Chaos in the Old World

by Fantasy Flight Games

Product Features

• Take on the role of a Chaos god and be the first to corrupt the Old World
• Based in the popular Warhammer Fantasy setting created by Games Workshop
• Age: 13+
• Number of Players: 3 - 4
• Playing Time: 1-2 hours

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 3 x 11.8 x 11.8 inches ; 4.3 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 4.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: 1589946510
• Item model number: GW01
• Manufacturer recommended age: 13 years and up
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,661 in Toys & Games (See Top 100 in Toys & Games)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

What hope can there be for the mortal world?- Liber MaleficIn the Warhammer world, four Gods of Chaos battle for supremacy. Khorne, the Blood God, the Skulltaker, lusts for death and battle. Nurgle, the Plaguelord, the Father of Corruption, luxuriates in filth and disease.Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways, the Great Conspirator, plots the fate of the universe. Slaanesh, the Prince of Pleasure and Pain, the Lord of Temptations, lures even the most steadfast to his six deadly seductions.In the Chaos in the Old World board game, each player takes the role of one of the malevolent Lords of Chaos. Each god's distinctive powers and legion of followers give the controlling player unique strengths and heretical abilities with which to corrupt and enslave the Old World. Yet, as the powers of Chaos seek domination by corruption and conquest, they must vie not only against each other, but also against the desperate denizens of the Old World who fight to banish the gods back to the maelstrom of the Realm of Chaos... for now.The time of woe is upon us.- Grimoire DaemonicusChaos in the Old World includes:•1 Rulebook•1 Game Board•45 High-quality, fully detailed plastic playing pieces•4 Threat Dials•4 Power Sheets•More than 175 Tokens•Over 125 Cards•5 Dice

Product Description

In the Warhammer world, four Gods of Chaos battle for supremacy. Khorne, the Blood God, the Skulltaker, lusts for death and battle. Nurgle, the Plaguelord, the Father of Corruption, luxuriates in filth and disease.Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways, the Great Conspirator, plots the fate of the universe. Slaanesh, the Prince of Pleasure and Pain, the Lord of Temptations, lures even the most steadfast to his six deadly seductions. In the Chaos in the Old World board game, 3-4 players take on the roles of the malevolent Lords of Chaos. Each god's distinctive powers and legion of followers give the controlling player unique strengths and heretical abilities with which to corrupt and enslave the Old World. Yet, as the powers of Chaos seek domination by corruption and conquest, they must vie not only against each other, but also against the desperate denizens of the Old World who fight to banish the gods back to the maelstrom of the Realm of Chaos...for now.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's Great to Be the Baddie, September 18, 2009

By 

A. Cheung (Milpitas, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chaos in the Old World (Game)

This game will ruin your game collection. All your other games will gather dust because Chaos in the Old World (COW) will be the only game that 3-4 people will beg to play.

COW is a game that has beautiful parity with diverse options to victory. Each player plays an evil god bent on destroying the world. The rules are simple. You summon creatures, play chaos cards, fight by rolling dice, then calculate points. Whoever has the most points wins.

How's that fun?

COW's master stroke is that each god adds its own flavor for playing the game. For instance, if you play Khorne, you are the blood god and relish the chance to attack other players much as you can. You get chaos cards that aid your bloodlust. By killing figures, Khorne also gains upgraded abilities through the game. Other players tend to flee from his reign of terror. The three other gods, Tzeentch, Nurgle, and Slaanesh, are much more subtle. For instance, each respective god can teleport, overwhelm, or control other players' figures. No god will ever play the same as the other 3. By playing as your god should, you stand an excellent chance to win.

Never does COW feel like playing solitaire. Each player is constantly watching the moves of the others and whispering to their fellow players in the hopes of creating fleeting alliances. The tension built during the game is astonishing as games are won typically by thin margins.

Chaos in the Old World's tension, variation, art, theme, and balance will have you and your friends lusting for more plays than other games. I cannot recommend COW highly enough.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but possible game balance problems, April 26, 2010

By 

A. Kazimierczak (Maine, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:3.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:2.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Chaos in the Old World (Game)

Chaos in the Old World is a fast paced interesting spin on the world conquest genre set in the Warhammer Fantasy universe. It is for 3-4 players, but ideally 4 players as the balance issues crop up a lot with only three. Each player takes on the role of one of the gods of chaos who is intent on corrupting the world, and the game has a phantom fifth player which is the world and all its pitiful mortal denizens who are trying to survive and stave off the apocalypse.

Pros:

-Short: It's a relatively short game, taking 2-3 hours to finish (about 3 hours for your first game). This is great if you don't have endless time to kill and are petrified of more daunting wargames like Axis & Allies or Twilight Imperium which could suck up a whole day.

-Immersion: The flavor text and personality for each chaos god is excellent. Each chaos god has unique winning conditions and powers that fit his idiom. For example Nurgle plays a Rain of Pus card on a battle to gain defense. You have to alter your strategy to fit your particular character's strengths if you want to win.

-Pick up and play: The game mechanics are pretty easy to pick up and play compared to many other army combat board games; making it easier to bring this up with casual gamers who are intimidated by giant rulebooks and stacks of chits.

-Randomness: Good and bad. I like the randomness of Old World card events, but they tend to cripple certain players if they fall just right and sometimes they never recover. It does make every game unique, but that is not always a good thing especially when you win or lose at the whim of fate. I like how Slannesh's cards allow you to take over other players' units temporarily and Tzneetch can teleport units around-- they are both very fun mechanics that also fit the chaos gods' personalities.

-Figures: The plastic figures for units are great and a welcome change from cardboard chits (of which there are plenty in this game). The figures are also unique for each god's higher cost followers and are very detailed.


Cons:

-Balance: Because the chaos gods are each unique there is always the question of game balance. There are two ways to win: get 50 Victory Points or advance your Threat Wheel (or the game ends when you ruin too much of the world and compare Victory Points, or Old World cards run out and the game wins). The problem is that each player's Threat Wheel advances with different conditions, some of which are easier than others, and some players have to advance it more to win. Nurgle really only can win by Victory Points and Khorne can only win by advancing his Threat Wheel. The other two gods are a toss up, but I have found that the Threat Wheel advancement is easier in general for both.
My first game I played Khorne in a 3 player game and it was ridiculously easy to win. Khorne's units are just much better than everyone else's and as you upgrade them it gets even easier. I don't like that only Khorne wins by attacking other players: everyone else is avoiding combat and trying to complete their own agendas while Khorne is picking fights.
The next game I played Tzneetch and we kept Khorne out because he seemed unbalanced. The problem was that the Old World cards that came up this game made Tzneetch's winning conditions much easier and through no fault of my own I was winning again. With four players it evens out a bit, but mostly because there are more people to gang up on the winning player when it unbalances.

-Lack of variety of cards: The power cards for each chaos god repeat a lot. The powers there are nice, but I would have appreciated a more varied deck. It stifles replayability.

-The Map: For a Warhammer game it has a pretty boring map. It is the Old World, but the regions are all generic with a number rating and whether they are populous or not. The map never changes and many random events always target the same map areas. Your units don't actually move: they just get summoned into a space adjacent to an area you already have a unit. When you run out of units you have to summon them out of other areas (paying the same cost as if you summoned them from scratch). So it really doesn't feel like you're moving around in a medieval world as much as plopping demons down on a cosmic chessboard.

-Too many cardboard chits with no place to put them all: BYOPB (bring your own plastic baggies).


So a lot of nit-picking criticisms but overall I like Chaos in the Old World. If you're looking for a light wargame with a lot of Warhammer personality that can be finished in a night then this is a fun choice. I wouldn't play this every day though as the strategies will get old. You will find that you like one chaos god's powers and winning conditions more than the others', and everyone might end up fighting to play one of them unless you assign roles randomly.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantasy Flight Games does it again, January 28, 2010

By 

M. Hlavsa "baker" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:1.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Chaos in the Old World (Game)

I've been a fan of Fantasy Flight Games for awhile now but they have come out with something special in this title.

Pros: A Fast, Fun, Easy, Dynamic, Game.
Cons: Really needs 4 players to achieve balance, somewhat pricey for a board game but not unreasonable for what you get.

To start, the game is made from a traditional hard cardboard fold up style playing surface that is thick and durable. The pieces are plastic miniatures similar to Axis and Allies or Twilight Imperium. One drawback is the thin plastic used for the staff on the Cultist pieces breaks very easily but all the other pieces are very sturdy.

The rules are simple to explain and game play is easily learned with about 20 minutes of explanation and after one game turn is well understood. The simplicity of the rules system does not detract from the game however as it is similar to chess in minutes to learn lifetime to master. Play balance is such that, of the four games I've played to date, all of them were decided in the very last turn with only a few points separating first from second.

With four new players expect to play for about three and a half hours and once everyone is familiar with game play you could crack out a full game in a little over two. Setup is very fast taking maybe 5 minutes.

In the heart of the game each player takes on a demon faction vying for dominance of a mid-evil world with the one who corrupts the most locations or advances the fastest winning, however if time runs out all can lose. What makes this game very fun to play is the random event cards that shift the balance of power from one faction to another forcing players to come up with new strategies to win each time they play. This randomness also means that you will never play the same game twice. There is quite a bit of strategy for a game with such a simple play system. For people who like games with alliances and diplomacy this isn't the game for you, as diplomacy in Chaos in the old world generally is expressed as "what are you planning to do there?" once a move has been made and alliances are non existent.

Overall I would highly recommend this game for its ease of play, fun and its potential to introduce people to nontraditional (monopoly) style gaming.