We just finished our 3rd online game with 4 experienced players.  This is the 2nd win for Tzeentch.  I didn't play him and the game started before this thread so I didn't record, or recollect exactly how he did it.  But Tzeentch played a good game of getting his defenisve cards up so it wass too expensive to target him.  On the 4th round, he managed to get the rest of us to our Power Points first (by playing teo Drain Powers in a row) so he was able to stall and get more power points.  He was left with 5 or 6 when the rest of us were out.  He was then able to target two regions to ruin and got extra help from the Warpstones he carried over from other regions.  He won int he 4th round with 56 points.

I don;t buy the Tzech can't win.  My game group went crazy over this game and plays again and again and again. The wins between the Gods are pretty close to equal. I do think its a very well balanced game.

Tzeech does play well as a manipulater. The trick is to not be to direct about it but REALLY be a behind the scene manipulator. Stay quiet, stay out of the way, and use your trick cards to make other players more attarctive.

For some out of the box tzeech thinking do somthing bold like HELP another play.  For example. Teleport a slannesh cultists onto a hero or noble token don;t give a good reason for it, and watch other players jump on them.  I must admit, playing tzeech well involves somtimes looking beyond game mechanics and playing the group, and you can;lt tell me ANY group can;t be played......

I actully find that slannesh is the most likey to get srewed by nobel tokens. Sure they only need the one token, BUT they can;t creat them. Get your two tokens in populas zones and near the center, and you will STRUGGLE to get even that first dial click.  Those games can be the most frustrating as you have NO controll over you destiney, especialy if those zones burn fast and you can;t use the token mocing card on it.

Dywnarc said:

Slanny does have those Hero/Noble mover cards in the deck. Can't recall how many copies, two at least (yeah, luck of the draw and all that).

Dam said:

Besides which, in that situation I find it's best to delay as long as possible and then go for a VP win, starting where the other players haven't concentrated. This works especially well if Khorne is camping on your noble tokens expecting you to run over there

[quote] Tzeech does play well as a manipulater. The trick is to not be to direct about it but REALLY be a behind the scene manipulator. Stay quiet, stay out of the way, and use your trick cards to make other players more attarctive.

For some out of the box tzeech thinking do somthing bold like HELP another play.  For example. Teleport a slannesh cultists onto a hero or noble token don;t give a good reason for it, and watch other players jump on them.  I must admit, playing tzeech well involves somtimes looking beyond game mechanics and playing the group, and you can;lt tell me ANY gro

I actully find that slannesh is the most likey to get srewed by nobel tokens. Sure they only need the one token, BUT they can;t creat them. Get your two tokens in populas zones and near the center, and you will STRUGGLE to get even that first dial click.  Those games can be the most frustrating as you have NO controll over you destiney, especialy if those zones burn fast and you can;t use the token mocing card on it.

 [/quote]

A couple times we tried this approach, but it's such a thin margin between laying low and laying TOO low that we ended up not cashing in on victory points. It just seems entirely dependent on saving up your stasis cards and getting all 3 by the time you make your warpstone teleport move, or saving up your drain power cards, but if you save those up then you're not getting any new cards at draw.

Tzeentch's biggest strength has seemed to be that there really aren't any old world cards that specifically screw him, and the one blessing of your not being able to keep up in dial advancement is that you'll always have the lowest threat and can direct the OW cards, but even then it comes down to luck of getting god specific screwing cards (sue for peace on Khorne, remove all corruption for Nurgle).

I don't think Slaneesh is more screwed by starting placement than Tzeentch. He gets cards that can permanently move those tokens while Tzeentch has to spend points every turn creating magic symbols or wait for an upgrade to move warpstone.

 OK.  You're right.  Tzeentch can't win.

ColtsFan76 said:

Chill, buddy. We're talking game mechanics, not insulting your mother.

I'm just telling what's been happening when we tried this stuff in our group. The general ideas haven't been working so I asked if anyone had specific play by plays.

I really don't see a discussion.  For everything that is brought up, you have a reason why it doesn't work.

I have followed this game since it came out.  There are Khorne can't win threads, Khorne can't lose threads.  And the same for each and every god in this game.  We all have the same game we all have the same components.  Hopefully, we all have the same rule interpretation and playing with the same errata and clarifications.  So what's different?  Play style.  This game is subject to group think.

So if you don't see how Tzeentch can possibly win then it is most likely "how" you and your group are playing the game and not seeing the possibilities.  You have some solid paths to explore and if it isn't working then you probably aren't using them at the right time.  Timing is important in this game so you don't invest heavily in a region only to have an opponent screw with you.  

But it is hard to lay out an exact winning strategy because this is a game of chaos and 4 players are going after very different and overlapping goals.  So you just need to see what possibilites exist and take advantage of them when you see an opening.

But all I see is you knocking down what ideas are out there.  This isn't philosophical suggestions.  They work.  Tzeentch is a real competitor in the game and it is pretty finely balanced even though it is not symmetrical.

What would you want to see in a play-by-play? The total moves of all parties involved? I believe that would be almost impossible to write down. Even writing down Big Blue only would be difficult.

How about you post a play-by-play of your next game here, with you playing as Tzeentch and we can see if there is anything obvious?

First, no one can tell you how Tzeentch can win. If that strategy works every time then this game would be 'broken'. The game relies on players to act as a balancing mechanism and any strategy can be picked apart by the the collective efforts of other players.

If your gaming group really 'hates' Tzeentch, then when Tzeentch gets close to winning he'd be shot down. Our gaming group isn't very fond of Khorne and we have found many ways to counter him, making Khorne the weakest god in our games (though still winning at times).

Luck is part of CitOW and if OW cards cause Tzeentch to come out ahead, that's okay for me. I hope that the dices and card drawings gave you a hint that this game has some randomness to it. Someone can give you a play by play but you'd just pick it apart and cite luck or players' mistakes as the cause- but that is part of the game.

But to be constructive, here are some ways that helped Tzeentch to win in our games:

Draw as much as you can- As you said, the great cards are few and the only way to get more of them is to burn through your deck. It's satisfying to play Drain Power 3x in a game. So discard the cards you don't like or can't use, every round.

Make the most out of Teleport- You can teleport Khrone's warrior to the ends of the earth or you can go there yourself, but the best plays should hurt multiple players. You can teleport Khrone's warrior from your region into Slaanesh's, where Khrone's already there. Khrone will get one less region for dials and Slaanesh will likely suffer causalities. 

Co-exist- When Slaanesh slaps down a Fields of Ecstasy, or if Sue for Peace comes up, those are great places to camp.

So here's the latest trend. Khorne absolutely dominated back when we thought peasent kills advanced his dial track. Oops. Once that was corrected and people knew to stay out of his way, Slaneesh began dominating. Even first time players win with him against vets. Nurgle usually creeps close to 50 vp, but Slaneesh wins before that with dial or vp (sometimes both! last game he won by dial and had 58 vp to boot).

Last game summary:

Nurgle starts out in the empire and Kislev. Slaneesh around the border princes. Khorne settles on Slaneesh. Warpstone in Norsca so Tzeentch sets up there and creeps into troll country.

With a field and ecstacy and bad die rolls in another region, Khorne is flat out denied any dial advancement for the first turn. He never really recovers from this. First old world card places heroes so Slaneesh is looking good.

Nurgle settles on corrupting the empire and kislev. Tzeentch moves into kislev so he can get a cultist into the empire then carry a warpstone back to norsca so there are now 2 there. He doesn't bother going for more than one dial token a turn sinc ehe figures he'll never outdo everyone there.

Slaneesh gets his cultist upgrade, and that's where the game turned. Nobles all over the southern regions from badlands to border princes to estalia (double nobles in badlands and estalia). Khorne tries fighting him but Slaneesh's cultist upgrade (probably the single best one in the game) pretty much makes you fight a losing battle of investing 3 power points to have a shot at killing a single cultist. Tzeentch sees the threat and cancels a field of ecstacy card then mass teleporting into estalia to ruin it and deny slaneesh those 2 nobles, but there are plenty of other noble/hero tokens for Slaneesh to move to and once he's in a spot no one can do much to dislodge him. It was desperate enough that Tzeentch started playing dazzles everywhere to keep Slaneesh from getting a dial advance, but there were too many cultists.

Game ended when Slaneesh completed his dial on turn 6. In addition all the nobles shot him up to 58 vp. Nurgle solo ruined the empire as the 4th ruination card and ended with 52 vp. Tzeentch had ruined Norsca, Troll Country, and 2nd for Estalia but creeked in at 49 vp. Khorne had 2 dial turns to go.

Just to try something new, Tzeentch tried taking the horror upgrade, but between the costs of mass teleporting and cards to stop Slaneesh, he never even summoned any. Tzeentch seems really really pressed for power all the time, and drain power is fairly uncommon. I'm thinking the power point upgrade is his his mandatory choice after his cultists'.

So I guess the question now is how do you stop Slaneesh's 2 defense cultists? Even Khorne couldn't kill enough of them. Tzeentch can try teleport ruining noble areas, but that meant settling for 2nd ruination (1st for Slaneesh) when he could be getting 1st elsewhere so Slaneesh still comes out ahead in VP. Nurgle had no real incentive to leave the populous areas in force.

In addition to dial advancement, Slaneesh just seems better at VP scoring than Tzeentch. He gets more staying power, power points, and a lot of his cards are much better. An actual use out of Dazzle was thought to be using it to dominate remote 1 point regions, but Slaneesh's degenerate royalty does that so much better, just like his "place one corruption" card is better for ruiner bonus sniping than teleport.

Some balance questions that came up:

1. Is there a purpose to Slaneesh going last instead of Tzeentch? Shouldn't T be the one with the most foresight?

2. Why does dazzle cost as much as it does?

GrooveChamp said:

The place one corruption token card doesn't give you the ruiners bonus because it isn't placed in the corruption step.

 Answering your questions:

1) There is a mayor tactical disadvantage in going last as well - Tzeentch often wants to get cards into places quickly, and it can't do that if the other Gods have filled the spell slots.

2) Because if it cost less it'd be too good. Admittedly it is definitely Tzeentch's worst card

Alright that corruption clarification helps.

The worst part about dazzle isn't so much the card itself as it is just how many of the things you get. I find myself using my discard to chuck a dazzle or meddling skaven every turn in hopes of getting a stasis or drain power.

GrooveChamp said:

Which is exactly what you should be doing. There are only three Dazzles in the deck, and they are situationally useful. Most of the time you just want to discard them though

phobiandarkmoon said: