Okay, lets see...this might lead to a wall of text, but I love explaining these things, so bear with me :D
The objective of the game is to either score 50 victory points or as many VP as you can by the end of the game (which is 7 rounds) OR advance the "threat-dial" of the God you´re playing as all the way to the end which takes different amounts of ticks depending on who you play. How do you get any of these? I shall explain a little later.
The beauty of the game, other than the fact that you play as a friggin God of Chaos (I like that fact a lot even though I don´t have any history with the Warhammer Universe...with Chaos...that´s another thing), is that you have to work towards your goal while trying to hamper the efforts of your fellow players, preferably WITH another player only to doublecross him in the next round all while the old world down below tries to fend you off (they won´t succeed with that mwuhehehe)
So, how exactly is the game played? It is divided into 6 phases which I will explain below. Spoilertags for more convenience.
 Spoilers! |
1. Old World:
Here, one card is drawn that represents things that happen to the world. Could be dwarfen trollslayers, could be a skaven invasion, who knows. These Cards alter certain things in the world. The player with the least threat carries out these cards and CAN get some kind of advantage out of some cards.
2. Draw:
As easy as it gets. You draw as many cards as your God is allowed to (all Gods draw 2, except Tzeentch, he draws to five, meaning he should burn through all his cards each round if possible)
3. Summon:
One of the most important phases. Beginning with Khorne, each player can either play one figure or one of his Chaoscards. Figures enable you to battle other figures, to dominate the regions of the board for points and, in the case of your cultists, to corrupt regions which can give numerous advantages but also risks the permanent ruination of a region which makes it pretty much unusable (Khorne doesn´t care about such things, no no).
Chaoscards can do many different things, again, dependant on which god you play as.
An example for each: Khorne can strike first in battle, Nurgle can use his corruption to dominate a region instead of his troops, Tzeentch can Shield his figures and Slaanesh can prevent a battle in a given region.
The summoning phase is interdependant since you always place your figures and cards in the same order (Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch, Slanesh, Khorne, etc.) so you react to what your opponents do and try to foil their plans. You pay for all those things with powerpoints of which there is a nice little track on your God-Sheet (you can see Tzeentch´s up there in the image I posted earlier).
4. Battle
And now it is time for the aforementioned skulls for the Skull Throne and yes, the blood for the Blood God. Each region is checked for combatants and if there are any, a battle ensues. You roll dice to determine how many hits you score (4,5,6 hits, 6 are rolled again and can score even more hits) and then apply these hits to a target of your choice. This is Khorne´s Phase, since he scores Dialpoints by killing one or more enemies in a given region. Many battles. Much blood. That is the way of the Khorne-Player.
5. Domination & Corruption
Domination in a region scores you the ammount of points the region is worth and is calculated by the sum of your Figures (not the power, just the number of troops present) plus the powercost of the cards you played in this region in the summon-phase.
After that you play one of your corruption-tokens for each of your cultists in any given region. This is the phase of Nurgle, since he gains Dialpoints by corrupting populated regions of the board (there are 4 populated regions, 9 regions total). It is also the phase of Tzeentch and Slaanesh to a certain extent, since they score their Dialpoints by corrupting certain regions as well. Tzeentch has to corrupt regions with Warpstone, a movable ressource in this game which corrupts the land on its own. Slaanesh has to corrupt regions that houses noblemen and -women, he is the prince of pleasure after all, so dirty orgys seem to be his kind of thing. He can use his powers to move royalty around by the way, so he is a very flexible power of chaos.
6. End Phase
This phase cleans up the board, all played chaos cards are discarded, heroes kill some of your troops, if any heroes are present at least, and if a region was finally ruined, it is scored.
A word on ruined regions.
If at any time there is a total of 12 corruption in a region, it is ruined, done for, finished, im Arsch. As soon as that happens, the powers that caused that final tipping of the scales score some points. In the End Phase, the one who contributed the most corruption to that region scores BIG again, the second one scores a little.
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Those are the phases of the game, maybe I explained them too detailed, I don´t know but now you know how the game is played more or less.
One last thing that need to be explained: The dial itself. Not only does each and every advancement you get on the dial bring you closer to total victory, it also grants you bonusses. Some Victory points or maybe a valuable upgrade to your god? There´s one upgrade for each of your three troop-types as well as two upgrades for yourself, really really useful.
And...that´s Chaos in the old world in a nutshell more or less.