Cracked LCD 20.2: CitOW: The Horned Rat Expansion Review
Chaos in the Old World, winner of our Boardgame of the Year -- just got better.
Date: Thursday, June 16, 2011
Author: Michael Barnes
Game: Chaos in the Old World: The Horned Rat Expansion
Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
Designer: Eric Lang
Genre: Area Control, with Skaven
Players: 3-5
Playtime: 120-180 minutes
What's Hot: Seamless addition of a fifth player; all-new cards for existing gods; extends replayability and options to an already amazing game, reasonable value for the price
What's Not: Feels slightly lacking with less than five players
by: Michael Barnes
I’ll lay it all out for you up front. If you’ve already been playing the 2009 Gameshark Board Game of the Year winner Chaos in the Old World, then stop reading and go buy The Horned Rat expansion right now. If you haven’t bothered to play one of the best games of the past decade and are at least moderately interested in acting as one of the Warhammer world’s malevolent Chaos gods, then go ahead and pick the expansion up along with the base game. Chaos in the Old World was the last great game that Fantasy Flight released, and The Horned Rat is the best thing that they have released since.
The Horned Rat is the perfect model of a value-adding gameplay extension that offers expanded options including support for a much-needed fifth player. Seat five is filled by, of course, The Horned Rat and his host of skaven who are now an on-board player-controlled presence beyond mere tokens. The Horned Rat gets a full range of cultists, warriors, and a Greater Daemon along with upgrade cards and a rather intriguing deck of Chaos cards.
The rats have a very unique strategy among the other gods in that their cultists do not produce region-ruining corruption markers. Instead, they get to participate in any regions’ ruination where they have presence, counting up the power of present figures to establish majority. The Chaos deck supports strategies of establishing domination with mass groupings of skaven and then moving them as a group into regions on the cusp of ruination—they’re claim-jumpers and opportunists, essentially. It’s a very different faction to play, and they are perfectly in balance with the competition. I have found it harder to win with the Rat, particularly through threat dial advancement, but I think as the expansion has time to season it will emerge that the skaven are a unique threat in the hands of a capable and experienced player.
Also included are all-new sets of Chaos decks and five new upgrades for each of the original four gods- Khorne, Slaanesh, Tzeentch, and Nurgle. Dubbed the “Morrslieb” set, these cards replace the original cards when the Horned Rat is in the game, or they can add a little variety to four player games in which there is not a skaven player. These cards add some very interesting alternate strategies for each side, and I would go so far as to say that the Morrslieb cards are superior. The balance is finer, and there are some real surprises. Khorne wins more often through VPs rather than threat dial advancement, Nurgle doesn’t win as often, Slaanesh gets some new seductive tricks to influence on-board counters, and Tzeentch feels much more competitive. A set of new Old World event cards are also included, rounding out a tight but wholly effective expansion package.
The key to all of this working is that there are no tacked-on or cobbled together additions. There are no new game phases, mechanics, or subroutines. There isn’t the need for new counter types or more cards to manage. The expansion simply takes what already worked extremely well and refines it, while increasing the player range. I like that there are new options for three and four player tables, but the game is now definitely best with five players which may be a demerit if you have trouble filling seats. The fifth player adds more friction and combat seems to be even more frequent, and competition over the spaces into which Chaos cards are played is even fiercer. It feels like a more brutal, more violent game. Which is exactly how it should feel.
At $24.95 retail, it’s a reasonable value given what it adds to the core game. It’s very rare that I think an expansion like this is an essential purchase, and many times a great design is better left alone than to have new elements added to it. That’s not the case here, where the fifth player feels like it essentially completes the design and the new additions serve to offer intriguing alternatives that will extend the table life of this already outstanding game.
