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First reaction SHOCK!
Chiamo qui a raccolta i giocatori esperti di Chaos in The Old World.
Ho trovato su BGG diverse proposte per mixare e bilanciare le carte della scatola base con quella dell'espansione.
Le tre che mi paiono più gettonate sono quelle che elenco sotto.
Mi piacerebbe un parere
1) Paul Sinkovitz
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1018495 ... pgrade-mix
I've played the base game 60-80 times and with the expansion 20-30 more. I love this game, but certain things have always seemed over powered or lame. Eventually, I decided to carefully develop a blend of the Chaos Cards and Upgrades from both games. I've played with these custom decks about 8 times and found them to be superior in balancing the factions and game play. I find it very unlikely I will ever switch back.
Overall Intention:
-Okay so first off, I wasn't wanting to make the game do anything it wasn't supposed to do. Khorne is still never going to win by points and Nurgle is still never going to win by dial advancement.
-Second, hard counters suck. I don't want any one to simply alter the fate of the game by a single card. This means no Battle Cry, no Field of Ecstasy, no Changer of Ways or Havoc (even though I loved it).
-Lastly, I took great care to somewhat preserve the average number of magic symbols each player has in their Chaos Card decks so as to not tip things too much in favor of Tzeentch. They are a little higher, but not too much. Nevertheless, this was intentional.
*****
Khorne - He's always been very powerful in our games, but instead of balancing Khorne by deliberately making him bad, I removed some of the broken things...cough....Bloodletters expansion upgrade...cough...and instead went to great effort to try and make the other characters that much better. Also, each at least have some kind of defensive tactic.
I originally wanted to make victory points a more viable strategy for Khorne, but had to concede it's just not his thing. Still I found it worth while for him to play cards like Lure of Battle, The Skull Throne, Skulltaker, or Bloodbath simply to potentially steal points of domination or a second place ruination from other players. I did not include Blood Frenzy simply because it is thematically strange and he doesn't need it.
Chaos Cards: 24 total
4x (0) Blood Bath
3x (0) Terror
3x (1) Hate
3x (1) Rampage
2x (1) Skulltaker
2x (1) The Skull Throne
3x (2) The Blood God's Call
2x (2) Lambs to the Slaughter
2x (4) Lure of Battle
Upgrade Cards:
-Bloodsworn - Cultists gain attack value.
-Bloodletters - Your blood letters inflict casualties before other figures roll their battle dice.
-Bloodthirster - Summon for 0 cost to a region with 6 or more corruption tokens.
-Power of Blood
-Vengeance
*****
Nurgle - Nurgle still has no hope of dial ticking to a win, but I wanted to allow him every opportunity do gain dial advancements to help his progression with the other players. Also, unlike the base game where our Nurgle players felt they should turtle into a region, I wanted to break that mold. I would say it doesn't work. In this set, Nurgle has every opportunity to spread corruption EVERYWHERE and this tends to be more efficient than concentrating on a single area anyway. In our end games, since Nurgle has so much corruption all over the board, regions can't ruin without Nurgle defaulting a first or solid second place win in ruination. Plague Aura and Influeza make dominating easy, Creeping Death and Festering Fever make it awesome! Toss in the Infested Colony upgrade and suddenly your Plaguebearers have an important roll in domination.
Chaos Cards: 24 Total
4x (0) Virulent Outbreak
2x (0) Filth
2x (0) Plague Aura
3x (1) Influenza
3x (1) Festering Fever
3x (1) Creeping Death
2x (1) Rain of Pus
2x (2) A Great Foul Consumption
2x (3) Ultimate Plague
1x (4) Nurgles Quest
Upgrade Cards:
-Lepers - When your Lepers place at least one corruption in a region you may place one more.
-Plaguebearers - When an opponent kills one of you Plaguebearers you get to inflict 1 hit back.
-Great Unclean One - Place 2 corruption tokens into the same region where summoned.
-Power of Pestilence
-Infested Colony
*****
Tzeentch - I tried to give Tzeentch as many 0 cost cards as possible, really pushing for him to play these cards either to stall or
at least move through his Chaos Card deck. Even the 1 cost cards are some of the most useful ones, like Convocation and Temporal Stasis. I did not include Drain Power, as with so many other inexpensive cards, he really did not need it. Plus, it seems to tick off other players in a bad way. I intentionally nixed some of the very situational cards like Dazzle or the Persistence of Change. Finally, I felt like using Warp Shield was the only way to offset the pitiful defense value of the Lord of Change and makes him less risky to use.
Chaos Cards: 24 Total
3x (0) Warp Shield
3x (0) Glean
2x (0) Warp Portal
2x (0) Warpstorm
2x (0) Bolt of Change
2x (1) Temporal Stasis
3x (1) Warpshock
3x (1) Convocation
2x (1) The Blue Scribes
2x (2) Transmogrify
Upgrade Cards:
-Acolytes - When summoned from the board they can bring a warpstone with them from their region.
-Horrors - When you play a card with a magic symbol you may place a Horror with it for free.
-Lord of Change - Lord of Change counts as 2 magic symbols.
-Deluge of Magic
-Mystical Disregard
*****
Slaanesh - I've always felt as though Slaanesh had a significant problem with not having enough resources to spread out and poor mobility to do so. In my mix, I incorporated Soporific Musk and Ascension to Power to aid in a leap across the board and chase down the next noble token. Otherwise, you can use Dark Influence to bring them to you. However, I would say Slaanesh's real power comes from the upgrades and combos. The Insidious Lies Chaos card can have the Keeper of Secrets with upgrade single handedly dominating The Empire...(this can be a game changer). The Seductress upgrade is always an easy choice.
Chaos Cards: 24 Total
4x (0) Festival of Sinew
3x (0) Daemonic Subtlety
4x (0) Insidious Lies
4x (1) Dark Influence
2x (1) Rapturous Excess
3x (2) Pleasure Shield
2x (2) Ascension to Power
2x (2) Soporific Musk
Upgrade Cards:
-Seductresses - Defense value increases.
-Daemonettes - When summoned to a region they make take control of an enemy cultist.
-Keeper of Secrets - Keeper of Secrets counts as 3 noble tokens.
-Power of Pleasure
-Fall from Grace
2) Mark Johnson
https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/80 ... y-citow-20
For quite a while now, I've been avoiding playing Chaos in the Old World. Getting four is tough so it hasn't been that hard to avoid, but even if I did have the group and and suggestions to play it, I would suggest something else. Even last month I had considered trading it! Crazy, I know! What could have lead to such a thing? Well, while the base game was balanced it felt a little stagnant in that you had a choice in upgrade cards but if you wanted to be competitive, you didn't really have a lot of choice. Also, some of the chaos cards didn't seem to be worth the action points, so there wasn't a lot of angst in how to divvy it between figures and cards. Despite these issues the game was fun and pretty well balanced. Well, along came the Horned Rat expansion, which was both a blessing and a curse. It was great in that it had new and interesting upgrade/chaos cards, a new god to play which allows up to 5 players, and a design focus to give Nurgle the option to try and win by dial and Khorne the option to try and win by points. What ended up happening, is debated about having ruined the balance of the game. Apparently the Khorne upgrade for their Warriors is so OP that it's an auto-pick and can allow Khorne to simultaneously try to achieve a dial and VP victory... most gods usually had to choose between the two paths. Nurgle has been given many cards to help him get dial ticks. Sadly, his dial is so long, that apparently even with these cards he can't really go for a dial victory. What's worse is that since his cards and upgrades mostly relate to this, it's hard for him to even win through VP and now he's supposed to be the god that has the least chance of winning.
I've long been a proponent of house rules and tweaking games (ie removing PL from RFTG: BOW, only using bits and pieces of BSG expansions, limiting the come-from-behind mechanism in Gosu etc). Most people seem to like the tweaks I make and find that it improves the game play. Anyway the CitOW expansion rulebook said not to mix the original set of upgrade/chaos cards but since the balance was completely thrown out of whack with the expansion and the upgrade/chaos card choices were a little stagnant in the base game, I decided on mixing the sets! So, I mixed the two sets of Chaos/Upgrade cards with these design goals in mind:
-1 Cultist, 1 Warrior, 1 Daemon and 2 general upgrades/God
-24 Card deck of Chaos Cards/God
-Keep the approximate same number of magic symbols for each god's set of cards, averaging when they aren't the same number
-Mostly keeping the approximate same number of cards, based on cost, for each god's set of cards, averaging when they aren't the same number (more on this below)
-Slaanesh, Tzeentch and Khorne can go for dial or VP victory and Nurgle focuses on a VP victory solely. (more on this below)
-Try to create combos that could only happen by mixing the sets
-Try to keep some combos that were available in each of their respective sets
-Try to make the gods balanced. That said, I didn't give all gods their most powerful cards/upgrades to try and make balance. This leads into the next point...
-Make the decisions regarding which upgrades to choose much more difficult. Make the decisions on using action points specific Chaos cards more difficult.
-I believe there's also a bit more of an underlying focus on making dominating regions more important for each of the gods.
-All the gods will see more use of there Warriors/Greater Daemons... Ascension to Power/Keeper Upgrade for Slaanesh. Warrior upgrade for Tzeentch. Deamon upgrade for Khorne.
I can only hope I succeeded in my attempt. Even if I haven't, I have succeeded in one thing: I want to get Chaos in the Old World back to the table BADLY!! If it turns out that my mixed set isn't as balanced as I would like, I can always tweak things. I do consider combo building games to be one of my favorite niches within gaming so I think I'm up to the task of creating a good set over time.
Just so you know the card backs for the expansion and base set are different. I don't believe there are opaque-backed mini-chimera sleeves, so you have one of two options. You can just not bother trying to hide the card backs and will know about whether you have an expansion or base game card (ala Innovation expansion) or you can get some mini-chimera card sleeves and cut out slips of paper to put in the sleeves to hide the card backs. This is the route I chose. I created a picture file here:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/1321 ... size=ori...
You need to print 6 copies and with no borders.
I listed my first iteration of my mixed set here. Here is my current mixed set:
Version 1.4
Khorne
6 Cultists instead of 4.
Upgrade Cards:
Bloodsworn (HR)
Bloodletters (CitOW)
Bloodthirster (HR)
Vengeance (HR)
Power of Blood (CitOW)
Chaos Cards:
4x (0) Bloodbath (HR)
4x (0) Blood Frenzy (CitOW)
3x (1) The Skull Throne (CitOW)
4x (1) Battle Cry (CitOW)
4x (1) Skulltaker (HR)
3x (2) The Blood God's Call (CitOW)
2x (4) Lure of Battle (HR)
----------
Nurgle
Upgrade Cards:
Lepers (HR)
Plaguebearers (HR)
Great Unclean One (CitOW)
Provender of Ruin (CitOW)
Infested Colony (HR)
Chaos Cards:
4x (0) Plague Aura - M (CitOW)
3x (0) Filth - M (HR)
2x (0) Virulent Outbreak (HR)
3x (1) Rain of Pus (CitOW)
4x (1) Creeping Death (HR)
4x (1) Influenza (CitOW)
2x (2) The Final Rotting (CitOW)
2x (3) Ultimate Plague (HR)
----------
Tzeentch
Upgrade Cards:
Acolytes (CitOW)
Horrors (HR)
Lord of Change (HR)
Deluge of Magic (CitOW)
Power of Magic (CitOW)
Chaos Cards:
3x (0) Changer of Ways - M (CitOW)
2x (0) Drain Power (CitOW)
2x (0) Bolt of Change (HR)
2x (0) Warpstorm - M (HR)
2x (1) The Blue Scribes (HR)
3x (1) Warpshock - M (HR)
3x (1) Temporal Stasis - M (CitOW)
4x (1) Teleport (CitOW)
3x (2) Dazzle - M (CitOW)
----------
Slaanesh
Upgrade Cards:
Seductresses (CitOW)
Daemonettes (HR)
Keeper of Secrets (HR)
Fall from Grace (HR)
Rise to Glory (HR)
Chaos Cards:
3x (0) Daemonic Subtley - M (HR)
3x (0) Festival of Sinew (HR)
3x (1) Insidious Lies (CitOW)
3x (1) Dark Influence - M (HR)
2x (1) Rapturous Excess (CitOW)
2x (2) Joyous Surrender (HR)
3x (2) Sporific Musk - M (CitOW)
3x (3) Degenerate Royalty (CitOW)
2x (3) Debauchery (HR)
So, what are my concerns about the current mixed set?
As I've stated, I tried to design Khorne to be able to attempt a VP victory. Since using the previous iteration of the mixed set, he's been doing better with VP despite player's not completely committing to such a strategy. I've changed his set around a bit so that I think he has more tools to go for VP at the cost of some of his combat abilities... previously he had the chaos cards that allowed instant combat and 2 combats. You'll also notice he does not have the Cultist upgrade that has attack values. This is the same as the previous iteration but hasn't hurt his dial winning methods. I think that's because he has more free cards now which allows him to see a bit more of where people are committing before choosing where to place warriors. Especially when you consider Khorne has a free action every round with his Bloodthirster upgrade. So, between blood frenzy, vengeance, more free cards and his bloodthirster upgrade, he should still be able to focus on dial victory quite easily. I'm going to keep an eye to make sure he can still win via dial, but given the opportunity to play Khorne, I'm going to attempt some VP wins with him and hopefully continue to make VP more of an option for Khorne.
I do have some other ideas to help Khorne with VP in the future if he can't really compete as is. His Cultist upgrade is a great VP strategy tool but with only 4 Cultists, it may not be enough. If I find he can't do well enough in VP as is, I may consider allowing Khorne to have 6 cultists instead of 4 (I would use 2 Red cubes to represent these extra cultists). Later, I will talk about my concern of regions ruining too fast. This would only exacerbate the issue. If I try this route in the future, I will probably try with Tzeentch having 2 less cultists.
Provender of Ruin is an upgrade that Nurgle previously had removed from the previous iteration of this mixed set. Everyone always picked it and it was debated as a bit too good. That was reason enough for me to try and muck with his capabilities. I had previously used Quicken Decay to try and supplement his VP's but I found there were too many 'if opponent summons figures here, X' cards in my last iteration for all of the God's. Beyond that Nurgle still hasn't been doing as well as the other gods in the 3 games I played. I've added Provender back into his roster at the expense of Quicken Decay and am going to keep an eye whether it makes him too good/boring to play.
My final concern at the moment, is whether corruption is going to be placed too quickly, ie not allowing people to win via dial (save Khorne). Nurgle has a lot more means to place corruption more quickly. Beyond that, there is more of a focus on getting Warriors/Daemons out as previously mentioned and with Tzeentch having 3 Havocs... the game may end up having regions ruining more quickly. I'm hoping that with more Warriors/Daemons on the board, however, that this will mean more cultists killed and thus balancing things out. We actually almost lost a game with Franz Decree in our last game and that was before Slaanesh had Ascension to Power... though they still placed a bunch of Warriors. If this turns out to be true, I will remove Havoc from Tzeentch's roster and give Slaanesh his Fields of Ecstacy back.
3) Alessandro di Bitonto
http://boardgamegeek.com/article/16282457#16282457
Our Objectives
1) To apply the fewest house rules/modifications as possible balancing CitOW/HR
2) To make the choice of upgrades less obvious and more interesting
Problems
• Tzeentch: The biggest problem of the game. Havoc and Convocation with Mystical disregard are game killers. In our experience, a skilled Tzeentch have a ridiculous winning ratio: he can choose which regions destroy and when to do it without interferences.
• Khorne: The brainless one. His Bloodletters upgrade means he can win by VP or by wheel at the same time while the others can barely follow one way. Nonsense.
• Slaanesh: his only problem is that regions explode too fast with Havoc, because he grows stronger turn after turn creating combos with upgrades and nobles.
• Nurgle: His wheel is too long and his cards are mainly good for wheel victory. His winning ratio is the lowest of all, so he definitely need an help.
• The Rat: his upgrades/chaos cards are fine, nerfing the other gods will make him more competitive.
Very important factors
Except for Khorne, all the gods’ main strategy is to go for victory points and our modifications must be seen in that way. Khorne can win by vp or by wheel depending on old world cards draft and other factors. It can happen that other gods, all of them including Nurgle, can win by the wheel but it is very rare.
When we play with 4 gods we never use The Horned Rat (I mean the god obviously) and we never play with only 3 gods, so the following modifications are tested only with the 4 standard gods or with 5 players.
We always use all the old world cards from the HR mixed with the cards from the base game, they are necessary to increase the Horned Rat competitivity.
We decided, while replacing chaos cards, to keep the same amount of power points and magic symbols for deck, to respect the objective 1).
List of modifications:
Tzeentch:
Upgrades: *Acolytes and Lord Of Change upgrades from the base game, Deluge of Magic replace Well of Power
Chaos Cards: 3 Dazzle replace 3 Havoc, 2 Warp Shield replace 2 Bolt of Change
* Using a convocation on multiple upgraded Acolytes can only
move 1 Warpstone, even if the player is summoning more than 1 Acolyte
The main goal is to remove Havoc without nerfing him too much, at the same time we are giving him more good upgrades making the choice no longer brainless.
The houserule for the convocation is absolutely necessary, otherwise he can move 3 Alcolytes and 3 Warpstones spending 1 pp… We don’t want to make him stronger.
The Acolytes and Lord Of Change upgrades create nice combos with Warpshock and Transmogrify, the weakest card of Tzeentch set.
He is a completely different Tzeentch: he is weaker than before of course, it was our goal, but he is far more interesting. He is the only god who cannot defend himself against Khorne, except for the Warp Shields, and his struggle to survey force him to be very flexible.
Khorne:
Upgrades: The Bloodletters upgrade makes you earn 1 vp for every kill instead of 2 vp
The Bloodletters upgrade is no more the obvious first choice of Khorne and, without Havoc in play, he can gain wheel advancements a little more easily. He is now a little weaker than before but still very strong.
Slaanesh:
Chaos Cards: 2 Insidious Lies replace 2 Joyous Surrender (this is the only time we can’t replace cards with the same amount of pp)
That replacement gives him a boost of victory point (it combos very well with the Acolyte and the Keeper of Secrets upgrades) and in longer lasting games (without Havoc) he is definitely stronger than before.
Nurgle:
Upgrades: Great Unclean One from the base game
Chaos Cards: * 4 A Great Foul Consumption replace 4 Choking Stench (I know, there are only 3 A Great Foul Consumption, you can use a card of The Final Rotting instead),
3 Rain of Pus replace 3 Quicken Decay
* The effect of Grand Final Consumption have to be applied before the Battle Phase
Choking Stench cards are expensive and less effective than Rain of Pus, making Nurgle one of the easiest targets for Khorne considering he plays in the populous areas. Quicken Decay is a very passive way of making vp: you must play it and hope other players give you some points.
A Great Foul Consumption (with our houserule of course) is more tricky to play but it can change your placement into a region, making you score a second or first place and in the meantime making Khorne harmless (the card is applied before the Battle Phase).
The Great Unclean One is one sure tick of wheel in situation when almost all populous regions are already gone and it will be difficult to gain advancements in other ways. It can also change your score into a region ruination with his 2 corruptions placed before the battle phase, hence avoiding Khorne influence.
Stronger than before and now competitive on vp, we let him the full 9 step wheel because in his struggle for the ticks it often balances the other players with his easy-gaining advancements tokens.
Horned Rat:
No changes needed. He (with Slaanesh and Nurgle) had his winning ratio increased by longer games and by the nerfing of Tzeentch and Khorne.
You must use the old world cards from HR expansion mixed with the base game, they help him a little and make game more unpredictable.
Conclusion
This mod works great for us and I hope it will be the same for all of you who will try it, but of course always depends on players type and their taste
Good game!
Ho trovato su BGG diverse proposte per mixare e bilanciare le carte della scatola base con quella dell'espansione.
Le tre che mi paiono più gettonate sono quelle che elenco sotto.
Mi piacerebbe un parere
1) Paul Sinkovitz
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1018495 ... pgrade-mix
I've played the base game 60-80 times and with the expansion 20-30 more. I love this game, but certain things have always seemed over powered or lame. Eventually, I decided to carefully develop a blend of the Chaos Cards and Upgrades from both games. I've played with these custom decks about 8 times and found them to be superior in balancing the factions and game play. I find it very unlikely I will ever switch back.
Overall Intention:
-Okay so first off, I wasn't wanting to make the game do anything it wasn't supposed to do. Khorne is still never going to win by points and Nurgle is still never going to win by dial advancement.
-Second, hard counters suck. I don't want any one to simply alter the fate of the game by a single card. This means no Battle Cry, no Field of Ecstasy, no Changer of Ways or Havoc (even though I loved it).
-Lastly, I took great care to somewhat preserve the average number of magic symbols each player has in their Chaos Card decks so as to not tip things too much in favor of Tzeentch. They are a little higher, but not too much. Nevertheless, this was intentional.
*****
Khorne - He's always been very powerful in our games, but instead of balancing Khorne by deliberately making him bad, I removed some of the broken things...cough....Bloodletters expansion upgrade...cough...and instead went to great effort to try and make the other characters that much better. Also, each at least have some kind of defensive tactic.
I originally wanted to make victory points a more viable strategy for Khorne, but had to concede it's just not his thing. Still I found it worth while for him to play cards like Lure of Battle, The Skull Throne, Skulltaker, or Bloodbath simply to potentially steal points of domination or a second place ruination from other players. I did not include Blood Frenzy simply because it is thematically strange and he doesn't need it.
Chaos Cards: 24 total
4x (0) Blood Bath
3x (0) Terror
3x (1) Hate
3x (1) Rampage
2x (1) Skulltaker
2x (1) The Skull Throne
3x (2) The Blood God's Call
2x (2) Lambs to the Slaughter
2x (4) Lure of Battle
Upgrade Cards:
-Bloodsworn - Cultists gain attack value.
-Bloodletters - Your blood letters inflict casualties before other figures roll their battle dice.
-Bloodthirster - Summon for 0 cost to a region with 6 or more corruption tokens.
-Power of Blood
-Vengeance
*****
Nurgle - Nurgle still has no hope of dial ticking to a win, but I wanted to allow him every opportunity do gain dial advancements to help his progression with the other players. Also, unlike the base game where our Nurgle players felt they should turtle into a region, I wanted to break that mold. I would say it doesn't work. In this set, Nurgle has every opportunity to spread corruption EVERYWHERE and this tends to be more efficient than concentrating on a single area anyway. In our end games, since Nurgle has so much corruption all over the board, regions can't ruin without Nurgle defaulting a first or solid second place win in ruination. Plague Aura and Influeza make dominating easy, Creeping Death and Festering Fever make it awesome! Toss in the Infested Colony upgrade and suddenly your Plaguebearers have an important roll in domination.
Chaos Cards: 24 Total
4x (0) Virulent Outbreak
2x (0) Filth
2x (0) Plague Aura
3x (1) Influenza
3x (1) Festering Fever
3x (1) Creeping Death
2x (1) Rain of Pus
2x (2) A Great Foul Consumption
2x (3) Ultimate Plague
1x (4) Nurgles Quest
Upgrade Cards:
-Lepers - When your Lepers place at least one corruption in a region you may place one more.
-Plaguebearers - When an opponent kills one of you Plaguebearers you get to inflict 1 hit back.
-Great Unclean One - Place 2 corruption tokens into the same region where summoned.
-Power of Pestilence
-Infested Colony
*****
Tzeentch - I tried to give Tzeentch as many 0 cost cards as possible, really pushing for him to play these cards either to stall or
at least move through his Chaos Card deck. Even the 1 cost cards are some of the most useful ones, like Convocation and Temporal Stasis. I did not include Drain Power, as with so many other inexpensive cards, he really did not need it. Plus, it seems to tick off other players in a bad way. I intentionally nixed some of the very situational cards like Dazzle or the Persistence of Change. Finally, I felt like using Warp Shield was the only way to offset the pitiful defense value of the Lord of Change and makes him less risky to use.
Chaos Cards: 24 Total
3x (0) Warp Shield
3x (0) Glean
2x (0) Warp Portal
2x (0) Warpstorm
2x (0) Bolt of Change
2x (1) Temporal Stasis
3x (1) Warpshock
3x (1) Convocation
2x (1) The Blue Scribes
2x (2) Transmogrify
Upgrade Cards:
-Acolytes - When summoned from the board they can bring a warpstone with them from their region.
-Horrors - When you play a card with a magic symbol you may place a Horror with it for free.
-Lord of Change - Lord of Change counts as 2 magic symbols.
-Deluge of Magic
-Mystical Disregard
*****
Slaanesh - I've always felt as though Slaanesh had a significant problem with not having enough resources to spread out and poor mobility to do so. In my mix, I incorporated Soporific Musk and Ascension to Power to aid in a leap across the board and chase down the next noble token. Otherwise, you can use Dark Influence to bring them to you. However, I would say Slaanesh's real power comes from the upgrades and combos. The Insidious Lies Chaos card can have the Keeper of Secrets with upgrade single handedly dominating The Empire...(this can be a game changer). The Seductress upgrade is always an easy choice.
Chaos Cards: 24 Total
4x (0) Festival of Sinew
3x (0) Daemonic Subtlety
4x (0) Insidious Lies
4x (1) Dark Influence
2x (1) Rapturous Excess
3x (2) Pleasure Shield
2x (2) Ascension to Power
2x (2) Soporific Musk
Upgrade Cards:
-Seductresses - Defense value increases.
-Daemonettes - When summoned to a region they make take control of an enemy cultist.
-Keeper of Secrets - Keeper of Secrets counts as 3 noble tokens.
-Power of Pleasure
-Fall from Grace
2) Mark Johnson
https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/80 ... y-citow-20
For quite a while now, I've been avoiding playing Chaos in the Old World. Getting four is tough so it hasn't been that hard to avoid, but even if I did have the group and and suggestions to play it, I would suggest something else. Even last month I had considered trading it! Crazy, I know! What could have lead to such a thing? Well, while the base game was balanced it felt a little stagnant in that you had a choice in upgrade cards but if you wanted to be competitive, you didn't really have a lot of choice. Also, some of the chaos cards didn't seem to be worth the action points, so there wasn't a lot of angst in how to divvy it between figures and cards. Despite these issues the game was fun and pretty well balanced. Well, along came the Horned Rat expansion, which was both a blessing and a curse. It was great in that it had new and interesting upgrade/chaos cards, a new god to play which allows up to 5 players, and a design focus to give Nurgle the option to try and win by dial and Khorne the option to try and win by points. What ended up happening, is debated about having ruined the balance of the game. Apparently the Khorne upgrade for their Warriors is so OP that it's an auto-pick and can allow Khorne to simultaneously try to achieve a dial and VP victory... most gods usually had to choose between the two paths. Nurgle has been given many cards to help him get dial ticks. Sadly, his dial is so long, that apparently even with these cards he can't really go for a dial victory. What's worse is that since his cards and upgrades mostly relate to this, it's hard for him to even win through VP and now he's supposed to be the god that has the least chance of winning.
I've long been a proponent of house rules and tweaking games (ie removing PL from RFTG: BOW, only using bits and pieces of BSG expansions, limiting the come-from-behind mechanism in Gosu etc). Most people seem to like the tweaks I make and find that it improves the game play. Anyway the CitOW expansion rulebook said not to mix the original set of upgrade/chaos cards but since the balance was completely thrown out of whack with the expansion and the upgrade/chaos card choices were a little stagnant in the base game, I decided on mixing the sets! So, I mixed the two sets of Chaos/Upgrade cards with these design goals in mind:
-1 Cultist, 1 Warrior, 1 Daemon and 2 general upgrades/God
-24 Card deck of Chaos Cards/God
-Keep the approximate same number of magic symbols for each god's set of cards, averaging when they aren't the same number
-Mostly keeping the approximate same number of cards, based on cost, for each god's set of cards, averaging when they aren't the same number (more on this below)
-Slaanesh, Tzeentch and Khorne can go for dial or VP victory and Nurgle focuses on a VP victory solely. (more on this below)
-Try to create combos that could only happen by mixing the sets
-Try to keep some combos that were available in each of their respective sets
-Try to make the gods balanced. That said, I didn't give all gods their most powerful cards/upgrades to try and make balance. This leads into the next point...
-Make the decisions regarding which upgrades to choose much more difficult. Make the decisions on using action points specific Chaos cards more difficult.
-I believe there's also a bit more of an underlying focus on making dominating regions more important for each of the gods.
-All the gods will see more use of there Warriors/Greater Daemons... Ascension to Power/Keeper Upgrade for Slaanesh. Warrior upgrade for Tzeentch. Deamon upgrade for Khorne.
I can only hope I succeeded in my attempt. Even if I haven't, I have succeeded in one thing: I want to get Chaos in the Old World back to the table BADLY!! If it turns out that my mixed set isn't as balanced as I would like, I can always tweak things. I do consider combo building games to be one of my favorite niches within gaming so I think I'm up to the task of creating a good set over time.
Just so you know the card backs for the expansion and base set are different. I don't believe there are opaque-backed mini-chimera sleeves, so you have one of two options. You can just not bother trying to hide the card backs and will know about whether you have an expansion or base game card (ala Innovation expansion) or you can get some mini-chimera card sleeves and cut out slips of paper to put in the sleeves to hide the card backs. This is the route I chose. I created a picture file here:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/1321 ... size=ori...
You need to print 6 copies and with no borders.
I listed my first iteration of my mixed set here. Here is my current mixed set:
Version 1.4
Khorne
6 Cultists instead of 4.
Upgrade Cards:
Bloodsworn (HR)
Bloodletters (CitOW)
Bloodthirster (HR)
Vengeance (HR)
Power of Blood (CitOW)
Chaos Cards:
4x (0) Bloodbath (HR)
4x (0) Blood Frenzy (CitOW)
3x (1) The Skull Throne (CitOW)
4x (1) Battle Cry (CitOW)
4x (1) Skulltaker (HR)
3x (2) The Blood God's Call (CitOW)
2x (4) Lure of Battle (HR)
----------
Nurgle
Upgrade Cards:
Lepers (HR)
Plaguebearers (HR)
Great Unclean One (CitOW)
Provender of Ruin (CitOW)
Infested Colony (HR)
Chaos Cards:
4x (0) Plague Aura - M (CitOW)
3x (0) Filth - M (HR)
2x (0) Virulent Outbreak (HR)
3x (1) Rain of Pus (CitOW)
4x (1) Creeping Death (HR)
4x (1) Influenza (CitOW)
2x (2) The Final Rotting (CitOW)
2x (3) Ultimate Plague (HR)
----------
Tzeentch
Upgrade Cards:
Acolytes (CitOW)
Horrors (HR)
Lord of Change (HR)
Deluge of Magic (CitOW)
Power of Magic (CitOW)
Chaos Cards:
3x (0) Changer of Ways - M (CitOW)
2x (0) Drain Power (CitOW)
2x (0) Bolt of Change (HR)
2x (0) Warpstorm - M (HR)
2x (1) The Blue Scribes (HR)
3x (1) Warpshock - M (HR)
3x (1) Temporal Stasis - M (CitOW)
4x (1) Teleport (CitOW)
3x (2) Dazzle - M (CitOW)
----------
Slaanesh
Upgrade Cards:
Seductresses (CitOW)
Daemonettes (HR)
Keeper of Secrets (HR)
Fall from Grace (HR)
Rise to Glory (HR)
Chaos Cards:
3x (0) Daemonic Subtley - M (HR)
3x (0) Festival of Sinew (HR)
3x (1) Insidious Lies (CitOW)
3x (1) Dark Influence - M (HR)
2x (1) Rapturous Excess (CitOW)
2x (2) Joyous Surrender (HR)
3x (2) Sporific Musk - M (CitOW)
3x (3) Degenerate Royalty (CitOW)
2x (3) Debauchery (HR)
So, what are my concerns about the current mixed set?
As I've stated, I tried to design Khorne to be able to attempt a VP victory. Since using the previous iteration of the mixed set, he's been doing better with VP despite player's not completely committing to such a strategy. I've changed his set around a bit so that I think he has more tools to go for VP at the cost of some of his combat abilities... previously he had the chaos cards that allowed instant combat and 2 combats. You'll also notice he does not have the Cultist upgrade that has attack values. This is the same as the previous iteration but hasn't hurt his dial winning methods. I think that's because he has more free cards now which allows him to see a bit more of where people are committing before choosing where to place warriors. Especially when you consider Khorne has a free action every round with his Bloodthirster upgrade. So, between blood frenzy, vengeance, more free cards and his bloodthirster upgrade, he should still be able to focus on dial victory quite easily. I'm going to keep an eye to make sure he can still win via dial, but given the opportunity to play Khorne, I'm going to attempt some VP wins with him and hopefully continue to make VP more of an option for Khorne.
I do have some other ideas to help Khorne with VP in the future if he can't really compete as is. His Cultist upgrade is a great VP strategy tool but with only 4 Cultists, it may not be enough. If I find he can't do well enough in VP as is, I may consider allowing Khorne to have 6 cultists instead of 4 (I would use 2 Red cubes to represent these extra cultists). Later, I will talk about my concern of regions ruining too fast. This would only exacerbate the issue. If I try this route in the future, I will probably try with Tzeentch having 2 less cultists.
Provender of Ruin is an upgrade that Nurgle previously had removed from the previous iteration of this mixed set. Everyone always picked it and it was debated as a bit too good. That was reason enough for me to try and muck with his capabilities. I had previously used Quicken Decay to try and supplement his VP's but I found there were too many 'if opponent summons figures here, X' cards in my last iteration for all of the God's. Beyond that Nurgle still hasn't been doing as well as the other gods in the 3 games I played. I've added Provender back into his roster at the expense of Quicken Decay and am going to keep an eye whether it makes him too good/boring to play.
My final concern at the moment, is whether corruption is going to be placed too quickly, ie not allowing people to win via dial (save Khorne). Nurgle has a lot more means to place corruption more quickly. Beyond that, there is more of a focus on getting Warriors/Daemons out as previously mentioned and with Tzeentch having 3 Havocs... the game may end up having regions ruining more quickly. I'm hoping that with more Warriors/Daemons on the board, however, that this will mean more cultists killed and thus balancing things out. We actually almost lost a game with Franz Decree in our last game and that was before Slaanesh had Ascension to Power... though they still placed a bunch of Warriors. If this turns out to be true, I will remove Havoc from Tzeentch's roster and give Slaanesh his Fields of Ecstacy back.
3) Alessandro di Bitonto
http://boardgamegeek.com/article/16282457#16282457
Our Objectives
1) To apply the fewest house rules/modifications as possible balancing CitOW/HR
2) To make the choice of upgrades less obvious and more interesting
Problems
• Tzeentch: The biggest problem of the game. Havoc and Convocation with Mystical disregard are game killers. In our experience, a skilled Tzeentch have a ridiculous winning ratio: he can choose which regions destroy and when to do it without interferences.
• Khorne: The brainless one. His Bloodletters upgrade means he can win by VP or by wheel at the same time while the others can barely follow one way. Nonsense.
• Slaanesh: his only problem is that regions explode too fast with Havoc, because he grows stronger turn after turn creating combos with upgrades and nobles.
• Nurgle: His wheel is too long and his cards are mainly good for wheel victory. His winning ratio is the lowest of all, so he definitely need an help.
• The Rat: his upgrades/chaos cards are fine, nerfing the other gods will make him more competitive.
Very important factors
Except for Khorne, all the gods’ main strategy is to go for victory points and our modifications must be seen in that way. Khorne can win by vp or by wheel depending on old world cards draft and other factors. It can happen that other gods, all of them including Nurgle, can win by the wheel but it is very rare.
When we play with 4 gods we never use The Horned Rat (I mean the god obviously) and we never play with only 3 gods, so the following modifications are tested only with the 4 standard gods or with 5 players.
We always use all the old world cards from the HR mixed with the cards from the base game, they are necessary to increase the Horned Rat competitivity.
We decided, while replacing chaos cards, to keep the same amount of power points and magic symbols for deck, to respect the objective 1).
List of modifications:
Tzeentch:
Upgrades: *Acolytes and Lord Of Change upgrades from the base game, Deluge of Magic replace Well of Power
Chaos Cards: 3 Dazzle replace 3 Havoc, 2 Warp Shield replace 2 Bolt of Change
* Using a convocation on multiple upgraded Acolytes can only
move 1 Warpstone, even if the player is summoning more than 1 Acolyte
The main goal is to remove Havoc without nerfing him too much, at the same time we are giving him more good upgrades making the choice no longer brainless.
The houserule for the convocation is absolutely necessary, otherwise he can move 3 Alcolytes and 3 Warpstones spending 1 pp… We don’t want to make him stronger.
The Acolytes and Lord Of Change upgrades create nice combos with Warpshock and Transmogrify, the weakest card of Tzeentch set.
He is a completely different Tzeentch: he is weaker than before of course, it was our goal, but he is far more interesting. He is the only god who cannot defend himself against Khorne, except for the Warp Shields, and his struggle to survey force him to be very flexible.
Khorne:
Upgrades: The Bloodletters upgrade makes you earn 1 vp for every kill instead of 2 vp
The Bloodletters upgrade is no more the obvious first choice of Khorne and, without Havoc in play, he can gain wheel advancements a little more easily. He is now a little weaker than before but still very strong.
Slaanesh:
Chaos Cards: 2 Insidious Lies replace 2 Joyous Surrender (this is the only time we can’t replace cards with the same amount of pp)
That replacement gives him a boost of victory point (it combos very well with the Acolyte and the Keeper of Secrets upgrades) and in longer lasting games (without Havoc) he is definitely stronger than before.
Nurgle:
Upgrades: Great Unclean One from the base game
Chaos Cards: * 4 A Great Foul Consumption replace 4 Choking Stench (I know, there are only 3 A Great Foul Consumption, you can use a card of The Final Rotting instead),
3 Rain of Pus replace 3 Quicken Decay
* The effect of Grand Final Consumption have to be applied before the Battle Phase
Choking Stench cards are expensive and less effective than Rain of Pus, making Nurgle one of the easiest targets for Khorne considering he plays in the populous areas. Quicken Decay is a very passive way of making vp: you must play it and hope other players give you some points.
A Great Foul Consumption (with our houserule of course) is more tricky to play but it can change your placement into a region, making you score a second or first place and in the meantime making Khorne harmless (the card is applied before the Battle Phase).
The Great Unclean One is one sure tick of wheel in situation when almost all populous regions are already gone and it will be difficult to gain advancements in other ways. It can also change your score into a region ruination with his 2 corruptions placed before the battle phase, hence avoiding Khorne influence.
Stronger than before and now competitive on vp, we let him the full 9 step wheel because in his struggle for the ticks it often balances the other players with his easy-gaining advancements tokens.
Horned Rat:
No changes needed. He (with Slaanesh and Nurgle) had his winning ratio increased by longer games and by the nerfing of Tzeentch and Khorne.
You must use the old world cards from HR expansion mixed with the base game, they help him a little and make game more unpredictable.
Conclusion
This mod works great for us and I hope it will be the same for all of you who will try it, but of course always depends on players type and their taste
Good game!
ippotto: