Painted Chaos in the Old World: The Horned Rat

Just when I had Chaos in the Old World figured out, along came The Horned Rat expansion and threw everyone for a loop.  Not only did it change the basics for the four Chaos Gods, but it introduced a fifth god as well. 

The Horned Rat pieces were fun to paint, although there are (shock!) a whole lot of them.  I decided to go with an "albino" Vermin Lord and gray and brown Rat Ogres and Clanrats.  To make them stand out as Skaven, I used a green metallic color for the base trim, so that they would have a "warpstone" feel and also so they would pop on the table. 

In game, the Horned Rat can easily swarm the table via upgrades or play very deviously by playing one more card per territory than is usually allowed.  A good Horned Rat player can piggyback on Tzeentch, Nurgle, and Slaneesh in gaining partial credit for their corrupted territories, although Clanrats are a particularly tasty target for Khorne.

Painted Chaos in the Old World: Slaneesh

The forces of Slaneesh were actually the first "army" that I painted for Chaos in the Old World, in order to try out some of the purple paints I wanted to use on my last few Beastmen.  Although I'm not thrilled with how the eyes came out, I got better at it as time went on.

In game, Slaneesh has the versatility to either win by corrupting nobles and therefore gettting ticks on its dial, or simply by corrupting regions and winning on points.  The most popular Slaneeshi upgrades allow for cultists to double their defense, making them difficult to dislodge from regions.  Slaneesh can also slow Khorne down by disallowing combat in a region.

Painted Chaos in the Old World - Tzeentch

Tzeentch was the last of the Chaos in the Old World "armies" that I painted up (aside from the Horned Rat), and it gave me a chance to test out some of the Reaper bright blues I had picked up for my next Warhammer Fantasy army.  Combined with the bright golds, it was nice to paint an army that really stood out and was bright compared to the other armies on the table.

In game, Tzeentch can be a great early foil for others, moving their models around and generally having more magic than other players through low cost spells.  I think that winning the game with Tzeentch may be the most difficult of all the gods, although a second place finish is certainly very possible.  Bart did win the final game we played with Tzeentch by one point on the win track, simply by using his cultists to drag huge amounts of warpstone around and mass corrupting regions. 

Painted Chaos in the Old World - Nurgle

In Chaos in the Old World, players play in order depending on which god they represent:  Khorne, followed by Nurgle, Tzeentch, Slaneesh, and the Horned Rat.  I figured I could post their respective models up in the same order. 

Nurgle models were probably some of the most fun to paint, as they look great and characterful with only a base coat, highlight, and wash.   In game, Nurgle wins by focusing on corrupting the populous regions of Kislev, The Empire, Bretonnia, and Estalia.  He has cheap troops that can flood the board, but has to watch out in order to prevent Khorne from slaughtering all the little Nurgling folk and winning the game in that way. 

Our Chaos in the Old World ended last night, and I took second while Bart took first.  The game was, just as the league was, tight down to the last game and was a lot of fun, although I'm looking forward to some Warhammer and some cooperative gaming for a while after the "screw your neighbor" stylings of CitOW. 

Painted Chaos in the Old World - Khorne

Last week, I was working on my SUPER AWESOME MYSTERY PROJECT (tm), which turned out to be painting up all the models from the board game Chaos in the Old World.  At the local store, we've been playing in a CitOW league as of late, and I thought it would be nice to have the figures nicely painted up for our games.  The figures are (very roughly) around 10mm in scale, and were done mostly with my detail brushes.  The entire project of five "armies" took about a week, and consisted of around sixty tiny models. 

For those who haven't played CitOW, the game (and Horned Rat expansion) is played by three to five players, although I suggest at least four, with each player representing Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle, Slaneesh, and the Horned Rat, respectively.  The game board is a map of Warhammer's Old World, and each god uses different strategies to kill its enemies, corrupt the citizenry, and dominate various regions such as The Empire, Bretonnia, and Tilea, as well as to stymie the efforts of opposing gods. 

Above, you can see my painted Khorne.  In terms of winning himself, Khorne has the most straightforward game play, needing to kill the other players' figures to really advance in the game.  A savvy Khorne player is necessary, however, as his role is key to slowing down Slaneesh early in the game and in slowing down Nurgle in the long term, as both can overwhelm the game if their figures are not killed in key locations. 

Anyway, I'll be posting up these five tiny new groups over the next week or so, and I hope you enjoy them!

Chaos in the Old World Battle Report

Bart is writing battle reports for our Chaos in the Old World League at Sci Fi Genre.  Here's our first exhibition game.  I was so close with Khorne!

The league begins!

Players this time around:
Bart
Ben
Brian
Collins
Tom

Todays game (Exhibition Match - not scored):
Gods and Upgrade Choices (in order)

Khorne: Ben - Bloodsworn (attack for cultists), and bloodletters upgrade/+1 power

Nurgle: Collins - Great Unclean One upgrade

Tzeentch: Bart - +1 Power

Slaanesh: Brian - Seductress (+1 defense), +1 Power

Horned Rat: Tom - Cultists (additional cultist for 0 cost), Council of Thirteen (3rd card can be played in regions)

The game began with Khorne taking the center with bloodletters, starting in Brettonia and drifting southwards towards Nurgle who put all his eggs into Kislev. The horned rat took up position in the south west, in the badlands and the border princes. Tzeentch took up the north west with a temporal stasis in Estalia, and expanded some into Telia. In a sneaky (and somewhat sensual) move Slaanesh ignored the noble tokens in Brettonia and Troll Country, taking up residence in the badlands.

The next few turns saw Slaanesh drift towards Bretonnia, with some nicely played Fields of Ecstacy shutting down khorne, allowing the harvesting of sweet dial ticks and netting a quick Seductress upgrade, making his minions much more durable. The Horned Rat burst forward getting double dial ticks early on (although Tzeentch did his best to screw with things with some teleports and the text cancelling changer of ways). Tzeentch was able to move up fast in corruption and VPs as Khorne and Nurgle battled it out in the south, with Khrone either losing or tying on the dial in the first few rounds.

As things shifted to midgame, khorne began to clearly dominate the threat dial (once his cultist upgrade hit), with 4+ dial counters per round. Fate turned against Tzeentch as his fast progression in VPs and large surplus of corruption in Telia forced Khorne to move against him. Coupled with the corruption nuking old world card tzneetch was effectively shut down. A similar fate befell the Horned Rat, as his early game burst died down due to Khornes attention, a fragmented skaven token distribution, and two forced discards for a loss of 4 cards (Tom, did this hurt, or am I imagning that it did?).

Throughout this, due to Field of Ecstacy, Slaanesh was able to get a nasty corruption foothold in Brettonia coupled with dial ticks.

Finally in the endgame, the ruination of Brettonia was followed for an epic struggle for the ruination of the border princes. Slaneesh and Nurgle were both in the high 30s to low 40s in VPs, with Khorne right behind them on the dial. In the final conflict Khorne had to decide whether to stop Slaneesh or Nurgle. Unable to do both and assure a dial victory which was only one tick away, the game was deliverd onto Slaneesh.

1st Brian
VPs
2nd Collins
3rd Bart