I rarely write reviews. I'm not very good at it, and usually leave it to the experts, although I enjoy reading them. The reason for this review is that a) I just finished playing an advanced copy at the St. Louis Geekway to the West boardgaming con, and b) there aren't any other reviews, so thought I'd pass along a few thoughts.
Wow. All I can say is wow. A crowning achievement in game expansions.
I had my reservations about adding a 5th player. Will the board be too crowded? Add too much time? Give <PERSON> too much opportunity to be even stronger? Throw off the entire balance of the CITOW space time continuum?
In short, I think it actually improves the game. I'll stop there a second and let you other die hard Chaos fans inhale that for a second. What, improves it? Improves an already perfect game?
Well we already know the game in it's base form just doesn't play well with 2-3. It just doesn't. But who cares, it's my all time favorite game, and if you can find four people that love the game, it's the most incredible 90 minutes of tense, thematic gaming that you can ask for.
Now adding a 5th player will add another 30 minutes. So you can mostly count on a 2 hour game. If I had to find a 'negative' that'd be all I can come up with. But actually I wouldn't even consider that a negative. The game becomes even more intense, more dramatic, and a deeper experience than it already is. The little rat b*stards are actually pretty clever, and can really sneak up on you when you're not paying attention. They move quickly, and feed off regions that are getting ruined. They add more meaning to the existing skaven tokens, and they really have some terrific chaos cards.
So in short, 5 players = good. Very very good.
The designers could just as easily thrown in the rats 5th player and called it a day. Rat deck. Rat upgrade cards. Rat minis. Done. 366
Good job fellas, works great, plays great. Let's grab a beer.
But no, they took the base game itself to an entirely new level. They added completely new upgrade cards and completely new chaos cards for every power.
I actually didn't know this going into the game. I knew about the 5th player, but purposely didn't study the power as I wanted to play it fresh. What did surprise me was that every card we played was different.
I remember the first time I played Chaos. An incredible gaming experience, one of the best. This game topped it in spades. All new cards meant all new tricks, it was like I was playing the game for the first time. And they're fantastic.
One major difference to note is Khorne's new optional path for vp. Khorne's chaos cards now allow for dirty tricks to focus on a vp run, while still maintaining the integrity of it's flavor. Without going into too many specifics and examples, it still felt as if the focus was death, battle and destruction, but with a 'trick you all' maneuver of making a vp run when you least expect it. The person that played Khorne in our game was his first game ever of Chaos. He played very well, but like every time you play Khorne you always learn some valuable lessons. I look forward to trying it with the new chaos cards.
Just thinking of all the new expansion cards...you can shuffle the two together. You can deckbuild if you want. (I'm sure the new expansion rulebook goes into all of this, but I haven't read it yet, just imagining the possibilities).
The designers of the game should be very proud. <PERSON> kindly brought the game down to St. Louis to demo the new expansion, and I saw many games being played, and a romping good time at each table. You can tell his passion for the game, as well as his interest in making this especially for the fans.
Thanks for a perfect expansion to a perfect game. The only thing that'll be weird for me now is instead of explaining Chaos in the Old World as "really only playing with 4" now I'll say "it plays equally well with 4-5". Weird. But awesome. Must buy. 366