I played my first game of Invasion this weekend. I thoroughly enjoyed it as I played Chaos, but I couldn't help but notice that perhaps the Chaos units seem a bit more fragile than other units. There are so many units with only 1HP that seem to die easily. Granted, I had a bit of bad luck not seeing either Hero, Dark Zealots and Chaos Knights the whole game, and Chaos does have the Bloodthirster, but it would have been nice to have some more tougher units. Mind you, it was also just the base game, so who knows what the two expansions out now may bring...

True but Chaos has good damage output usually and can by-pass defenses.
So far Chaos seems quite competitive. I'm curious how they'll 'evolve' over time.

Yes, if there was one thing that I did notice that made up for the lack of HP was the attack power behind each unit. Like the Savage Gors getting up to 3 Attacks and the Savage Marauder already having 2 printed on him.

I'm not giving up on Chaos just yet, I need to see if my luck improves. Perhaps if I see the tougher units and Heroes, things would be different.

I've played 2 games as Chaos so far, and have lost both times. They do seem a bit fragile to me as well, but I like their theme and play style, so I'll stick with them.

It also didn't help that my opponent played the Dwarves, and in one game managed to get out the Rune of Dismay on his 2nd turn. Paying 1 more resource for EVERY unit I bring out from the start of the game is not fun.

Viper114 said:

Chaos packs the most RAW (just printed, excluding all modifications) printed Power icons on their units in the Core Set. I did the math a while back for kicks.

Svartnatt said:

Pure Chaos lacks Support-destruction. If playing with the suggested random 10 Neutrals, gotta hope you get "Burn it down", otherwise you're SOL. Tempting to toss in the Orc Quest just for that purpose.

There are lots of differents opinion about Chaos...Anyway, it doesn't seem fragile at all to me...It just needs lot of effort and playtesting.

Chaos needs a strong kingdom AS SOON AS possible (Savage Marauders + Chaos Knights as soon as I draw them). Then, start controlling the table with direct damaging/corruption and close the deal with the badasses (BT on everyone else).

It's similar to the empire in the essence: it's a bit controll-ish and it takes time to be mastered.

IMHO.

I've only played Empire Against Chaos, and I think Choas is pretty strong and can start doing damage quickly. If Chaos gets a decent KZ going, you will have a hard time containing them. And if they ever start getting their corruption going, then you are probably done.

You probably need to just play them a few times to get the hang of playing them well. I had the same reaction to Empire, but then after a few games, I learned how to play up their strenghts.

Yes Chaos is fragile. 5 of the 12 units types have 1 health and 11 of the 22 unit cards in the chaos deck have 1 health. That's a lot more 1 health units then the other races (dwarf 2/6, orc 2/5 empire 4/8).

That said fragile is not the same as underpowered and I would guess most people who responded saying chaos isn't fragile meant chaos isn't underpowered. That said all factions have strengths and weaknesses and identifying what they are and playing to them is key. As has been pointed out Chaos has low health but good power. It lacks support destruction but has great direct damage.

I was lucky enough to get my 1st Core Set at GenCon and have played like crazy ever since - in my experience, new players tend to find Chaos too wimpy at first but once you play it a good bit more, you'll find that it's pretty darn powerful. It's possibly the 2nd toughest faction in the game, imho, behind Orcs. The others are correct, you need to focus on your Kingdom Zone build-up, primarily. And that's easy to do with the 0-Cost Warpstone Excavation & the 1-Cost Contested Village, along with a Shrine to Nurgle (2-cost). In your first turn, you can have 3 extra Resources cranking it and headed towards a fast victory. It's insane.

I agree with the posters above, Kingdom Zone development appears to be critical to succeeding as the Chaos player. look carefully at how many cards have a resource cost to trigger an effect. I have lost all my Chaos games but it has been against a very good opponent who has played Orcs each time. I think Chaos has the biggest problem with Orcs because Orcs play fast and use swarms of units to hit you. Chaos' inability to defend with units makes it hard to overcome. I should note that I am playing with a single core set so maybe a tighter deck woudl do better against Orcs 9of course my opponent is only using 1 core as well.

going to get the expansion this week. I am toying with throwing all the Skaven OR going with a Dark Elf contingent to round out the deck. Vile Sorceress is one of my favorite cards, the new Pegasi cavalry and teh new hero open up some great options.

Corruption is the key to beating Orcs. It is hard to build it fast enough, and not fully reliable but its something.

A1istor said:

No. The key to beating orcs is direct damage. Nurgle's Pestilence works wonders to clear the board of 1 HP orc weenies. Horrific Mutation is also good.

I put all the Dark Elf cards into my Chaos deck and my Chaos deck is REALLY beefy now and has tons of creature/board control.

I just played Dwarfs vs. Chaos and included the High Elves in my deck, Dark Elves in hers. She got a lot of DE early on, and made my life a living hell. I wasn't able to get set up and she beat me pretty handily. If you want to do better with Chaos, put the Dark Elves in and see what happens.

Just got Skavenblight, so now at least putting in some Dark Elf cards is viable. Going to add some and see if Chaos fares better.

After playing today we tried all of the decks a few times around. Neither of us fared well with Chaos. I am not quite seeing what their intention is for Chaos. They seem to be a bit more about corruption and tricks around that. Was hoping for bigger, beefier Chaos.

Well you have to remember Chaos was all about lightly armored, close combat warriors who also use the corrupting magic of the Chaos gods, who fight with little regard for their own health or safety in their zeal to enact their god's will on the field of battle. High power low hit points with direct damage and ways of bypassing defenders and preventing attackers is a pretty fair representation of the Hordes.

Making them super resilient would definitely be against the IP.

True enough, I guess I want more Khorne in my Chaos.

dormouse said:

Actually making them super resilient would be right in line with the IP. Chaos has many heavily armored units it's a feature of the army (chaos gods give chaos armor as their first gift.). Yes they have some lighly armored units too (chaos marauders) but let me just quote the games workshop web site.

"Big, tough, strong and very, very hard - Chaos Warriors are the heart of the Warriors of Chaos army."

Beastmen's feature is increased toughness. Even the runts of the litter (ungors) are as tough as humans. Lightly armored sure but tough and hard to kill. I don't know demons so I suppose they could be know as easy to kill but I somehow doubt it.

Yes choas has some easy to kill units but its certainly not what chaos was all about.

Ratcur said:

Indeed when I think of Chaos I think of a mix of Elite Powerful hardy units (Chaos Warriors) together with fodder and Daemons.

I picked up Skavenblight Wednesday night and played 4 games with my Chaos deck against my usual opponent (who I had yet to beat). In the first 2 games I had all the Dark Elf cards except hate in the deck. i lost once to his Orcs and once to his Dwarves. I found that the Dark Elfs were a little hard to get out because of cost and it seemed they sort of gummed things up. For the next two games, I pulled all the Dark Elf stuff out and threw in the Skaven cards. I won the next two games once against his orcs and once against his dwarves. When I am a little less tired i wil lpost a session report over on BGG.

Now to be clear, the Skaven cards did not play that big a role in either win. I think they just moved through my hand faster and did not leave me unplayable cards as often. Highlight of the dwarf game was getting my Chaos "Sniper" team set up in my quest zone.

Step 1: Seduced by Darkkness on target

Step 2: 3 resources Nurgle Socreror do 2 damage to target

Step 3: 1 resource to 1st Chosen of Tzeentch 1 more damage to target

Step 4: 1 respurce to 2nd Chosen of Tzeentch 1 more damage bye bye Marius

I feel like I am starting to get a handle on Chaos finally. I think it really challenges you to look at the board and your hand carefully to see the possibilities.

So 'sniping' from the Quest zone is really worth it? As I am at times hesitant to give up resources for 1 point of damage. (or 2)

How do you guys feel the contents of the new boosterpack influences Chaos's performance?

With Chaos you really need to view your resources, not as money but as actal resources. They serve a variety of functions in a Chaos deck, only one of which is actually deploying cards. If you build your deck with the idea that you need a certain amount of resources to deploy cards as well as power up effects, and then play your deck that way, you'll find it works reasonably well... especially if your opponent has no way of preventing your direct damage.

Darthvegeta800 said:

I think it helps Chaos quite a bit when you look a little more carefully at the cards. The actual Chaos cards are very helpful. The unit Chosen of Tzeentch adds more firepower to your quest zone and when combined with something like Nurgle's Pestilence can give you a lot of options to take out specific units. The tactic is not game breaking but can be helpful either to create a speedbump defender or to add that last little bit of power to burn the zone you are attacking.

The Dark Elves potentially can add a lot to a chaos deck but I am not sure about putting them in with the potential of having to pay high cost to get them out. Going to play around with that a little more and see how it goes.

The Skaven cards add a bunch to the Chaos deck and are all in my current build. Greyseer Thanquol gives you the ability to have a potentially powerful attacker parked in your Kingdom or Quest zone. The Clan Rats also give you the ability to shift power where you need it. The Warp Lightning Cannon seems MEH at first until you realize you can play it on your opponent's units.