I'm asking for your opinion about the Chaos in comparison to other races.

I'm after playing a lot of games with Chaos. Also my mate played Chaos and within around 8 games, Chaos won only once.

We've used Path of the Zealot already.

What's wrong with them?

My opinion is that Chaos don't actually have any booster concerning more than one attacking unit. To explain this clearer. Dwarves have "Grudge Thrower" and "Striking the Grudge", Empire have mighty Greatswords, who are overpowerd in my opinion - they should have less hit points. Orcs are obvious - "Waaagh", "Totem of Gork" and others.

Chaos don't have any card like that. Only Gors can be boosted with two developments which is useless in long term anyway - they have only one HP...

Chaos are one of the trickier races, but I assure you they are not underpowered. Depending on your card pool, you might want to try running them with Orcs or Dark Elves. They can be played by themselves or with Skaven, too. They are definitely not a rush deck (well, except with Skaven), so don't start playing to the battlefield right away.

Chaos have been winning pretty much every tournament we've had, and finishing second place in most of them as well. They are definitely not underpowered, and if they're built right they can absolutely be a rush deck.

My gamestyle depends on what I shuffle from a deck. Our decks contain of one core set only so it doesn't matter that I have a defensive style or not. I have Gors, they go on battlefield, I have Sorercer, I get him to the Quest and so on.

I can fight as a lion but all my struggles get busted after my opponent play cards such as I mentioned in the opening post.

Chaos is plenty powerfull. I run 3 chaos decks that are all very effective. A fast skaven/chaos deck. A manipulating pure chaos deck,a nd a DE/chaos snipping deck, and all of them do well.

Many others claim that dwarves are the weaker race.

Yeah, it's going to depend on what sets you have available.

With 3x core and 3x all battlepacks, so far I have viable decks for all the capitals except Dwarf. Chaos in particular has a lot of playable cards and deck styles to choose from so it's easy to miss the good builds. The best builds I have right now are:

• Orc rush
• Chaos midrange/control
• Empire combo

The jury's still somewhat out in terms of how they match up and the decks are being continuously tweaked, but so far it's looking like:

Orcs generally beat Empire (>50%). If Empire resets early with Judgement then they can win.

Chaos is about even with Orcs.

Chaos generally beats Empire (>50%). If Empire can manage an early Will + Judgement then they can win.

Dwarves lose to everyone.

I haven't tried the skaven/chaos deck yet but I think it could be good. If you just have 1x core set then I think Orcs actually have the best deck - and if you add 1x of each of the battlepacks then they just get better (because Spider Riders is probably the strongest card in the battlepacks so far IMO).

Never mind....

Maybe we play other game than Invasion or what... Oo

It seems that nobody plays with a single default deck.

Are you talking about playing the sealed format described in the rulebook (i.e. the base set cards + 10 neutrals)?

If you're only using a single starter box then it's not entirely surprising that you're having problems. From my experience, the Empire and Dwarfs work better out of a single box. Chaos tend to work better once they have access to multiple copies of some of the cards that are one per box (some of the support cards, the Bloodthirster/Rip Dere Eads Off combo, Fledgling Chaos Spawn).

Don't give up, they're excellent once you get the hang of them.

yes Clamatius. we both use one shared core set and BPs.

ChaosChild said:

Can any of you give some advice on building a chaos deck? Links also accepted. We'd prefer the 40 racial cards + 10 random neutrals. At the moment neither of us can build a 50 card deck using neutrals. It would be unfair that one player takes f.e. all the contested village or warpstone ex. copies into his deck, therefore we share neutrals randomly. Thx.

With chaos, try everything that says corrupt, anything that says do damage (except for nurgles pestilence as most of your guys have one health). The dark elf sorceress that reduces health. With one box it would be alot easier to splash into orc, but keeping away from there you need gors and if your happy to play one orc card, rip der heads off along with the bloodthirster, you see him early game then develop with him, late game play him! Play with the orc and dark elf alliance banner too. The biggest problem is that you won't have the one cost support card village which is very useful. Play with most chaos units except chaos sorceror (his action is far too expensive).

All in all I think you will struggle with just one box if you don't splash into orc. Orc's can do the damage where needed and the chaos cards are there to control the opposition by corrupting and killing them. I started adding dark elves to my deck too just to be able to reduce health and therefore get around dwarves toughness which is a killer in such a limited environment.

pancerek said:

We do! So, you mentioned Path of the Zealot. Does this mean you have one core set and Path? Does that mean that at least some element of deck construction is going on? Are you talking about choosing cards to build a faction-heavy Chaos deck?
If so, possibly it might be helpful to use Dark Elves (they fit - at least thematically) to boost up the areas of smaller units and tactics where Chaos can be somewhat weaker.

The problem honestly seems to be that you are playing the cards as they come to your hand rather than with a set strategy and tactical decisions which suppor those. That is incredibly hard to do with Chaos. Play Orcs instead, they are much more forgiving.

If you want to play Chaos with the Core Set then you must look at all your cards and see how they work together. Soemtimes you need to hold off playing a card until later, to get the most use out of it. Sometimes you need to play waht you get when you get it, but in less than ideal situations... but until you know what the ideal way to play the card is you will always be behind the 8-Ball.

dormouse said:

I always play Chaos *with* a magic 8-ball; just so much more thematic. "Shall the Bloodthirster consume the Chaos Knights rather than the Fledgling Chaos Spawn?" ....

We've tried to put contested village and warpstone in chaos deck right from the start and yup, it worked. It was much easier to mass gather resources and use quest zone units' skills more often and put in play expensive units. It was the second day we've played with Path of the Zealot and also Bloodsworns and especialy Bule, change everything. Mixing up with DE will boost them even more but we rather prefer to play mono races so far. We still loose more than 50% of games while playing chaos but it's better than not winning at all.

Still, with one deck and two BPs the % of win games is as fallow:

1. with Empire 90% wins

2. with Dwarves 60%

3. Orkz 50%

4. Chaos 20%

1x Core and 1x each of the first two BPs:

Chaos: 23-16
Dwarves: 17-22
Empire: 18-21
Orcs: 20-19

On a side note, I'm definately steering clear of BP #3, Counterstrike 4 and "Mana Drain" being the "best" it offers, meh.

I disagree about BP #3.

Errant Wolf is very strong. Probably a 3x in almost every Order deck.

All the Skaven are solid in an actual Skaven deck, as far as I can tell. Clan Moulder's Elite is very strong in otherwise pure Orc decks, never mind Skaven decks.

We play mono-races, splashing (DElfs, HElfs or Skaven) has happened maybe 5 times in 76 games. I don't like the cancellation thing that Iron Discipline brings, brings back too many Blue memories. For the other races, Dwarves don't gain much, Empire gets crazy stuff (as in crazy good), Orcs get so-so (nice Tactic, okay Hero, useless Quest), Chaos a meh-Unit and a BZ-reset card. Just thinking about the Dragonmage with the new Toughness/cancellation rules makes my head hurt.

Could someone of you post your Chaos/Skaven Deck? One of my friends tried to build one but it was not working right.

Clamatius said:

I think it's solid, but not necessarily a 3x in Empire since they already have Huntsmen and don't really have room for both. I also tend to consider Armoury in Dwarves b/c of the Cannon Crew, and I don't really like running 9 limited cards. It's a very good card on the second turn, and occasionally on the first turn, but it becomes considerably worse than in-faction 2-costers later in the game. Again, I still think it has a place in a good number of decks.

I think all four decks have their strengths and weaknesses. Maybe the play style of your group doesn't lend itself to how Chaos is currently being competitive? I try to play with all six decks (actually 7 as we've been letting Skaven players play a Skaven only deck) so we can become familiar with all the cards, decks, and possible combinations.

Dam said:

Third Battle Pack also seems not awesome to me (almost the same feelings as you) but it is a must buy if u ever want to use Skavens. It's a race depending on self-corrupting and without Rat Ogres it's impossible to use it effectively.

I doubt I'll ever bother with anything beyond the capital-owning races, Skaven cards I have will be box-fillers. That's assuming I'll get back to the game anytime soon, only 2 plays this month (30 plays in January), both pre-FAQ release date plays.

I assume you had not enough time this month. Don't tell me you've already become bored with the game or it is caused by the new FAQ.

Purely down to the FAQ Toughness ruling for me. Shrine to Nurgle nerf didn't make me happy either. So it all kinda took the wind out of the sails. Third BP being full of disappointing cards failed to breathe live back into it. Maybe the Assault on Ulthuan will do that.

My games played this month (in case someone other than me cares ):

www.boardgamegeek.com/plays/bygame/user/Dam%20the%20Man/subtype/boardgame/start/2010-02-01/end/2010-02-28