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Additional Factions
New Factions can dramatically change the gameplay of Cthulhu Wars. With the core game’s Earth Map, you may play with one of these as a fifth Faction (or with all of them with a 6 – 8 Player Map expansion), or you may replace any or all of these with any of the core game’s Factions. Every combination is interesting and different! These have been painstakingly balanced with great care through hundreds of playtests over several years.
On average they tend to entail more complexity than the core game Factions, but not always.
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Opener of the Way
COMPONENTS
PLAYING OPENER OF THE WAY
Opener of the Way is probably the weirdest
Faction of them all. Your Faction is delicate and requires precision, but has unparalleled flexibility.
In fact, your Faction begins with an important strategic decision—where to start! More than any other Faction, you must react on the fly to other players’ actions. You always have something effective you can do, but it differs depending on the situation. declare more than one Battle on a turn. This is huge for you.
Channel Power
A handy spell for obvious reasons. Your Faction is often Power-hungry, so save it for special occasions.
Don’t only use Million
Favored Ones to get big Units out—you can always purchase them outright.
Keep a Mutant with your Cultists—if someone enters your Area, this is a perfect opportunity to
Battle and promote with Million Favored Ones!
This also puts Cultists back in your Pool to be
Recruited by Monsters placed via They Break
Through.
Dragon Ascending
Choose the right time and this can reverse the course of play. Remember that using this
Spellbook is NOT an Action, which means you can do it even if you are out of Power.
Dragon Descending
If you wait until the perfect moment, you might not get its benefits—seize the day.
Though Yog-Sothoth really costs 10 Power to
Awaken ( 6 for him and 4 for the Spawn you give up), he is flexible because you can pay on the installment plan: Summon a Spawn one turn, then
Yog-Sothoth the next. Everyone else has to pay for their Great Old One all at once. Don’t forget you can Summon Monsters through him.
Dread Curse of Azathoth
Pester enemies with death from the sky. Enemy
Units are often in the same Area as Gates, and you can drive them out with Dread Curse while your
Units stay behind.
Beyond-One is best in the early game. You not only steal a Gate, but Move long distances and escape threats.
Million Favored Ones
A core ability you’ll want early.
Summon a Spawn of Yog-Sothoth early, despite the huge cost, so you can bring out your Great Old
One at the right time (usually once two to three others have taken the field). You won’t dominate the game in the beginning—you must grow over time, by promoting Units and re-designing the map’s Gate structure. Movement is not cheap for you, so use Beyond-One and They Break
Through as affordable alternatives.
They Break Through
Possibly your Spellbook most hated by Enemy players.
Use numbers to swamp an Enemy once you’ve built up. Do not fear to “promote” a Spawn of Yog-Sothoth into as few as two Mutants.
Remember once you have six Spellbooks, you can
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THWARTING OPENER OF
THE WAY
Opener of the Way’s Monsters are expensive, so he tries to promote them rather than to Summon. If you can Kill a Monster in each Battle, it becomes a losing proposition for him. He is also restricted by his need to share territories to earn Spellbooks. Turn this to your advantage by setting up traps—Areas where you can counter with overwhelming force.
OPENER OF THE WAY:
EPILOGUE
“At first we thought it was a disease. We even tried to treat it. People, seemingly at random, developed disgusting deformities.
But those people couldn’t be treated.
They didn’t want to be treated. They lashed out and, in their anger, became more and more monstrous. Near the end, fire came from the skies, destroying cities, farmland, countryside. Finally, It appeared. It was bigger than human words and seen all around the world, by everyone at the same time. Impossible? That word is now useless. We pretend to hope it won’t find us, but hiding hasn’t worked yet. No, it simply hasn’t gotten around to all of us.”
—David Mendiola
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Sleeper
COMPONENTS
PLAYING SLEEPER
Your Faction is not particularly interested in combat, and instead your Units debilitate your foes outside of Battle. You are not the quickest
Faction to gain the lead, but can be lethally petty.
Burrow
Spectacularly useful. Doubled up with Lethargy, you can save Power like crazy.
In the early game, try to build up your power base.
Summon cheap Monsters the first Action Phase, so you can start to spawn better ones via Death From
Below. Do not discount the usefulness of Cursed
Slumber, especially early game.
In the late game, ability accumulation bears grim fruit for your foes. With Tsathoggua on the Map, you can spend Action after Action in Lethargy.
If your foes don’t react, you’ll be the last player with Power left, and use it to march Tsathoggua
(cheaply, using Burrow) to Capture Monsters.
Even though Tsathoggua’s Combat is low late in the Action Phase, a couple of Formless Spawns let you inflict Kills. Demand Sacrifice either protects you from retribution or makes your opponent pay for it. If you Move with a Wizard, you can use
Energy Nexus to run away before any fight.
Capture Monster
Even for the most inexperienced player, the advantages are clear.
Cursed Slumber
Gives you a smaller Map footprint, plus you can use its cancellation to teleport a
Gate anywhere on the Map.
Then Cursed Slumber a new
Gate from your home base and set up a Gate factory.
Sleeper gets the equivalent of a two to three Power boost every turn via his free Monster from Death From Below.
Do not discount this.
Demand Sacrifice
They’ll spend the Doom point when facing
Tsathoggua, but otherwise, you can act with impunity.
Ancient Sorcery
Again, too many choices to list them all. To name just one possibility—copy Cthulhu’s Faction ability to replace a dead Tsathoggua on the cheap (plus earn an Elder Sign).
Energy Nexus
This Spellbook has SO many different ramifications and possibilities we can’t list them all!
Just two possibilities—use Cursed Slumber to Move a threatened Gate off-map, or to fulfill one of
Sleeper’s Spellbook requirements and immediately gain the Demand Sacrifice Spellbook to use in that very Battle!
You have a spellbook requirement that gives another player 3 Power—use this to bribe or bully your opponents into doing your will.
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THWARTING SLEEPER
The Sleeper is weak in Battle until he has two or more
Formless Spawn out. Take advantage of his early feebleness. Unfortunately, with Demand Sacrifice, he is hard to Kill. Sometimes you just have to suck up giving him an extra Elder Sign. To suppress Sleeper, take Actions that force him to spend Power and lose his late-turn advantage. For instance—Killing two
Formless Spawn costs him six Power to restore. Of course, Killing Tsathoggua is always a treat. Without giving him an Elder Sign, you can Eliminate his
Cultists outside of Battle (using Dreams, Zingaya or just plain Capture). He usually does not have many Gates, and they are often ill-protected, so it is effective to strike at his Gates, even if you can’t Kill him, but merely Pain him away.
SLEEPER: EPILOGUE
“The end came unexpectedly. I always thought it would be zombies or aliens or nuclear weapons. Instead, it was this ooze. It was as if the earth itself was falling apart, bleeding black tar. You couldn’t fight it any more than you could fight the ocean. Slowly, but surely, the ooze dragged us from our homes, from our families. It dragged us to that awful beast’s waiting maw. I can still see it, every time I close my eyes.”
—David Mendiola
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Tcho Tcho
COMPONENTS
SET UP
The Tcho-Tchos do not have a Glyph on the
Map. Instead, they set up after all other players in an Area with any Faction Glyph that is currently unused.
Please note that the Tcho-Tchos can set up in one of Windwalker’s starting Areas, in which case
Windwalker is forced to set up in the other one.
We do not recommend doing this if you can avoid it, though, because it gives Windwalker an instant
Spellbook (for having a Gate in another start Area).
In an 8 -player game, this is unavoidable, but does not prove a real advantage for Windwalker due to the nature of 8 -player games.
If you are using the High Priest expansion, replace one of the Tcho-Tcho’s six starting Acolytes with a High Priest. (Thus, they will start with a
Controlled Gate, five Acolyte Cultists, and a High
Priest.) The purpose behind this is that with the inclusion of High Priests, the other factions have been boosted in strength. Hence the Tcho-Tchos need a slight nudge too. This also gives them some early-game flexibility. (Note that the Tcho-Tchos do not get an extra High Priest in their Pool with this—they still only have 3 ).
If Opener of the Way is in play, place Opener’s
Faction Glyph token in his starting Area (The
Tcho Tcho need to know where it is for their
Idolatry Spellbook).
Also please note that if you are using the Unique
High Priest rules (available from Petersen Games), the Tcho-Tchos may only have one such High
Priest. You will need to distinguish him or her somehow from your other two “generic” High
Priests.
We have included Tcho-Tcho Brain Cylinder tokens in case you play a game on the Yuggoth map (or are using a homebrew version using the
Laboratory token included with that Map).
PLAYING THE
TCHO-TCHO
The Tcho-Tcho is an exciting new humancontrolled Faction. Representing the psychically advanced, but ethically repulsive Tcho-Tcho tribe, their Great Old One, Ubbo-Sathla, is a tool and slave rather than an object of worship!
Your Faction faces numerous decisions throughout the game, and requires planning. Should you accumulate High Priests or expend them to gain immediate Power? Which enemy Start Areas should you target? It is almost impossible to gain all of your Spellbooks until the fourth Action
Phase at the earliest, so in what order do you take them? Your choices affect not only you, but other
Factions who will be vying to discourage your attention.
Your only Spellbook available in the first Action phase is the one for removing your starting Gate
(not necessarily recommended). Since you’ll need a
High Priest to Awaken Ubbo-Sathla, one of your
Actions should always be to recruit a High Priest.
You now have to choose between trying to create a Gate or recruiting a second High Priest for your first round’s activities. Remember that having an extra High Priest lets you jumpstart your second round with 12 + Power (by sacrificing him), giving you a slight leg up on the other players, even those who have two Gates.
You are weak defensively at first, but enemies are typically reluctant to attack an Area containing your High Priests (due to Martyrdom). If they don’t send in Great Old Ones, you can often handle riff-raff with Proto-Shoggoths.
In the first Doom Phase take your first Spellbook for Awakening Ubbo-Sathla. If you take
Hierophants as your reward, you’re set up for 6 free High Priests over the rest of the game.
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You have a major Power advantage in the early game, because you normally spend 0 Power on your Great Old One. You can use this offensively not only to capture or build Gates, but to place your Units in enemy Start Areas to harass them.
As the game goes on, your Faction loses steam, so you eventually are fighting a rear guard action, clinging to your remaining Gates as long as possible. This is the time to finally get Tablets of the Gods, start churning through your High
Priests, and stacking up those Elder Signs.
Properly using and recycling High Priests is key to your success.
Be sure to keep a sharp eye out and notice when people are performing Rituals of Annihilation, so you can seek your Sycophancy reward.
Hierophants
Should be your first Spellbook about 90 % of the time.
Idolatry
Useful both for escaping an enemy as well as massing for an attack.
Martyrdom
A significant defensive boost for you. Not always useful as your first Spellbook.
Soulless
An excellent protective Spellbook, and the Tcho-
Tchos’ signature ability.
Tablets of the Gods
Best in the late game, though its effects do add up over time. It lets you get an Elder Sign for what amounts to 3 Power, an excellent bargain.
Terror
Transforms the puny Proto-Shoggoths into an effective Battle Monster.
THWARTING THE
TCHO-TCHOS
The Tcho-Tchos are strong at first, but then hit a wall. Appropriate Actions on your part can reduce their Map footprint. You know exactly where they are headed: your home Area! Your Monsters can attack them effectively—even non-Combat
Factions such as Yellow Sign and Black Goat have Monsters which can fight mere Tcho-Tchos.
Ubbo-Sathla is usually not dangerous until the
4 th turn or so, so don’t be frightened off by its presence.
TCHO-TCHO: EPILOGUE
“At first we thought them laughable primitives. Our obvious technical and educational superiority made us pity them.
As they moved among us, they were true to their ancient law ‘Another’s sorrow is thy joy.’ It took time to realize that our religious, business, and political leaders were being targeted disproportionately, dying to mysterious tumors, poisons, and fanatic assassins. Meanwhile, their agents whipped up frenzied mobs among the hopeless and homeless, and spent ominously vast quantities of money on mass amnesties of prisoners. Gangs of criminals terrorized the population. Anyone on the streets ran the risk of being kidnapped or murdered. Wild hordes broke into homes, plundered and raped. Then came the next step—the Tcho-Tchos emerged openly, and began to round us up to sacrifice to their foul deities. It is now clear they share no empathy with the rest of humankind. Our so-called “superiority” in law, medicine, and engineering were useless against the arcane science they practiced—they were nothing if not practical. Were any of them ever human mentally? They are in my hotel. I hear screams and gunshots, though no police are left. Who is shooting? I hear footsteps in the corridor—not all of them human.”
—Sandy Petersen
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Windwalker
COMPONENTS
PLAYING WINDWALKER
As Windwalker, you are a late bloomer. Your
Spellbooks are not always useful in the early game, and you have no good movement abilities until you Awaken Ithaqua. As the game progresses your
Units become cheaper, your strength increases dramatically, and an array of powerful options appear.
Arctic Wind
It is useful for marching your unstoppable horde to victory.
Hibernate every other Action Phase—if you do it every Phase, you are not actually getting a Power advantage. Do the math. It can be tempting to
Hibernate with a lot of Power in the bank, hoping for a super Phase next time, but if your enemies are high on Power too, this is risky. When other players have their Great Old Ones out, you should be able to bank on 2 to 4 extra Power every other
Action Phase via Hibernate.
Berserkergang
Best when you have a lot of
Gnoph-Kehs, so they are cheap to replace.
Special Rule for
Windwalker
The Windwalker Faction may never be the First
Player at the beginning of the game!
Herald of the Outer Gods
Simple and reliable. Combine with your Power advantage from Hibernate to pull ahead every turn if you dare.
Gnoph-Kehs are expensive initially, but you must start producing them to get the cost down. Before
Battling is common, you may need to Summon a
Wendigo or two—later, they should be the product of other people’s fights. While Ferox lets you leave
Cultists alone more-or-less safely, you still need to beware Cthulhu’s Dreams.
Cannibalism
Take this Spellbook early, to start your Wendigo army. It also acts as a damage shield— so long as you score a Kill in a fight, you can instantly replace one loss!
Not sure what to do with the extra Power from Hibernate? When in doubt, summon a
Gnoph-keh!
Your Great Old Ones are inexpensive and useful.
Remember that you can Awaken Rhan-Tegoth without a Gate, at either pole. This is a nasty surprise for an Enemy who thought himself safe
(particularly in light of Rhan-Tegoth’s resistance to injury).
Howl
Useful for clearing out an Area to capture a Gate, or removing an Enemy Great Old One’s protective guard.
In the late game, bring out Ithaqua to advantage, and your Spellbooks start to kick in. This is when
Ice Age is most valuable, plus your army is large enough to take the field. You lead one of the few forces that can take on even Great Cthulhu.
Generally as Windwalker you bank on one gigantic turn in which you achieve massive success, controlling five to six Gates by the end, then using your Power advantage to perform a massive Ritual of Annihilation on the following Doom Phase.
Ice Age
Useful to defend a vulnerable Gate or to lock down an Enemy Area in preparation for an invasion.
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THWARTING
WINDWALKER
When you face Windwalker, take action early, while he is still accumulating his Spellbooks and armies.
Seek an early lead in Doom points, and spread your empire far and wide, so he can’t cripple you with one big attack. The harder you harass him in the early game, the later he comes into his glory, and that’s good for you.
It may seem like a smart move to preemptively seize a polar Area, but usually all this ends up getting you is a Great Old One in the face. Rhan-Tegoth is a particularly knotty problem—you can’t Kill him, and you don’t want him to stay.
Like Cthulhu, Windwalker has a huge nighindestructible army, but a weak periphery. However, unlike Cthulhu, Windwalker is expensive to play so keep him Power-starved, to make him easier to deal with.
WINDWALKER: EPILOGUE
“They came from the North, with fur and claw. We were confident in our weapons, guns, tanks, aircraft. We tried to fight back and, at first, we held on. Little by little, they overcame us. They kept getting stronger, and our armies melted away. When the impossible juggernaut appeared, indestructible and unrelenting, all hope seemed lost. We fled, choosing to hide, rather than fight. We hoped that would keep us safe, that maybe they’d stay in the cold. But then we heard it—the sound that brought the winter. We heard the Howl.”
—David Mendiola
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