Chaos in der Alten Welt!

So I got my hands on Chaos in the Old World a few weeks ago. I've only managed one game so far but I really loved it! It felt to me like the perfect mix of theme, game mechanics and play time. I'm amazed at how well designer Eric Lang has managed to weave the character of the four Chaos gods into the actual gameplay mechanic of the game. This is a game where the theme feels like an integral part of the game mechanics rather than something pasted on that might just as well have been something else. Well, I'm not going to write a full review here, but suffice to say I'm really happy I got it. It's honestly the best "wow experience" I've had since playing Twilight Imperium for the first time.

In my first and only game I took the role of Tzeentch - Changer of Ways. He's a sneaky fellow who get to draw up to five Chaos Cards every turn and advances his dial by hoarding Warpstone and magic energy. Since it was the first time I was fairly careful in the beginning and just stayed in my (Warpstone infested corner) and biding my time. I played some cards here and there and tried to figure out the best strategy for Tzeentch. It finally clicked when I realized that the Teleport card can be used not only on my unit's but on the opponents units as well! And this was just in time as well as Khorne finally decided that I needed a good asskicking. A couple of teleports later and his Bloodletters were on the other side of the map though. Muahahaha!!

By this time Nurgle was in the lead (VP-wise) with Slaanesh and myself a little bit further behind. Khorne was quite far behind, but that's only natural since he's all about dial advancement (well, normally). It really looked like Nurgle was going to win but then I managed to ruin the two regions I'd been relaxing in, The Boarder Princes and The Badlands, and since I had managed to basically keep everyone else out of them I got a huge amount of points for being the sole Ruiner! So I sailed past Slaanesh and Nurgle and ended up winning the game. Wee! Changes for the better! We all had a great time and this all, including rules explanation, took only 90 minutes. I think everyone was up for another game, but we had the Pegasus Expansion for BSG to try out as well...

So anyway, the game being so good and with it having a rather short play time I felt that it's going to hit the table a lot in the future so I decided to take a break with the Age of Conan miniatures and paint the daemons and cultists of Chaos in the Old World. They were rather quick to paint, probably about six hours per god, and I'm pretty happy with how they turned out!

Slaanesh.

Khorne.

Tzeentch.

Nurgle.

For those curious about painting technique, it's rather basic stuff. I'm using Citadel paints mainly because that's what I'm used to and it's readily available here in Japan. After rinsing the minis in some luke warm soap water I started off with a black spray undercoat. Then I took the base colour (Catachan Green for the Great Unclean One for example) and mixed it with black about 50/50 to get a nice dark base coat. Then it's just a matter of working up from there, going gradually lighter and using softer brush strokes on the highlights. I didn't bother to do that many blending steps as the figures are rather small. Usually black/base colour blend > base colour > white/base colour blend > top highlights with more white. Of course, for Khorne daemons I didn't use white as that'd make them pink but instead went from Scab Red to Blood Red.

Just a quick word on the boils on the Nurgle daemons which are really easy to paint. I just put a dot of Bubonic Brown (my yellow colour of choice. It's such a great and versatile colour. I love it!) on them and then painted over that dot with some really watered down Scab Red. Dead simple!

I had a lot of fun painting these guys and I'm looking forward to painting some Warhammer minis for the upcoming third edition of the roleplaying game. I don't see myself ever getting into the wargame part of the hobby again (I'll get AT-43 for that) but personalizing and painting a few minis here and there for the rpg would be great fun! I think I'll start with a Free Company box and maybe some Empire Archers...