Bought a game about 7 months ago and now i can definitely say that me and my friends have played it hundred of times. Each Friday we try to set a 4 player game, but sometimes we got only 3 people there. So when we tried to play CitOW with 3 players for the first time we were like: "man it sucks with 3 players". Couple of months ago we managed to upgrade it and make it more interesting and balanced to play with only 3 Chaos Gods. Now when we tested it (we played it 20 or 30 times) I am quite sure it's pretty nice variation. Feel free to try it.

SETUP:

Only 3 Gods are playable:
1) Nurgle
2) Tzeench
3) Slaanesh

In addition to his own figures in the beginning of the game each God gets:
1) 2 Khorne warriors
2) 1 Khorne acolyte

All the Khorne units get all the Upgrades.

Each god can now summon those additional units for the base cost written on the Khorne player's card. (1 power for acolyte and 2 power for warrior).

In addition to his own chaos cards in the beginning of the game each God gets:
2 Khorne Chaos cards.

Some cards effects are changed (though the cost is still the same):

1) The card that made Khorne figures domination value according to their attack now has the following effect:
- Adds 2 to your domination value in this region .
2) The card that made Khorne conduct two battles in the same round now has the following effect:
- Remove 2 corruption from any region on the map . (this means you can put it in Norsca and remove corruption from Empire)
3) The card which gave Khorne chaos cards according to the number of kills in the region now has the following effect:
- Take one chaos card from Khorne deck or your deck .
4) The card that let up to 2 Khorne units teleport to another region now has the following effect:
- You can teleport up to 2 Khorne units to the region where you play this card . (that means you can even teleport other player's Khorne units)

Other cards effects remain the same.

IN-GAME CHANGES

• OLD WORLD PHASE
  Only 7 Old World Cards form the deck.
• DRAW PHASE
  In the DRAW PHASE each player now picks one additional Khorne card.
  Tzeench card limit is not affected by the Khorne chaos cards. (this means that if Tzeench has 3 Khorne cards and 3 own cards in the beginning of the DRAW PHASE he still can take 2 cards from his own deck)
• SUMMONING PHASE
  All the Khorne units and cards players now posses are played according to the ordinary rules. Players make actions one by one and can chose either to play his own figure/card or Khorne's figure/card.
• BATTLE PHASE
  During the battle the player who has any Khorne unit under his control rolls the dice as if it was his own units. Player can choose who to kill with his Khorne units. If all the opponent's units and all the peasant are killed with Khorne units but there are still some unused damages than you MUST kill your own units.
• DOMINATION
  None of the Khorne cards cost or Khorne units give domination points to any other god. Though Khorne can not win and so has no victory point tracker token his domination points are still counted as normal in all the regions. Which means that 2 Khorne units + a card with a cost of 2 will give Khorne a domination value of 4 in that region.
• CORRUPTION
  All the Khorne cultist still produce Khorne's corruption tokens.
• Heroes
  Never kill Khorne units. Instead if any player suffered penalties from a hero being present in the region he can choose to kill either his own unit or his Khorne unit.
• RUINATION
  Though Khorne can not win and so has no victory point tracker token he still "gets" victory points from getting second (or even first place) in the ruination.
• THREAT DIALS
  All the conditions for all the players remain the same (Red units (Khorne units) must kill one figure in a region to get one threat dial advancement token), though Khorne bonuses are now changed:
  1) Get victory points bonus = "Remove all the corruption from a territory which has most corruption (warpstones count)"
  2) Upgrade card bonus - "Player with a max threat score must remove 2 corruption. Other players should remove 1 corruption. All Khorne corruptions are removed from the map"
  3) Draw chaos cards - "All players get additional Khorne chaos card."
  4) Khorne victory! - "Remove all corruption tokens from the map"
  
  Moreover when Khorne's dial moves for the first time THE DAEMON is summoned to the map. He is summoned to the territory with max corruption (warpstones count) and from now on in the begining of the new round (before the OLD WORLD PHASE) he will move to the territory with the max corruption (warpstones count). If 2 or more territories have the same number of corruption than player with the lowest threat score has to choose where THE DAEMON is summoned.
  If 2 or more players units are present in the territory with a DAEMON than player with the lowest threat core will allocate the wounds.

That's it. Feel free to try those rules. Hope you like it.

Wow, this seems to be the first, well thought out, way to play a 3-player game in CitOW, a thing I would never have tried out before.

Will give this a try, though!!!

By the way you can play without all those new chaos cards abilities. We played without them for sometime and it was ok. But those Khorne cards were never used so we decided to upgrade them so all the players would want to use them.

Don't forget to say whether you like it or not after you try it.

Your variant looks nice, although I would find difficult marking who has the control over Khorne units during each turn. The same for played cards.

Below some of my suggestions how to improve it to avoid such problems:

1. From now, you can place your corruption tokens on your Threat dial, equally to the cost of:

- played Khorne cards

- summoned Khorne units

Those tokens can be used in other way than if placed in region (see 2. and 3.)

2. Because of rules in previous point, here's few suggestions for cards that were unused in your game with their standard rules (which I also suggest to keep working). I wasn't sure what X value would be best for cards, but after few test games you can make it constant / "up to" for each card.

a) The Skull Throne (attack counts as domination value of Khorne unit) - When you play this card, remove X corruption tokens from your Threat dial and gain X Victory points (X - any number, you can't use a token gained from this card)

b) Reborn in Blood (additional battle) - When you play this card, remove X corruption tokens from your Threat dial and:

- (option 1) draw X+1 Khorne Chaos cards (so that you can draw 1 card without discarding tokens, can't use 2 tokens gained from this card)

- (option 2) remove X corruption tokens of any player from any region (I suggest to use only one of options in game, but choose what you like most, even a choice between options each time card is played, this one is similiar to Nurgle abilities and may be harmful if used against him)

- (option 3) remove the other Chaos card form the (same?) region which cost is X-1 (won't work for "Changer of Ways")

c) Ritual Slaying (Khorne Chaos cards for kills) - Each time any player kills any figure in this region during battle, he places 1 corruption token on his Threat dial (and draws 1 Khorne Chaos card, like the originally card allows Khorne player to do)

d) The Blood God’s Call (teleports up to 2 units) - (keep your modifications - only Khorne units allowed to move)

3. Khorne is treated like a god controlled by the other player. In other words:

- he can dominate the regions (by units and cards which provides him VP)

- he can ruin regions (and gain VP, both rewards: for ruiners and for 1st or 2nd place in # of corruption tokens)

- he receives dial advancement points for killing figures (even own)

- he collects Peasant tokens for killing them

- he can win the game by gaining 50 VP or advancement in a Threat dial

- his units must be summoned according to the standard rules

However, because Khorne "player" can't use dices, other gods will have a chance to use followers of Khorne, spoiling the blood both for the Blood God and for own goals. In other words, during Battle phase players can (or even must) gain control over Khorne units, but it's the only phase when they can use them.

Because many players would like to have dices of Khorne units, an auction must be organized for each unit and each "Blood Frenzy" card. If auction cannot show who is the winner the dice rolls will decide. Below the rules of auction:

- it starts when before the battle in current region (if there's any battle), all players (even if they have no units or Chaos cards in the region) can join the auction

- corruption token from threat dials are used as "money"

- you have to bid the objects in the following order: "Blood Frenzy" card(s), figures: Bloodsworn, Bloodletters, Bloodthirster; but if there are only Khorne figures and Peasants, everything is a bid for a single auction

- the Threat value decides when players have to declare the price first and next in order, for example: if players have threat (clockwise) 23, 17, 19, the player with 23 begins, but 19 is next

- when it's your turn in auction you must declare at least the same price as the current highest one (null is allowed), or withdraw; if all players declared the same price, the next one must declare a higher than the current one or withdraw

- if there's a draw or all withdrew, players roll dice(s), higher result wins, draw repeats the rolls; all players all allowed to roll dice(s) to resolve a draw if no price was declared

EDIT: Draw is normally not possible without all withdrawn, unless you allow the player who spent all corruption tokens to stay in auction without paying more when it's his turn.

- the winner (and only him) must pay the price declared in auction and can use own corruption tokens from the Threat dial (or: unused) to mark the unit that during all battles in this Battle phase belongs to him; however, when all battles in the region are over or unit dies, those tokens are removed immediately

If there's a hero token or any Old World card concerning units of the player with highest Threat dial in the region, and Khorne has the highest one, it will always affect Khorne units and a player with the 2nd highest threat (this include killing units, placing Old World tokens etc.). The same for lowest threat.

Following rewards in threat dial are resolved in other way:

a) Upgrade card - only units are upgraded, in order of increasing summoning cost: Bloodsworn, Bloodletter, Bloodthirster. If two players can use special ability of Bloodletter(s), their hits are resolved simultaneously, before other units can use own dices. For example:

Nurgle an Tzeentch has in the region 1 own warrior and 1 upgraded Khorne warrior (4 units in total). Nurgle rolls first 2 dices for Bloodletter and archieves 2 successes. How he can use those hits to destroy Horror or Bloodletter, but in second case Tzeentch player won't lose any dices in battle.

b) Draw X Chaos cards - players are allowed to draw X Chaos cards or to place X corruption tokens on their Threat dial.

4. With all points above it is not necessary to make Bloodthirster any special unit. But if you really like the special rules for him, here are some suggestions:

Each time Khorne advances his threat dial, the player who win the auction (or: with the lowest threat, choose what you like) may decide to do one of the following:

- summon Bloodthirster for free (accodring to the rules of summoning units), with no corruption tokens placed on Threat dial

- destroy 1 figure of each player (except Khorne) in the region containing Bloodthirster (if possible)

However, you can't use destructive power of the demon twice in the same round (kill 2 units of players instead of 1) , if Khorne got double advancement in dial.

5. With this rules, IMO it is recommended to use 8 Old World cards (more Power points required to summon Khorne units, without long-term profit). Instead, you may place doubled amount of tokens - this should make them more powerful if used with cards, and less worth during auctions.

cyb3k said:

We usually place Khorne figures controlled by certain player with his figures or corruption tokens in this region. Besides the owner always remembers where his figures are and you can always ask people whose Bloodletter is deployed in that region where you want to place your cultists.

And about your rules:

Have you already tested it? I mean it looks nice but those auctions seem to complex the game pretty much. And as i can see you can place corruption with help of Khorne cards which will make the game even faster.

The point is that without Khorne's presence Old World is destroyed by round 4. And with him aiding other Chaos Gods it is doomed by round 3 I think. So in our setup people use Khorne not to let Nurgle or Slaanesh get 2 dial advancements each round or not to let Tzeench ruin any region he wants with hordes of cultists. Besides that people try not to use Khorne's units too much since no one actually wants Khorne to get to 2 dial advancements each turn because it will most probably ruin some of your plans.

Mr. Djingles said:

So that can cause some problems if somebody forgets or "forgets" to remove those figures/tokens etc. But it's OK if you use other markers.

Mr. Djingles said:

You understood it wrong. Corruption on dial is not like corruption in the region. It's just a marker of "points" which you gained by "helping" Khorne and which you can use for own goals.

It's not tested yet. I've changed swiftly what I don't like in your variant - removed markers and using Khorne figures as own. In my suggestion, they are supposed to be as independent as possible, but summoning them must give the players significant benefits (to ensure that they will be present on board, shaping the situation). In most games without Khorne, players lack his cards ("Blood Frenzy", "Battle Cry", "Field of Carnage") and units (dices which could harm other gods severly). The cards are provided by both variants, but units not yet.

It seems to me that other gods should have good reasons and possibilities to summon Khorne units more often. Benefits from tokens on dial are low and they still require playing Khorne cards. Moreover, in my variant for now everyone having enough Power may avoid fighting with Khorne by summoning units away / hits in Khorne units. This is a waste of Power points which makes game stagnant. As you see, there's still something to correct, for both variants.

Some ideas how to fix this:

a) discarding X token from dial to refill Power above your current limit, up to 12 - so you're not wasting Power used on Khorne units, you can regain them and use in any next round, up to 12 on the sheet, which is currently useless

b) if you discard all tokens from dial for a) , you receive additional +1 Power in 1 round for free - even more Power to spend

c) you can't summon any Khorne unit away from the region (move) until all Khorne units are on the board

d) Khorne units cannot hit each other (according to standard rules) - this + c) forces players to use own warriors or Chaos cards

An auction is simplier than you think. I took the idea from skat (card game). Once learned, it may be resolved really fast and it adds more strategy to spending your points from the dial. Keep in mind, winning the auction does not quarantee that you will have any hits form the dice you've just won! Auction is optional; just a simple 1-dice skirmish may be enough to tell who can roll unit's dices and distribute hits. Moreover, with rules a-d (above) it may be quite common that the auction won't be neccesary (only Khorne and units of 1 other god in the area, which means that Khorne will have to hit his figures).