First, no one can tell you how Tzeentch can win. If that strategy works every time then this game would be 'broken'. The game relies on players to act as a balancing mechanism and any strategy can be picked apart by the the collective efforts of other players.

If your gaming group really 'hates' Tzeentch, then when Tzeentch gets close to winning he'd be shot down. Our gaming group isn't very fond of Khorne and we have found many ways to counter him, making Khorne the weakest god in our games (though still winning at times).

Luck is part of CitOW and if OW cards cause Tzeentch to come out ahead, that's okay for me. I hope that the dices and card drawings gave you a hint that this game has some randomness to it. Someone can give you a play by play but you'd just pick it apart and cite luck or players' mistakes as the cause- but that is part of the game.

But to be constructive, here are some ways that helped Tzeentch to win in our games:

Draw as much as you can- As you said, the great cards are few and the only way to get more of them is to burn through your deck. It's satisfying to play Drain Power 3x in a game. So discard the cards you don't like or can't use, every round.

Make the most out of Teleport- You can teleport Khrone's warrior to the ends of the earth or you can go there yourself, but the best plays should hurt multiple players. You can teleport Khrone's warrior from your region into Slaanesh's, where Khrone's already there. Khrone will get one less region for dials and Slaanesh will likely suffer causalities.

Co-exist- When Slaanesh slaps down a Fields of Ecstasy, or if Sue for Peace comes up, those are great places to camp.

So here's the latest trend. Khorne absolutely dominated back when we thought peasent kills advanced his dial track. Oops. Once that was corrected and people knew to stay out of his way, Slaneesh began dominating. Even first time players win with him against vets. Nurgle usually creeps close to 50 vp, but Slaneesh wins before that with dial or vp (sometimes both! last game he won by dial and had 58 vp to boot).

Last game summary:

Nurgle starts out in the empire and Kislev. Slaneesh around the border princes. Khorne settles on Slaneesh. Warpstone in Norsca so Tzeentch sets up there and creeps into troll country.

With a field and ecstacy and bad die rolls in another region, Khorne is flat out denied any dial advancement for the first turn. He never really recovers from this. First old world card places heroes so Slaneesh is looking good.

Nurgle settles on corrupting the empire and kislev. Tzeentch moves into kislev so he can get a cultist into the empire then carry a warpstone back to norsca so there are now 2 there. He doesn't bother going for more than one dial token a turn sinc ehe figures he'll never outdo everyone there.

Slaneesh gets his cultist upgrade, and that's where the game turned. Nobles all over the southern regions from badlands to border princes to estalia (double nobles in badlands and estalia). Khorne tries fighting him but Slaneesh's cultist upgrade (probably the single best one in the game) pretty much makes you fight a losing battle of investing 3 power points to have a shot at killing a single cultist. Tzeentch sees the threat and cancels a field of ecstacy card then mass teleporting into estalia to ruin it and deny slaneesh those 2 nobles, but there are plenty of other noble/hero tokens for Slaneesh to move to and once he's in a spot no one can do much to dislodge him. It was desperate enough that Tzeentch started playing dazzles everywhere to keep Slaneesh from getting a dial advance, but there were too many cultists.

Game ended when Slaneesh completed his dial on turn 6. In addition all the nobles shot him up to 58 vp. Nurgle solo ruined the empire as the 4th ruination card and ended with 52 vp. Tzeentch had ruined Norsca, Troll Country, and 2nd for Estalia but creeked in at 49 vp. Khorne had 2 dial turns to go.

Just to try something new, Tzeentch tried taking the horror upgrade, but between the costs of mass teleporting and cards to stop Slaneesh, he never even summoned any. Tzeentch seems really really pressed for power all the time, and drain power is fairly uncommon. I'm thinking the power point upgrade is his his mandatory choice after his cultists'.

So I guess the question now is how do you stop Slaneesh's 2 defense cultists? Even Khorne couldn't kill enough of them. Tzeentch can try teleport ruining noble areas, but that meant settling for 2nd ruination (1st for Slaneesh) when he could be getting 1st elsewhere so Slaneesh still comes out ahead in VP. Nurgle had no real incentive to leave the populous areas in force.

In addition to dial advancement, Slaneesh just seems better at VP scoring than Tzeentch. He gets more staying power, power points, and a lot of his cards are much better. An actual use out of Dazzle was thought to be using it to dominate remote 1 point regions, but Slaneesh's degenerate royalty does that so much better, just like his "place one corruption" card is better for ruiner bonus sniping than teleport.

Some balance questions that came up:

1. Is there a purpose to Slaneesh going last instead of Tzeentch? Shouldn't T be the one with the most foresight?

2. Why does dazzle cost as much as it does?

GrooveChamp said:

The place one corruption token card doesn't give you the ruiners bonus because it isn't placed in the corruption step.

Answering your questions:

1) There is a mayor tactical disadvantage in going last as well - Tzeentch often wants to get cards into places quickly, and it can't do that if the other Gods have filled the spell slots.

2) Because if it cost less it'd be too good. Admittedly it is definitely Tzeentch's worst card

Alright that corruption clarification helps.

The worst part about dazzle isn't so much the card itself as it is just how many of the things you get. I find myself using my discard to chuck a dazzle or meddling skaven every turn in hopes of getting a stasis or drain power.

GrooveChamp said:

Which is exactly what you should be doing. There are only three Dazzles in the deck, and they are situationally useful. Most of the time you just want to discard them though

phobiandarkmoon said:

2 Tzeentch questions came up dealing with the wording of his cultist and warrior upgrade cards. They both use the word "summoned". Does that mean that cultists cannot move warpstone when teleported, only when you pay for the actual unit to be (re)summoned and moved normally? Same with horrors, and pre-existing horrors cannot be placed on card slots, only when newly summoned?

rashktah said:

If that one corruption is enough for second place ruiner, you do get the 2nd place points, but don't get the points for all Ruiners, since those are only awarded for people who added corruption in the corruption phase of the turn the ruination happens.

GrooveChamp said:

The way to 'stop' them is to hammer Slaanesh before he gets that upgrade. I think everyone knows how good that upgrade is and it is usually the first upgrade they take. You want to hit Slaanesh as much as you can to slow him down in the beginning (using Khrone mainly). After Slaanesh gets the upgrade, Khrone can move elsewhere. Slaanesh could get Fields of Ecstasy in the beginning, but he shouldn't get any bonus dials. If he doesn't have that card, you might be able to stop him from advancing completely.

After Slaanesh gets the upgrade, have Khrone use Battle Cry, Nurgle use remove corruption, and Tzeentch use Dazzle, etc to hinder Slaanesh.

Just like how Khrone wins when everyone just do their own thing, if you don't work together you can't stop Slaanesh.

A side note, our group never gets the Horror upgrade. It's probably useful in the rarest occasion, but most of the time it sucks.

So what upgades would everyone recommend with Tzeentch after his cultists? I was thinking the extra power point. It seems to be his main limitation while the others cover situation that never seem to come up. Game never seems to last to his 3rd upgrade.

So your problem seems more to be about stopping Slaanesh than making Tzeentch better.

1) Keep him from getting the upgrades in the first place. Or keep him from getting the double tick by matching him in DACs. Since he typically only starts with just 2 regions, it isn't that hard.

2) When he gets to 2-defense, use the cards. Nurgle can reduce his defense back to 1. Khorne can cancel Corruption placement. Tzeentch can Teleport them away from there.

3) if he is close to ruining regions, try to ruin those farther up the priority list and deny him those points. Regions resolution order can be important.

@ Groove: Looking at your questions here and posted elsewhere and your recent game report, I think you were a bit quick to judge the ability to win with Tzeentch. I think you just need to play more games and get the rules down a little better before evaluating if a god has gotten the short end of the stick.

GrooveChamp said:

Either power or Changer of Ways depending on board situation and whether you're going for dial advancements. In my experience Horrors and extra cards are rarely worth it

We just played our first game, and my experience was very similar to the OP's. Three players, no Nurgle, and by the 3rd turn it was clear Tzeentch had absolutely no chance. The dial advancement condition is insanely harda few turns, I didn't get a single token, while the others were, on average, getting 3-4. We were, unfortunately, playing without the FAQ (Khorn got at least one dial token by killing a peasant, and Slaneesh was raking up the tokens with single corruption drops). I did do pretty well early on with victory points, but the others caught up within a single turn, and it came down to both of them being 1 click away from a dial victory.

After reading advice here, and looking through the old-world deck, I'm still thinking Tzeentch is going to be the most difficult one to play. I can't ever see him winning via turns dials, or getting 50 VP before the others are able to get their dial victories.

Part of my problem was giving up on the dial. I didn't realize how important dial turns are, even if you have no chance of winning that way. Especially for Tzeentch. Getting magic symbols is difficult (and often a waste of precious magic points), and warpstone is virtually nonexistant in the game. Consider that there are 3 Old World cards that place more warpstone, compared to the 7 cards that place heroes/nobles. Tzeentch desperately needs his warpstone bonuses from the dial.

Next time I play Tzeentch, I think I'm going to go for those early single-dial-turns at all costs. After a couple turns (with the bonus warpstone, and the acolyte upgrade), I'll focus on ruining as many places as fast as I can, while trying to prevent anyone else from advancing on the dial wheel faster than I am.

One other thought I had, a possible house rule to play with: When Old World Cards allow the lowest-threat god to make a choice, "Place" can also mean "Move". We had all 4 hero tokens placed within the first couple of turns, and ended up with 3 or 4 of the "place a hero..." OWC's come up. If I had been able to move some heroes around the board (ie, consolidating them to a single location), I could have done a lot more damage to Khorn and Slaneesh. As it was, being in last place had absolutely no balancing factor.

Anyhow, thanks for all the good advice in this thread. I'm actually somewhat looking forward to playing him again.

nareau said:

bioball said:

There are other threads on the subject.

At the very least they should alter the manual for future reprints. The only things Tzeentch gets under his strategy section is "use cards" and "keep an eye on warpstone!", ill preparing new Tzeentch players with what they need to know. Also remove the mention that Tzeentch can realistically win by dial.

I think a lot of the slant towards Khorne and Slaneesh victories comes from the dials being too secret. A lot of people go several games before they even realize that they're different lengths. There should be clearly marked numbers along the edge at each tick. Possibly even doing away with the whole dial cover and replacing it with an arrow spinner so everyone can see what's coming up for each tick. I can't see any reason for them to be covered.

GrooveChamp said:

Ehm, do not remove the bit that says Tzeentch can realistically win by dial - I've NEVER won by VP with Tzeentch, but I've won by dial three times. I think it's fair to say Tzeentch finds it much harder than, say, Slaanesh to switch victory method mid-game

I´ve done it!

Yesterday we played our first game of CitOW and I made the game with Tzeentch. In the beginning of the game I was afraid about playing him, because I read the threads here and so couldn´t see a chance winning with him. But I did it... with the wheel. ;-)

I know that you cannot compare a game of newbies and a game of experts, because our Nurgle made big mistakes, beacause he was concentrated in battle against Khorne rather than getting his cultists in the game... but all in all it was a satisfaction to win with Tzeentch even it was our first game...

(I´m sorry for language-mistakes... I´m not a native speaker...)

If you can't see how Tzeentch can realistically win, you haven't played the game enough.

It's only when you realize that Tzeentch is the counter-force to Nurgle (as Khorne is to Slaanesh) when Nurgle stops winning every game and Tzeentch becomes a real competitor. The thing is that Tzeentch is not a Dial Advancement winner; no, he should go for victory points, because collecting them is what he's good at. He can ruin regions at will and score some hefty VPs at it.

Granted, we've still to see Tzeentch win any games. Our progression has been pretty normal: first Khorne wins and seems ultra-powerful, then Slaanesh caps a few victories and seems undefeatable, then Nurgle starts trouncing everybody... And now Tzeentch is a real competitor. Tzeentch has been so close to winning twice in a row that I can't see how he would not be able to win.

Last time I lost with only two victory points to Nurgle (and he got these points from ONE PEASANT because we drew two Plunges into Chaos during the game). The game before that, Tzeentch was way ahead in VPs - nobody was even close - but he lost to Khorne scoring a Dial Advancement victory. And Khorne had been very lucky with his rolls throughout the game.

I have to say that this game seems to be amazingly well balanced after you have played enough games. First it seems biased to all gods at some point and after Tzeentch finally emerges as a potential winner, all the gods seem to be in balance.

There is only one problem currently. At the moment Slaanesh seems like an underdog. We'll have to play a few more games to see whether this is true or whether Slaanesh has been having just really bad luck. In our last game Slaanesh was never a force to be reckoned with after a bad start, and before that Slaanesh was at best only a slight threat. Both of these times Slaanesh has ended the game with about 20+ victory points and hasn't come even close to winning in the last round.

Perhaps a VP-hunting Slaanesh would be better than the Young Prince of Dial Advancement? We'll have to find out! I am fully confident that Slaanesh can make a comeback, however.

Whitmire said:

Slaanesh does suffer a bit from the fact that when he gets his first upgrade, he is suddenly a lot harder to stop (assuming he has any sense and took the cultist upgrade) - so it motivates experienced players to jump up and down on Slaanesh at the start of the game. I'd say if that happens to you it is well worth switching to a VP win - and as you can get more VPs by dominating regions with nobles, you can remain pretty flexible on dial or vp

What else would Slaanesh pick as an upgrade?

Daemonettes that can be hit only on a 6? How useless is that? Your cultists will always be target #1. This upgrade is utterly useless.

The Keeper of Secrets upgrade is semi-useful since it gives you an extra cultist - but this costs you three points! Furthermore the KoS is the worst Greater Daemon in the game when it comes to fighting (Attack 2, Defence 4).

Power of Pain & Pleasure. Okay, more points is always good and two of these is a killer combination... But at the expense of Defence 2 Cultists? You'll save power points when you don't have to summon half of your cultists back onto the board all the time.

No, the only reasonable thing to do is to upgrade your Cultists to Seductresses. If you get two upgrades later in the game in quick succession, then pick Pain & Pleasure to dominate the last round(s).

You're right about the fact that sometimes you want to dominate the same regions that give you a Dial Advancement, but this depends on how the board is set up and how the dynamics of the game are working (i.e. what the other gods are doing). The fact is that for the first two turns Slaanesh is probably struggling to get his first upgrade (Seductresses) by scoring one DA per turn in order to a) have a chance at a DA victory and b) to make it easier to dominate regions with Defence 2 units. All this while Khorne and sometimes even Nurgle are trampling all over your cultists to prevent you from becoming a real challenger.

As to Tzeentch... He has other means to spoil your plans than planting a Horror in one of your regions.

Yes, all the gods seem to be pretty balanced when you learn to play them. Tzeentch has the steepest learning curve though. Going for VP victory by ruining the best areas under the cover of Temporary Stasis is the way to go for Tzeentch. It is very hard for others to stop that strategy.

The warrior upgrade can be useful for Khorne, but other than that no one has yet to take a serious (non-experimenting) warrior upgrade since cultists are the prime target.

Tzeentch was a contender to win one game, but only due to extreme luck. All starting warpstone was in the Norsca-Kislev corridor, the nobles were in the south so Slaneesh started there, Khorne followed Slaneesh, and Nurgle in the Empire. On top of this Tzeentch got 2 stasis cards right away and kept everyone out. Warpstone was everywhere with 5 in the corridor regions. By turn 5 both Slaneesh and Tzeentch were 2 dials away from victory and there was no way anyone was going to stop them from getting at least one a turn. However Nurgle ended winning through victory points the next turn.

Future manual reprints really, really need to better illustrate winning strategies for the gods. It's a bummer having to go through 20+ hours of a game before all players have a shot at winning.

GrooveChamp said:

I don't think that need is quite there. The back of the manual is enough to get started with and FFG or BoardGameGeek is full of advice on how to win with each god. Even if they did print more "winning" strategies, as this thread shows people will still claim its undoable with X god. And even if you do understand how to win one or two ways with each god, the trick to being good in COW is to have feel for your starting position, how the middle game is progressing and how to force the end game you want. All the while you can hard calculate corruption and dial turns while meta-gaming your opponents.

Its not chess but there is enough going on, that its not just enough to know how to win but to be able to execute.

ColtsFan76 said:

My group is in the same boat. We've played ~15 times, and I've only seen a single Kohrne victory (though in fairness we've done more 3 player games than 4 player games...then again, his only victory game in a 3 player game), but a whole lotta Tzneetch wins. Running around with warpstone is amazing.

One thing though...for the life of me I can not see why you would EVER pick his GD upgrade.

Assuming your board is wiped. Why spend 3 points to summon the GD and 2 points to summon 2 cultists, when you can just summon 2 cultists, then spend 2 more points to move them someplace safe with the warp stone...you save a point. It's even worse if you actually have pieces on the board. Just don't see a point.