After winning a game as khorne with the bloodletter upgrade and hosting a game with the same outcome in the end, I think what I'm noticing (with all of 3 games under my belt, so novice at best) is that players still tend to avoid khorne instead of really go on the offensive against him. I see plenty of tzeentch plays against him in some of the games, but not much more as people appear to aim at besting him in VP while his figures seem to grow each turn\, adding more battle dice and more potential VP for him.
I suppose I'd wager a guess that the upgrade gives khorne an edge due to it changing the mindset of the game. I see plenty of plays for domination or ruin scoring, but not as much with throwing dice against him I guess?
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AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
There's no incentive or upside to killing Khorne warriors commensurate with what people lose by playing Warriors instead of more valuable cultists. You would have to be killing 4 warriors each turn to dent Khorne, and that just isn't realistic. Moreover, you're giving Khorne targets for VP even as you kill him and his battledice are almost always going to score a kill, so even by killing his warriors you still don't deny him VP which is the entire idea behind trying to kill his warriors in the first place.
As an added note, for Game 65: Khorne won on VP with only 1 cultist played for the entire game (right at the start for adjacency and delaying purposes) and whose corruption only resulted in 3 VP (and wouldn't have altered the outcome of the game had it not been there).
True, but instead of just sending cultists everywhere, maybe the upgrade forces others to have warriors to help guard their cultists? I am trying to figure the logic with this upgrade being added I guess.
It just seems like you have to change the way you play from base game?
AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
Guarding how? Only the Rat has the upgrade that lets his warriors have a useful chance at preventing cultist deaths. Okay you've played battle dice and scored a lucky hit on Khorne and killed his figure. That doesn't prevent him from killing your figures in the process and giving him VP. Meanwhile, next round he just summons his warriors back again and repeats the process.
While the warriors cannot guard your cultists, it does make it more risky for khorne to throw warriors at you at least. The problem though, is that doing so also slows down ruination, which gives you the much needed points to help beat him in a VP battle. I guess I just don't see why this upgrade was added then, since it really does seem to take a group effort to slow him down.
Forcing Khorne to resummon every turn will limit the number of warriors on the board and therefore the number of victory points he can get. But people other than Nurgle don't like to do it as it is so expensive and you are not dropping corruption.
Perhaps it is a different way of playing, perhaps that upgrade is just too good... Looking at the number of Khorne wins on here it is high, and that is why its getting nerfed by vote in many games.
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mi-go hunterOnce again I'm back in the lab.Cleaning my knives, ready for stabs.Registered Userregular
edited March 2012
There's always the annoying yet effective Warp Portal to Norsca tactic to put Khorne behind at the start of the game
Yeah what other people said. You can dent Khorne OR try to win yourself, not both.
I have no clue what they were thinking with that upgrade. It's so ridiculous because it works on so many levels. You kill off enemy figures WHILE getting dial tokens WHILE scoring outrageous amounts of points. There's no need for it to keep Khorne competitive for VP wins; I've seen games where he does fine staying in the running with the cultist upgrade.
More and more I'm thinking I like the idea of simply replacing it with the base game upgrade. While it was fairly worthless in the base game, I could see it being a decent pick in the expansion. Maybe as a 2nd or 3rd upgrade when there's a late game battle royal about to go down and you need to knock off enemy figures early to protect your cultists.
It's funny, when I first learned the game and saw how HR worked, he gets VP with DAC's due to domination, but there's a lot of factors in there and in a sense, it's all or nothing. Either you dominate to get VP and get a DAC, or you get neither. With the BL upgrade, even a single hit garners you both coupled with the fact that the BL can die. Maybe the upgrade would've been better balanced if the bloodletter had to survive the round or even if a single khorne figure had to survive the round in each region for the VP.
I do have a comment on the Korne Bloodletter upgrade. Usually, when i play at home with friends, there's only 3 of us. Korne NEVER takes this upgrade. he just doesn't have enough troops to kill. Most of you that i hear talking about it assume the game is only played by 5 people. But in the other games, not sure about 4 either, it's really limited due to the lack of figures on the board. I'm not saying it doesn't have it's uses, but with only 2 other players, he isn't going to get more than 7-8 kills a round...at best...And you don't have to spread you def cards around as much. I don't know, yes i think in a 5 player game it is powerful. But if you consider the other game player totals, i think it's far more limited.
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
I do have a comment on the Korne Bloodletter upgrade. Usually, when i play at home with friends, there's only 3 of us. Korne NEVER takes this upgrade. he just doesn't have enough troops to kill. Most of you that i hear talking about it assume the game is only played by 5 people. But in the other games, not sure about 4 either, it's really limited due to the lack of figures on the board. I'm not saying it doesn't have it's uses, but with only 2 other players, he isn't going to get more than 7-8 kills a round...at best...And you don't have to spread you def cards around as much. I don't know, yes i think in a 5 player game it is powerful. But if you consider the other game player totals, i think it's far more limited.
While this is probably true, the game is supposed to be built and balanced around the five player game. Three and four players games are where the balance is supposed to fall off.
blahmcblahYou pick your side and you stick - you don't cut and run when things get ugly.Registered Userregular
edited March 2012
At some point (IRL) I'll probably end up trying four-player Morrslieb with just the Ruinous Powers, but I have a feeling the Bloodletter upgrade will likely be a bit overpowered in that situation as well.
Bloodletter upgrade is just as broken in 4 player games. Khorne screwed up his first round (bloodletter to badlands), didn't take it until his 2nd upgrade, never double ticked, wasn't really playing for points, and still won by over 15 VP.
Balancing it around a 3 player game is like balancing Battlestar Galactica around 2 players.
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AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
More and more I'm thinking I like the idea of simply replacing it with the base game upgrade. While it was fairly worthless in the base game, I could see it being a decent pick in the expansion. Maybe as a 2nd or 3rd upgrade when there's a late game battle royal about to go down and you need to knock off enemy figures early to protect your cultists.
I'm kind of partial to the change which makes Khorne gain a max of 2 VP in any region with a Bloodletter present in which he scores at least one kill against an enemy figure. That's still ~4-6 VP free a round and gives incentives to Khorne to dominate (not that it's terribly hard for him to do this with Lure of Battle & Skulltaker) for points and play cultists for ruination corruption.
More and more I'm thinking I like the idea of simply replacing it with the base game upgrade. While it was fairly worthless in the base game, I could see it being a decent pick in the expansion. Maybe as a 2nd or 3rd upgrade when there's a late game battle royal about to go down and you need to knock off enemy figures early to protect your cultists.
I'm kind of partial to the change which makes Khorne gain a max of 2 VP in any region with a Bloodletter present in which he scores at least one kill against an enemy figure. That's still ~4-6 VP free a round and gives incentives to Khorne to dominate (not that it's terribly hard for him to do this with Lure of Battle & Skulltaker) for points and play cultists for ruination corruption.
Although i like this idea, I think it should be limited to one region per battle phase. Choosen at the end of the battle phase, after all kills are totalled. It forces Korne to either build up in one region, and forgo spreading out the DAC's, or spreading out the troops, and getting a supplemental 2-6 VP.
On another topic: I like the sound of Aegis' proposed change to the Morrsleib Bloodletter upgrade - I think that that'd tone the upgrade down from "ridiculously good, especially compared to other Ruinous Powers' options" to "quite good."
We've been trying out a few different possible nerfs in the latest games:
1. Max 2 VP per region
2. 1 VP per kill instead of 2
3. Use the base bloodletter upgrade
Still too early to tell which would best balance it. Has anyone seen comments from the designers/original playtesters on what they were thinking with that upgrade? Obviously they decided Khorne needed a boost since the games seem to be ending more quickly, making DIAL victories more difficult, but it seems a bit odd that this is the case. A new power who has battle dice, competes for domination VP, but doesn't ever place corruption should slow down the game, not speed it up.
I really need to get over my 2nd place hump. This is the 2nd or 3rd straight time of ending second, with just not enough momentum to secure a win.
I know you finished second in our game. But 3 of us were all 1 vp away from each other. So i think it's more of a 3 way split if it's that close. Given DAC's and board position...
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AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
I really need to get over my 2nd place hump. This is the 2nd or 3rd straight time of ending second, with just not enough momentum to secure a win.
I know you finished second in our game. But 3 of us were all 1 vp away from each other. So i think it's more of a 3 way split if it's that close. Given DAC's and board position...
I'm kind of partial to the change which makes Khorne gain a max of 2 VP in any region with a Bloodletter present in which he scores at least one kill against an enemy figure. That's still ~4-6 VP free a round and gives incentives to Khorne to dominate (not that it's terribly hard for him to do this with Lure of Battle & Skulltaker) for points and play cultists for ruination corruption.
Much more once you consider rampage (unless you intentionally state that it's only 2 VP per region per round). Still too much room for easy abuse.
I think that game with the Bloodsworn upgrade domination VP win proves that Khorne doesn't even need VP from the BL upgrade to be competitive for points. Even if you nerf the warrior upgrade, at best it becomes a fairly redundant pick for a VP victory path. It'd be more interesting knowing you have more varied choices.
Of course the best indirect nerf might be the discussed but never tried out rule of raising the win condition to 60-70 VP. That's one aspect of the base game I truly think they overlooked when they went about making the expansion changes (along with Nurgle's 10 ticks). I miss realistic shots at dial victories. I miss being able to play with more than one upgrade for more than one turn (remember how people used to get THREE upgrades? o_O). Most of all I miss the amusing 2% chance of an Old World victory.
Many thanks to Admanb and FunkyWaltDogg for creating those webapps - I'm running an unofficial game with some friends now and it's great, deliciously low-friction.
The AppliedNerditry board page and its canvas-based awesomeness isn't displaying correctly for me when I view it on my iPhone. Is that happening for anyone else?
I'd like to Sign up. I probably will lay off Khorne as winning with pure Bloodletters felt rather cheesy, although rather fun. Throwing in cultists would probably be rather effective.
Did anyone mention the idea of limiting the VP gain to 2 per Bloodletter in a region?
We've been trying out a few different possible nerfs in the latest games:
1. Max 2 VP per region
2. 1 VP per kill instead of 2
3. Use the base bloodletter upgrade
Still too early to tell which would best balance it. Has anyone seen comments from the designers/original playtesters on what they were thinking with that upgrade? Obviously they decided Khorne needed a boost since the games seem to be ending more quickly, making DIAL victories more difficult, but it seems a bit odd that this is the case. A new power who has battle dice, competes for domination VP, but doesn't ever place corruption should slow down the game, not speed it up.
We've been trying out a few different possible nerfs in the latest games:
1. Max 2 VP per region
2. 1 VP per kill instead of 2
3. Use the base bloodletter upgrade
Still too early to tell which would best balance it. Has anyone seen comments from the designers/original playtesters on what they were thinking with that upgrade? Obviously they decided Khorne needed a boost since the games seem to be ending more quickly, making DIAL victories more difficult, but it seems a bit odd that this is the case. A new power who has battle dice, competes for domination VP, but doesn't ever place corruption should slow down the game, not speed it up.
I was just thinking about this and while the logic that the HR should slow down the game based on the points above is true, perhaps the difference is actually the new Chaos cards and Upgrades, maybe that is what has changed the game to a 4 turn game instead of a 5 turn. If you think of things like Havoc, Festival of Sinew and Quicken Decay to name a few, they keep battle dice out of regions allowing them to ruin quick. Quicken is less effective but generally nets a lot of VP for Nurgle if used right.
The AppliedNerditry board page and its canvas-based awesomeness isn't displaying correctly for me when I view it on my iPhone. Is that happening for anyone else?
I'm a little to ashamed to admit it, but since I knew the drag-and-drop interface was never going to work on a mobile browser, I never bothered to check how it looked.
Definitely Cerberus, a lot of the old chaos cards stopped corruption now a lot of them boosts corruption, also there are more upgrades and cards that give extra VPs.
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Sure, but I meant the ones who haven't been using the forums before, where this thread is their first point of contact or whatever.
I suppose I'd wager a guess that the upgrade gives khorne an edge due to it changing the mindset of the game. I see plenty of plays for domination or ruin scoring, but not as much with throwing dice against him I guess?
As an added note, for Game 65: Khorne won on VP with only 1 cultist played for the entire game (right at the start for adjacency and delaying purposes) and whose corruption only resulted in 3 VP (and wouldn't have altered the outcome of the game had it not been there).
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
It just seems like you have to change the way you play from base game?
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Perhaps it is a different way of playing, perhaps that upgrade is just too good... Looking at the number of Khorne wins on here it is high, and that is why its getting nerfed by vote in many games.
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I have no clue what they were thinking with that upgrade. It's so ridiculous because it works on so many levels. You kill off enemy figures WHILE getting dial tokens WHILE scoring outrageous amounts of points. There's no need for it to keep Khorne competitive for VP wins; I've seen games where he does fine staying in the running with the cultist upgrade.
More and more I'm thinking I like the idea of simply replacing it with the base game upgrade. While it was fairly worthless in the base game, I could see it being a decent pick in the expansion. Maybe as a 2nd or 3rd upgrade when there's a late game battle royal about to go down and you need to knock off enemy figures early to protect your cultists.
While this is probably true, the game is supposed to be built and balanced around the five player game. Three and four players games are where the balance is supposed to fall off.
I may be able to host another one, we'll see how timing goes.
Balancing it around a 3 player game is like balancing Battlestar Galactica around 2 players.
I'm kind of partial to the change which makes Khorne gain a max of 2 VP in any region with a Bloodletter present in which he scores at least one kill against an enemy figure. That's still ~4-6 VP free a round and gives incentives to Khorne to dominate (not that it's terribly hard for him to do this with Lure of Battle & Skulltaker) for points and play cultists for ruination corruption.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Although i like this idea, I think it should be limited to one region per battle phase. Choosen at the end of the battle phase, after all kills are totalled. It forces Korne to either build up in one region, and forgo spreading out the DAC's, or spreading out the troops, and getting a supplemental 2-6 VP.
On another topic: I like the sound of Aegis' proposed change to the Morrsleib Bloodletter upgrade - I think that that'd tone the upgrade down from "ridiculously good, especially compared to other Ruinous Powers' options" to "quite good."
1. Max 2 VP per region
2. 1 VP per kill instead of 2
3. Use the base bloodletter upgrade
Still too early to tell which would best balance it. Has anyone seen comments from the designers/original playtesters on what they were thinking with that upgrade? Obviously they decided Khorne needed a boost since the games seem to be ending more quickly, making DIAL victories more difficult, but it seems a bit odd that this is the case. A new power who has battle dice, competes for domination VP, but doesn't ever place corruption should slow down the game, not speed it up.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
I know you finished second in our game. But 3 of us were all 1 vp away from each other. So i think it's more of a 3 way split if it's that close. Given DAC's and board position...
I'm taking that 1 VP lead and running with it!
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Much more once you consider rampage (unless you intentionally state that it's only 2 VP per region per round). Still too much room for easy abuse.
I think that game with the Bloodsworn upgrade domination VP win proves that Khorne doesn't even need VP from the BL upgrade to be competitive for points. Even if you nerf the warrior upgrade, at best it becomes a fairly redundant pick for a VP victory path. It'd be more interesting knowing you have more varied choices.
Of course the best indirect nerf might be the discussed but never tried out rule of raising the win condition to 60-70 VP. That's one aspect of the base game I truly think they overlooked when they went about making the expansion changes (along with Nurgle's 10 ticks). I miss realistic shots at dial victories. I miss being able to play with more than one upgrade for more than one turn (remember how people used to get THREE upgrades? o_O). Most of all I miss the amusing 2% chance of an Old World victory.
Game 60 may restart if all players wish to.
The Black Hole of Cygnus X-1
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/156585/chaos-in-the-old-world-games-played-over-chat
(I filed a bug, yes)
They grow up so fast.
The Black Hole of Cygnus X-1
Did anyone mention the idea of limiting the VP gain to 2 per Bloodletter in a region?
I'd like to re-sign up.
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I was just thinking about this and while the logic that the HR should slow down the game based on the points above is true, perhaps the difference is actually the new Chaos cards and Upgrades, maybe that is what has changed the game to a 4 turn game instead of a 5 turn. If you think of things like Havoc, Festival of Sinew and Quicken Decay to name a few, they keep battle dice out of regions allowing them to ruin quick. Quicken is less effective but generally nets a lot of VP for Nurgle if used right.
I'm a little to ashamed to admit it, but since I knew the drag-and-drop interface was never going to work on a mobile browser, I never bothered to check how it looked.