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Ukko Kaarto
Finland
Helsinki
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Posted this also on FFG forums as there might be some great strategists who don't read the "other forum". Sorry for the cross post.
Yesterday we played the second game with the Horned Rat chaos and upgrade cards. The first one was five player game that Khorne won by points by a wide margin. Yesterday we had a four player game (without the Rat) and Khorne won by points easily, even though he had really bad two first rounds. I think he had something like 70 points compared to the second best who had something like 40.
People are saying that the upgrade is the only way for Khorne to win by VP's and that the others can easily score as much from ruinations. This is not true.
KHORNE - TAKING OVER THE EMPIRE
Clever Khorne player will take over Empire in the beginning of the game. Put one bloodletter there and guarantee that no one will come there and if they do you kill them and get dial advacements. Win-win. Then add two-three cultists or some cards to get domination.
If Tzeench moves you out, just summon back from the board. If he plays the "no battle dice, just corruption" chaos card all the better as he will run out of those and then you will ruin Empire even faster and move on.
From Empire it is very easy to spread out to get a random kill for a dial token. Dominating Empire will net Khorne 5 pts per round. Get Empire ruined in 4-5 rounds and get:
4 or 5 x 5 points from domination = 20-25 points
4 points from ruining
11 points from being the top ruiner
total 35-40 points.
From dial advacements before the bloodletter upgrade he gets something like 3 or 4 points, so he's sitting on average 40 points on turn five. WITHOUT the upgrade. The math might be a bit off, but you get the idea. VP victory was possible for Khorne before, but now it is just ridiculously easy. The great thing is also that by taking Empire Khorne will make sure that the others will be ruining the 1-2 point domination reward suburbs of the Old World or fighting over Estalia.
So question number 1: How do you play against this? If you go and contest him in Empire, he will get kills --> dial advacements. If you don't he can ruin the place in peace and win by points as if he's not completely out of luck he has the bloodletter upgrade on turn five and can get a rush of points from kills after Empire falls.
Which leads me to question number 2: Exactly how to play against the bloodletter upgrade? The exact tactics that actually work and don't gimp your game totally. Some people are saying "it'sgood, but not that strong", but still no one offers solid advice how to play against it except vague "run from him". With Bloodletter upgrade it seems that in order to prevent Khorne from winning the others have to actively choose upgrades and invest points in cards to play against him, where Khorne can just sit behind the steering wheel and force the others to make those choises over other more beneficial ones.
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Mark Ellis
United Kingdom
London
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I haven't checked your maths, but would agree that the Khorne tactic you describe seems very strong.
The first time I tried the Horned Rat expansion the Khorne player did exactly what you describe, i.e. focus on/dominate Empire and then secure a crushing victory with the bloodletter upgrade (which I think he can get far earlier than turn five?). From mid-way through the game there didn't seem to be much that anyone could do to stop him, except wish for bad dice rolls.
Perhaps the best bet is to be sure to prevent the high domination points by contesting the Empire strongly/battling with Khorne early on (you can after all stop him dominating a single region - at a cost), but judging from the number of other threads looking at the same issue with the bloodletter upgrade it seems very likely there is a problem. It immediately seemed broken to me.
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Rich Chamberlain
United Kingdom
Nottingham
Nottinghamshire
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I have only played with The Horned Rat three times and each time the Khorne player has romped to a win, once with both a VP and a Dial victory at the same time.
I can't help but feel it's broken. Compare Khorne to my last game playing Slaanesh and all I could effectively do was mess about with Nobel tokens. Oh wow.
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Joel Schuster
Germany
Bretten
Baden-Württemberg
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Festival of Sinew to the Empire Turn 1 and thats it for this strategy
Seriously, I think if you try to play AGAINST certain strategies you're doing it wrong.
You need to play your own strategy, where you can mix in interfering with others strategies as options are presented. Thats why noone is presenting a plan to play AGAINST other strategies. With all the variables involved that is just not possible. You can give some general advice and that is whats provided.
If Khorne gets 35-40 VP within 5 turns, that is not enough to win. So the strategy obviously is to get more in the same time or you take double ticks. I think ruining the Empire in 4 or 5 turns is not even good. Not good enough to win anyways. Usually a game is over in 5 turns, sometimes even 4.
When Khorne starts stacking figures in the Empire you either compete him HARD right away or you stay away from him entirely, which means he doesnt get a tick and so the complementary Bloodletter Upgrade is delayed. Adding a single Nurgle warrior, getting killed and not hitting in return is probably the worst you can do.
So as for the negative approach of this, giving advice what you should NOT do is probably best
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Ukko Kaarto
Finland
Helsinki
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Umbratus wrote: When Khorne starts stacking figures in the Empire you either compete him HARD right away or you stay away from him entirely, which means he doesnt get a tick and so the complementary Bloodletter Upgrade is delayed. Adding a single Nurgle warrior, getting killed and not hitting in return is probably the worst you can do.
This is probably where the game has changed the most with Horned Rat. When previously Khorne was the one who ran around trying to catch the others, now the others have to take more active role in playing against Khorne thus changing the whole flow of the game.
The problem is that at least in our table everyone wants to be one who is staying away from him completely. And Khorne wins.
I do understand that if Khorne gets 35-40 VP within 5 turns it's not enough to win. But combine that with the fact that at that point he most probably will have "the upgrade" ready and can just bomb the points out of others, thus their life miserable.
Also it would be great to hear how to get more points than those 35-40 in same amount of time if you have to fight over the scraps in the edges of the map with the others.
I do agree that there are so many variables in this game that taking every possibility into account is impossible. But it would be sweet to get some general guidelines and ideas on this thread.
I'll start:
The game has changed dramatically, instead of letting Khorne roam free and trying to stay away from him the other gods NEED to make Khorne's life miserable, either by force or throwing an odd card here and there. The whole game becomes a balancing act, where everyone has to play against Khorne to prevent him from winning and the one who can do it with least resource losses wins.
People have to acknoledge from the start that in Horned Rat Khorne IS a Victory Point powerhouse and will win if he isn't dealt with.
Does that sound completely off?
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russell gowlett
United Kingdom
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Perhaps i havent played as much as you guys (about 10 - 12 games for me) split evenly between base and expansion games.
I know that with more experienced players it is very different, but for me its been the other way. Base game has always been a case of everyone having to gang up to stop Khorne, and in the 5 - 6 hormned rat games i have played, Khorne has not come close to winning once - granted Khorne was always a relative newbie, so had no idea of strategy
I remember a particularly delightful game I had playing as Tzeentch in the expansion, where for the entire game I completely managed to foil khorne in every single one of his actions, leaving him on about 20 points at game end, and not many dial ticks either. What a pleasure it was 
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Joel Schuster
Germany
Bretten
Baden-Württemberg
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Tzeentch has 8 cultists and awesome cards. You can do 50+ in 5 turns in EVERY game you play. Havoc is a game winner when played well no less.
Try ticks as Slaanesh or the Rat if Khorne goes for points. If everybody sticks to points when Khorne goes VP, there is a free domain for double ticks. It would be reckless to ignore that.
If everybody goes VP and you ignore the dial, it is no wonder you get lopsided results.
Just poor Nurgle has very bad options as I currently see it.
Last but not least, 2 games out of 2 going one way is of very small statistical value
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Ukko Kaarto
Finland
Helsinki
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Umbratus wrote: If everybody goes VP and you ignore the dial, it is no wonder you get lopsided results. Just poor Nurgle has very bad options as I currently see it. Last but not least, 2 games out of 2 going one way is of very small statistical value
I do agree that only two games is not a lot. Also if everyone knows that Khorne now has good possibility to win by points then they will play against him more ferociously. I think we have to play a bit more and get used to the new sets of cards.
Thanks for the feedback and awesome ideas.
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Chris J Davis
United Kingdom
Overtext pending moderation...
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Isn't it against theme that the other gods should be pursuing Khorne?
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magic gecko
Australia
Melbin Oz
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The way to stop this completely overpowered and game winning tactic is quite simple.
Leave the Khorne Bloodletter 2VP upgrade in the box.
Play with the Khorne Bloodletter first strike Upgrade from the basic game.
Then the game is Wonderful. 
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Benjamin Hamdorf
Germany
Bonn
NRW
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I like this idea and will definitely use it. Could one do something similar to make a Nurgle Dial Victory an actual possibility?
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Joel Schuster
Germany
Bretten
Baden-Württemberg
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Shorten his dial. There you go.
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Scott Yost
United States
Unspecified
Washington
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Quote: If Tzeench moves you out, just summon back from the board
You can't JUST summon back from the board though, you need adjacency. Are you saying to make a line of cultists back to the empire so you can drop another bloodletter? that could take a couple actions. Or maybe I'm missing something.
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magic gecko wrote: The way to stop this completely overpowered and game winning tactic is quite simple. Leave the Khorne Bloodletter 2VP upgrade in the box. Play with the Khorne Bloodletter first strike Upgrade from the basic game. Then the game is Wonderful.
I'm actually liking this. That upgrade was worthless before but with the increased importance of warriors for everyone it might actually be worth taking in some circumstances (not as much as his other upgrades, but it's a start).
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Posted Thu Nov 10, 2011 9:59 am
