I've just played a session of 'Chaos in the Old World' - the FFG board game.

Good game, hands down, seriously!

I'm amazed how well they've managed to capture the character of the different Chaos gods in rules. Even though I only played a small 2-man game with a friend of mine (and a wfrp enthusiast), it was already a very tight and interwoven game. I played Nurgle and I happily brought pestilence and disease to the populous areas of the Old World, but Tzeentch, Changer of the Ways, very cunningly managed to undermine my attempts and subvert my efforts.

Luckily Khorne didn't join the game or my feeble and frail cultists would have been mincemeat. And I needed those weaklings to spread my plagues.

Oh and curse those Bretonnian Knights for wiping out my sickly forces. Serves them right that Bretonnia ended up as a ruined chaos waste, a pustulent, blighted sore, quite in the image of the diseased gardens of grandfather Nurgle. Hah!

Really, I can recommend that game. With 4 players (even 5 with the Horned Rat expansion) it must be bloody mayhem. Fast-paced and full of mean player-player interaction. The game even has a horror-scenario ending: that all rounds are used up and that the Old World manages to escape the all-consuming ravages of Chaos for another year!

Have you guys tried it?

It is good game. It has some problems but most of them can be straightened out with custom rules. But all in all the feeling is just right and it is a fun game to play.

some one has to play Khorne because he's the first player character, Nurgle the second's, Tzeentsch the third's and Slaanesh the fourth's, in that order.

Khorne hase never won any game here, although it seems he's claimed to be uber-broken.

This has been pulled out on occasions where my regular D&D group is missing a few people. Its great, playing as each god gives a really different experience each time. I've come a close second on both times I've gotten to play (once with Nurgle which I lost by 1 victory point, another with Khorne where I drew on threat but got stomped on victories at the tie-break), but we found that everyone took to it about the same pace, and the winner is not always the same person despite some really tactical playing.

I really enjoy this game although it's been a while since we last played it. A cool expansion might be a side board dividing the Realms of Chaos into 4 spheres and incorporating some of the fluff from WFB8 Daemons of Chaos. e.g. Nurgle can send creeping plague vines into Tzeentch's crystal labyrinth and Tzeentch must deploy Flamers to ward them off - that sort of thing.

willmanx said:

There is no restriction on which gods must be played.

Really, though, Khorne is needed as a "balancer" position. Playing a 3-player game with Nurgle, Slaneesh, and Tzeentch can lead to an awful lot of nothing going on. If the VP areas for each do not coincide with each other, players have little incentive to go outside their own "comfort zone", other than the occasional attempt to slow the others down. Khorne is the great equalizer, since he doesn't need to go to specific areas on the map and can attack everyone equally. The other three gods are much more defensive-oriented and the games tend to be more static in nature.