down one or two cultist in a region to bait Khrone then move out once the player is committed and Slaanesh can take the upgrade to strengthen cultist to 2 defense that almost shuts Khorn down completely.

I suspect you are doing too much every God for itself, in which case Khorn will thrive.

Also, everyone needs 2 corruption to be placed in order to get a dial turn.

Out of probably 30 or so games we have played, Khorne has won about 80% of the time.

Even if everyone turtles in their own region, chances are that Khorne gets 2 dial turns while everyone else gets 1.

I guess that the best tactic against Khorne would be that everyone else is in the same region and only summons cultists.

But that's not a very fun game, now is it?

you know what works against Khorne? Fighting back.

Seriously. To get a lot of ticks, Khorne needs a lot of Bloodletters spread out across the board. They've only got 1 toughness and cost Khorne 2 power every time he needs to summon. Alternatively, run away.

That is the thing you can't turtle in just your own region. The other Gods have to share regions of mutal intrest and/or at least ONE person must match Khorn in dial tokens. If other gods are overlaping correctly then they can match Khron's dial march, of course that also means Slannesh might win.

I find this posts interesting, because if you look on some posts on board game geek, players say that khnorn can't win!

In our group we find that the 4 powers are realitivly close in the game. In fact they are so close that the old world cards are often the biggest difference makers. In fact in our group, we are so effective at shutting down khorn that khorn often resorts to ruination and domination tactics in order to take a shot at a VP victory!

I do not completly agree with those that claim that the other three powers must gang up on khorn to prevent the dial clicks, although they do jointly need to pay attention to khorn and do little things to make his life tough.

Here is a question. Do players in your group leave a territory when khnorn enters? Once they have the bloodsworn upgrade, but until then, it SHOULD be very difficult for khorn to get double clicks early. It costs Khorn 2 points to a fighter, and only one to move a cultist out of a territory. Sure you end up spending just as much as khorn, one to get in, one to get out, BUT khorn had to go first, so players shoudl just avoid the first spot he places a blootletter.

Also are your players savey enough to understand that being selfish, often involves being generous?

What I mean by that are too things. First off, the other players must use there cards sometimes to help other powers in preventing easy khorn kills. It is very fluffy for one chaos God to help anyother to prevent the domination from a third party. For example slanish may play that no combat card in a region where khorn has piled a few warriors. Or tzeech may teleport a khorn warrior out of a fight into the middle of nowhere, or play the card to cancell the 0 point khorn combat card.

The 2nd thing, is to know who the greater threat is, and allow a weaker power to gain at the others expense. For example, you know that nurgle has a long dial, so you might do well to HELP nurgle get more dial clicks by playign cards to protect there cultists, or teleport them to where they need to be. Sure it feels counter intuitive to help another get a double dial click. But if you see khorn has three combates on the go, and is doing a little too well in dial clicks, then helping a different power get more power ups in order to out due khorn.

Playing at this level requires players being mature enough to put aside there own interests, for a moment, and do what it takes to prevent a power from getting too big a jump.

Before anybody thinks this creates a predictable game where it becomes three vs khorn, if you try it, you will find something much more interesting occurs.

After a phase or too of scewing khorn, you may collectively realize that ANOTHER power looks like they may get too much of an edge. Too many points for nurgle, too many tzeech lurkers waiting to snag points in a ruination etc. At this point the game becomes as chaotic as the background woudl suggest with the situation changing with each round of the summoning phase. At this point the game becomes very fun and very unpreditable as tzeech starts teleporting khorn warriors into combat to prevent a nurgle massive ruination phase just for example.

We find Khorne has a tough time winning. He goes first and burns through his power points more quickly. So the others can avoid him pretty easily or escape. And when they can't, they can use their Chaos cards to mess with his plans - cancel combat, move warriors, beef up their defense, etc.

As mentioned, fight back and it becomes costly for Khorne to win the dial advancement battle. If he overcommits to the dial early on, then he will have a hard time trying to catch up with points later.

Finally, make sure you are only moving one tick TOTAL no matter how many tokens you collect. THEN, the player with the most can get a bonus tick. Too often, people misunderstand the rules and think each token collected = a tick.

ColtsFan76 said:

I just realised 5 minutes ago that our group had this wrong. This makes a big difference to Khorne's advancement.

ColtsFan76 said:

Thank you. As I said in the original post, I was under the impression that Khorne could win in 3 rounds which means he would need 3 dial turns a round (as he has nine dial turns). This makes it far clearer and far farer.

Hellebore

I don't mean to insult, but this is a typical post from a new player / group and it made me go "tee hee".

Frankly, the worst you can do is fight back. Khorne thrives in slaughter and doesn't care whether he loses a Bloodletter or two as long as he gets a kill. Why should I care about losing daemons or cultists if I have people jumping into my Hellblades and saving me precious power points I'd lose on trying to catch up with them? The only reason to ever fight back with the other gods is if you can deprive Khorne of a launching platform, i.e. the one cultist or daemon that enables Khorne to summon creatures directly into your regions.

Khorne does appear overpowered in the first game, but after players learn how to avoid his daemons, it becomes very difficult to win with Khorne. It's basically dial advancement or nothing - and veteran players know how to keep you from scoring two advancements per turn - sometimes even preventing you from getting ONE advancement! (I've still to try a domination victory with Khorne, though, but it seems like I'd be giving the game to Slaanesh or Nurgle if I tried that - we'll have to see one day!)

The way I see it, the power of the chaos gods reveals itself in this order: Khorne, Slaanesh, Nurgle, Tzeentch (maybe). My theory is that these are the four phases of game awareness in CitOW:

Phase I: Khorne wipes the floor with noobs. People don't know how to avoid his daemons and get spanked. Khorne seems impossible to defeat. Some rules (like the fact that you can't advance more than one or two ticks per turn) may still be unclear at this point.

Phase II: Khorne is kept in check by evasive tactics and good use of "pacifying" cards. Slaanesh takes a dial advancement / VP victory. Slaanesh seems unbeatable at this point.

Phase III: Everybody's keeping an eye or two (or three!) on Khorne and Slaanesh. Nurgle walks into an easy VP victory. Nurgle seems overpowered.

Phase IV: People now know how to keep Khorne in check, choke Slaanesh's ambitions and slow down Nurgle's victory march. Tzeentch takes his first victory and seems impossible to defeat. All gods are now in equilibrium and the game is in balance.

We're currently in Phase III but I'm anticipating Phase IV to start any time now. I can't wait for our next game even though Nurgle seems "impossible to defeat" at the moment!