Octopus Overlords

Thus begins a forum game of Chaos in the Old World, with the Horned Rat Expansion! We will be using all the new stuff except for the expert level Old World cards (due to having some new players in the mix).

A brief summary of the game, from Boardgamegeek.com:

Chaos in the Old World makes you a god. Each god’s distinctive powers and legion of followers grant you unique strengths and diabolical abilities with which to corrupt and enslave the Old World.

Yet, as you and your fellow powers of Chaos seek domination by corruption and conquest, you must vie not only against each other, but also against the desperate denizens of the Old World who fight to banish you back to the maelstrom of the Realm of Chaos.

Chaos in the Old World features two ways to win, and gives you an unparalleled opportunity to reshape the world in your image. Every turn you corrupt the landscape, dominating its inhabitants, and battle with the depraved followers of rival gods. Each god has a unique deck of gifts and abilities, and can upgrade their followers into deadly foes. Summon forth living manifestations of Chaos, debased and hidden cultists, and the horrifying greater daemons - beings capable of destroying near everything in their path.

Some resources, in case you're new:

Rules
FAQ (including the Horned Rat Expansion)
Expansion Rules

Khorne Reference Sheet
Nurgle Reference Sheet
Tzeentch Reference Sheet
Slaanesh Reference Sheet
Horned Rat Reference Sheet

Handtracker

A game in progress


Khorne Information
Nurgle Information
Tzeentch Information
Slaanesh Information
The Horned Rat Information

Current board state:

http://appliednerditry.com/chaos/gamebo ... ?game=1100



General Strategy Tips
Turn order:

Khorne
Nurgle
Tzeentch
Slaanesh
Horned Rat



Onboard:

Remus West
Isgrimnur
BB2112
rshetts2
Qantaga

I'd need to read the expansion rules but I'd definitely play.

I've heard enough about it to be interested to play.

BTW, black links don't show up for those of us using the black theme.

I'd need to read the rules, but I would be interested.

Ill look it over as well, count me in if you get it rolling

Fixed!

That's four people already. If y'all are okay with doing the expansion, we can open it up for one more. Otherwise, this is it.

Grazi

Count me in, if you go with the expansion. If you don't expand, I'll happily just watch and follow along.

Qantaga wrote:Count me in, if you go with the expansion. If you don't expand, I'll happily just watch and follow along.

Damn you. Now I actually have to read the expansion rules.
Just remember, iirc, we are all Evil except bb2112. He is genuinely a good guy. Which means we should all pile on trashing his chances.

Remus West wrote:Just remember, iirc, we are all Evil except bb2112. He is genuinely a good guy. Which means we should all pile on trashing his chances.

Story of my life. I'm always the good guy, but you guys kill me anyway.

I'll happily watch this. CITOW rocks.

Also, note that you can play with the base power cards for the four non-expansion gods even if you are also playing with the Horned Rat. The only restriction is that ALL four (base-game) gods must choose either the base game or expansion power cards.

It looks like youve got a lot of interest. In the spirit of paying it forward, Isgrimnur kindly bowed out of our Arkham game to allow me a place. I would be happy to pass that favor on by stepping aside for someone else to get a chance at playing. Besides, since Ive never played CitOW, you may be better served to grab someone with some experience. Ill be content to follow along and learn.

Anyways, go ahead and let someone else get the opportunity to play. If you give it a second go, save me a spot.

Oh, thanks, but you should stay in. I own the game and get plenty of chances to play it - you should play. Like I said, I'm happy to observe.

If you've never played before, RS, I definitely want you in. Part of the reason for doing this is to expose new players and hopefully get them as hooked as I am.

Okay, as mentioned before, there are five gods. When I play, we usually hand out gods randomly so that players get to try different gods rather than choosing the same ones every time. However, other forum games of CitOW allow the players to choose which they prefer in the order they signed up. Do y'all have a preference either way?

Random. With new players it is more likely to keep things on an even footing (and that has nothing to do with my not having played enough to have a plan for any of them, honest ).

Original post updated with images of reference sheets for each god. Especially for new players, I recommend printing these out as the round sequence section is really helpful at illustrating the flow of the game.

Remus makes a good point, so I'mma make a command decision: random it is.

Without further ado:



Remus West as Tzeentch!

Tzeentch is a God of Chaos who represents the vitality and volatility of change. Tzeentch is closely associated with sorcery and magic, as well as dynamic mutation, and grand, convoluted scheming. In his mind Tzeentch listens to the hopes and plans of every mortal and every nation; and through his own complex plots and manipulation he alters the course of history to achieve some great plan beyond mortal knowledge. Tzeentch is often visualised as the serpent which writhes and twists to represent constant change and this is mirrored in his symbol with curves and points to represent change and conclusion.





Isgrimnur as Nurgle!

Nurgle, also known as the Plague Lord, is the Chaos God of Disease, Decay, and Destruction. In particular, the emotion of despair in mortals empowers him. He is known also as Grandfather Nurgle, the Lord of Pestilence and the Lord of Decay. He is the oldest of the four Chaos Gods and is the most directly involved with the plights of mortals, particularly humans who suffer so acutely from a fear of death, perhaps the oldest fear of that species. While Nurgle is the God of death and decay, to be certain, he is also the God of rebirth. After all, decay is simply one part of the cycle of life, without which no new life could grow.





BB2112 as Slaanesh!

Slaanesh is the Chaos God of lust, excess, pleasure, perfection and hedonism. Slaanesh typically appears in a form which is female on the right side and male on the left with two sets of horns rising from its flowing golden hair. It can however assume any form; male, female, hermaphrodite or asexual, but prefers male bodies. Its sacred number is six. The symbol of Slaanesh combines the conventional symbols for male and female. It is also known by a multitude of titles such as the Prince of Chaos, Prince of Excess, Prince of Pleasure and Lord of Dark Delights. To the Eldar, who do not name the god, she is referred to only by the Lovecraftian titles of She Who Thirsts, She Who Is Not Named, The Great Enemy, The Great Serpent, etc.





Rshetts2 as The Horned Rat!

The Horned Rat, also known as the Horned One, is the patron deity of the Skaven, and is worshipped exclusively by them. The Horned Rat represents the characteristics of the Skaven race itself — deceit, spitefulness, backstabbing, disease and corruption. Despite these characteristics, the Horned Rat wishes that the Skaven work together to rule the entire world, which would then allow him to return, though what this "return" means is not further elaborated. Fortunately for other races of the Warhammer world, the Skaven, much like Orcs, number many, but are too divided and bickering, some even at war with each other, and do not have the unity to pose a dire threat to the existence of other races.

and finally...





Qantaga as Khorne!

Khorne, also called the Blood God and the Lord of Skulls, is the Chaos God of Blood, War and Murder. His domain covers the most basic and brutal of sentient emotions and actions, such as hate, anger, rage, war and killing. Every act of killing or murder in the material universe gives Khorne power; the more senseless and destructive, the better. Khorne is said to have inherited a martial nobility and honour, and considers the weak and helpless to be unworthy of his wrath. The battle-cry of the followers of Khorne reflects his desire for wanton violence: "Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Throne of Khorne!" Alternatively, they may cry, "Skulls for the Skull Throne!" In the throes of violence, Khorne's followers are also known to bellow, "KILL! MAIM! BURN!" repeatedly while hacking apart their enemies.

To add flavor and make it easier for people (including me) to follow the action, once the game has started I'd ask that players post using a font colour corresponding with the color of their respective gods. I've used them a couple times in this post, but for reference those basic colors are:

Khorne: Red
Nurgle: Green
Tzeentch: Blue
Slaanesh: Purple
Horned Rat: Grey

OO's font colour chooser doesn't appear to have a suitable grey, so I had to dig for an HTML code for that one. If you like the colors above, the color codes are:

Red: #FF0000
Nurgle: #40BF40
Tzeentch: #0000FF
Slaanesh: #8040FF
Horned Rat: #736F6E

Otherwise, feel free to pick whatever shade of your color you like, but please make sure it's readable and that you use it consistently.


The first post has been modified to include important information for each god, behind spoiler tags for neatness. All this information is public and I recommend looking it all over at your leisure so you know what your fellow antagonists are capable of doing.

FYI for observers using the black and gold font, dark blue is going to be borderline unreadable. Light blue might be better for Tzeetch in that regard. Though in any event you're going to have to balance the two OO viewing formats.

yeah, based on Izzie's comment about the black font I figured we'd have some issues, but we'll get em ironed out.

My people, being the inventive type, discover, with the aid of my inspiration of course, penicillin and thus remove both Isgrimnur and bb2112 from the game as their powers are weakened to the point of uselessness. Thanks for playing guys.

I'm going to enjoy watching this thread.

For card management, we will be using a web-based utility called HandTracker. I will be managing the Old World deck while you each will be managing your own decks through the app.

Go here:

http://handtracker.heroku.com/login" target="_blank

Create an account and let me know what your login name is. The site will warn you that passwords are sent in plain text, so don't use a password you care about.

Awesome. If everyone knows their role, and how to play, CitOW is one of the best board games ever. Have fun!

Skulls, baby!

I've printed out the rules and I'll be studying them tomorrow morning. This looks quite cool.

Remus West wrote:My people, being the inventive type, discover, with the aid of my inspiration of course, penicillin and thus remove both Isgrimnur and bb2112 from the game as their powers are weakened to the point of uselessness. Thanks for playing guys.

Sweet. I call their skulls!

I think I'm ready to kick this up. Let me know when you've created your handtracker accounts and when you've looked over the rules enough that you feel comfortable.

handtracker account created. Login: Remus West

reading up on the rules later today hopefully.

my account is created.... under rshetts

Isgrimnur has an account.

I'll get my account set up tonight (busy day at work today).

If I create an account on handtracker will I be able to look in on the hands?

Scoop20906 wrote:If I create an account on handtracker will I be able to look in on the hands?

If not I'm happy to PM you my password so you can look at mine hand at least.

it doesn't appear so, Scoop. The only permissions a player can be given are to draw a card, draw a card into hand, and give. It doesn't even look like the admin can view hands. The way it's going to work is that every time someone plays a card, they're going to click 'play' and then the app will output a page like this:

http://handtracker.heroku.com/games/122/acts/7209" target="_blank

In the thread, the person who played the card will post saying something like: I play Terror into Norsca, linking the card name to the handtracker URL as a confirmation that they really did have and play the card.

I'll clarify a little more on how this will all go once players are ready.

Set up on handtracker.

bb2112 is my user name

I"m set up on handtracker, too.

Surprisingly enough, Login = Qantaga

All players are now in Handtracker.

Having never run a forum game before, I'm having a little quandary. The sessions I'm modeling this after use two different web-based apps for both hand management (Handtracker) and dice rolling (either orokos or invisible castle). Handtracker is a necessary evil, but since orokos and invisible castle both require signins, I'd rather offer you the option of having me roll all the dice so you don't have to manage both apps. What say you?

Jow wrote: Handtracker is a necessary evil, but since orokos and invisible castle both require signins, I'd rather offer you the option of having me roll all the dice so you don't have to manage both apps. What say you?

I'm happy with you rolling the dice for us.

Ditto

agreed. Roll them bones.

As mod, I just assumed you would roll the dice and tell us the results. I'm cool with that.

I roll all the dice for the Arkham games (well, the Arkham app on my phone does but I pass along the results) so I have no issues with you doing the same.