Welcome to the Chaos Wastes, Fatshark's latest addition to Vermintide 2. And welcome to this small guide covering some general information for the players.

1.1 Chaos Wastes - What are they

Lore-wise the Chaos Wastes are the area covering the northern part of the world (not to be confused with the Wastes of Chaos in the south or the Realm of Chaos) near the portal to the Warp. Due to the proximity to the chaos portal and the general harsh environmental conditions, the Chaos Wastes are not a place for the civilized man. As such, they are mostly inhabited by nomadic tribes and Beastmen. Many, many Beastmen.

Gameplay-wise the Chaos Wastes are a new rogue-lite gameplay mode for Vermintide offering 15 new locations with more randomized set-ups including the acquisition of new boons and equipment over the course of your expedition to get even more powerful for slaying your foes. A more thourough explanation on your goal during the wastes and how the usual expedition pans out, can be found in Section 2.


1.2 Chaos Wastes - Equipment, Talents, Bots, Late Joiners

Due to the rogue-lite nature of the Chaos Wastes there is more randomness involved. This means that you start rather weak and grow more and more powerful over the course of each run. The good news though is that you start with the exact equipment and talents you have chosen in the Keep.

Equipment: For your equipment traits and properties as well as power have been removed and reduced (power level depends on difficulty). You basically play with white equipment. This can be upgraded during the expedition in exchange for Pilgrim's Coins (which can be found randomly on multiple random spots on the maps as well as for slaying monsters). Depending on the reliquary you find, you can either upgrade your current equipment or trade in for a random new equipment for a cheaper price.

Talents: Situation looks better as you start with all your Keep talents and only add up on those. During the expedition you can gain several new boons/talents. This can range from the missing talents of your career you haven't chosen (yes, you can get two or even three of the talents in the same row), Charm/Trinket/Necklace traits or completely new boons exclusive to the Chaos Wastes. There are a lot of new interesting boons all together allowing really powerful combinations and gameplay not being possible before.

Bots: For the solo players depending on bots the situation looks rather mixed. While Bots start with their Keep talents they do not gain any additional boons during the run. However, bots will follow the power-level of the host: https://forums.fatsharkgames.com/t/bots-in-chaos-wastes/44715/19?u=adelion
Also, the more bots you have in the team the more coins will be gained per pick-up: https://forums.fatsharkgames.com/t/bots-in-chaos-wastes/44715/19?u=adelion . The amount of coin increase for playing with bots has increased with Patch 4.4: https://steamproxy.net/app/552500/discussions/0/3117034127813362511/
With this, they stay halfway relevant over the course of an expedition, however due to the missing CW boons they are missing out on power. As such they will always feel weaker in comparison to their adventure counter parts. Up to Champion and Legend difficulty they have their usage. Cataclysm is better doable with other human players.

Late Joiners: The good news is that in contrast to the Weaves new players can join during an already running expedition at all times. Due to the in-expedition progress nature of the Chaos Wastes it comes with issue though. Namely, the player has no boons and still white equipment while his team mates may have already gained multiple boons and more power. You are comparatively far weaker. On the bright side, map completion bonuses of all prior maps count for joining players. Potential late-joiner compensations have changed in last update. Trying to re-confirm.
As minor sidenote for late joiners: Upon joining a map in progress you can hear if the Chest of Trials has already been opened or not by its characteristic sound.

Each journey into the Chaos Wastes is named an expedition. And each expedition is playing out on Holseher's Map, an everchanging map of the Wastes where you can chose your next destination following one of the multiple branches. You start at the left side and are given two choices can see the first two locations of each branch as well as the goal of your current expedition. The rest is hidden in the mist of the Chaos Wastes. By hovering over a location icon with the mouse you can get some information about the next destinations.


The information (second screenshot - can be enlarged by opening in a new tab) presented for the next location(s) covers:

• Name of the map
  
• Potential map curse (not the specific curse, only which Chaos God is cursing you)
  
• Which enemy factions you are fighting
  
• Combination of the two map modifiers: more/less horde, more/less specials, more Pilgrim's coins, more health items, more/less monsters, more/less elites, more/less specials etc.
  
• Map Completion Bonus

The first subsequent location of each branch is also visible, having mostly the same information minus the enemy combination. Every location afterwards is hidden in the mist though until you beat more maps. Chaos Gods curses can also be seen in the form of a colored halo around the specific icon.
The information shall help you to make a decision where you want to go next by comparing which modifiers you want to have / to avoid as well as which map reward will be the most helpful for you / your team / your build. As different people might have different preferences, disagreement may be possible. As such the next to-be-played map is decided by a simple majority vote. It shall also be noted that it is possible to get / play the same location twice in succesion on Holseher's map.

As can be seen in the second screenshot, there are not only map locations on Holseher's map but also Shrines - identifiable by golden symbol atop - which function as a "store". The symbol depends on your played character. For Sienna - as in the screenshot - it is the sun of Myrmidia. In the Shrines you can buy additional boons for yourself (four to chose and all can be bought if you have enough coins) or a miracle for your team (two or three depending on the specific shrine) in exchange for Pilgrim's Coins. The shrine specific miracles will be covered in Section 4.

Independent from the route you are chosing, you will always play exactly four maps + the final arena specific for the expedition you have chosen. You will also always encounter exactly two Holseher's map shrines. The order of maps and shrines can differ, although the first station will always be a map, and the final piece will always be the expedition arena. There will also never be two shrines in succession.

Story-wise, the goal of the Chaos Wastes is to find three Scrolls of Eternity during the first three expeditions, unlocking the way to the Citadel of Eternity, the final expedition. There you want to communicate with the gods.
Gameplay-wise this relates to a total of four expeditions which have to be performed - each with their respective final area:

• Expedition of Fortitude: Four random maps + Arena of Fortitude
  
• Expedition of Courage: Four random maps + Arena of Courage
  
• Expedition of Determination: Four random maps + Arena of Determination
  
• Expedition to the Citadel of Eternity: Three random maps + Citadel of Eternity (one full map & one arena)

Four the random maps there is a pool of 11 available maps which are about half the length of most adventure maps - and with one exception completely new locations - and with multiple different paths inside the maps themselves:

• Bel'sha'ziier's Mine
  
• Cinder Peak
  
• Count Mordrek's Fortress
  
• Grimblood's Stronghold
  
• Holseher's Tower
  
• Pinnacle of Nightmares
  
• Slaughter Bay
  
• The Foetid Gorge
  
• The Forbidden Trail
  
• The lost City of Marakza
  
• The Pit of Reflection

Each of the expeditions is cursed by a different Chaos God meaning that the final area of an expedition will always have a curse of this specific Chaos God. Additional, curses of other gods can be encountered on the maps inbetween based on randomness. The Chaos Gods curse per expedition are rotating each week to add more diversity.

With the Chaos Wastes update from the 14th of June 2022, Be'lakor - the Dark Master - has started to influence your Chaos Waste runs: https://www.vermintide.com/news/patch-47-39-13-patch-notes

Be'lakor's Influence

In contrast to the four Chaos Gods, Be'lakor does not have its own dedicated expedition to watch over. Instead he joins one of the existing four expeditions "in tandem" with one of the other chaos gods. Be'lakor's influence rotates each three hours to a new expedition going from left to right. Which expedition is currently affected can be checked in the Chaos Wastes browser:


For expeditions affected by Be'lakor, you will have at least one map guaranteed to be cursed by the Dark Master himself within the visible part of Holseher's map at the start of the expedition. While it is possible that two maps are cursed, they will be placed in a manner that you may never visit both of them. Playing these maps has two effects. The first one is that you will encounter one of the two new Be'lakor-specific curses: the Shadow Totems or the Shadow Skulls. The second effect - and the reason why you can only visit one Be'lakor cursed map on an expedition - is that somewhere on the map you can find a Shadow Locus.

The Shadow Locus and the Shadow Lieutenants

The Shadow Locus is a kind of altar worshipped usually by some Skaven Monks and some other enemies. As long as you don't attack them, they will completely ignore you and focus all their attention on praising Be'lakor. Upon interrupting their ceremony they will start attacking you. After killing them - or not - you can interact with the altar similar to a Chest of Trials. Doing so will result in the summoning of some spawns. The first two waves are just some random enemies. The third wave though consists every time of the same enemy type: a Shadow Lieutenant - a former member of the Order of the Silver Hammer now in the service of Be'lakor.


A Shadow Lieutenant is basically a slightly different looking and stronger Chaos Warrior. As an additional surprise Shadow Lieutenants can have Grudge Marks. However, they can only have very specific Grudge Mark combinations. Three potential sets are available:

Set 1: Crippling - Illusionist - Frenzy
Set 2: Regenerating - Cursed Aura - Relentless
Set 3: Shield Shatter - Rampart - Vampiric

However, it is exceedingly rare to encounter a Shadow Lieutenant with three active Grudge Marks. So most of the time you will have to deal with a single Grudge Mark or a combination of two Grudge Marks within their set - for example Crippling/Illusionist or Regenerating/Cursed Aura. Upon killing the Shadow Lieutenant you will receive an Ulgu crystal. Picking it up, you will now have the ability to overload the Shadow Locus and destroy it which triggers the appearance of the Temple of Shadow - Be'lakor's new arena map.

The Temple of Shadow

So, where do you find the Temple of Shadow? For this you simply have to finish your current map and then you can already see the Temple of Shadow on Holseher's map. The new arena map has hereby replaced one of the other existing maps, so that expeditions cursed by Be'lakor are not longer than normal expeditions. This also means even after revealing you still have to choose the right path to reach the temple or chose another path if you want to avoid it although the latter is not always possible.

The Temple of Shadow itself is typical for arena maps pretty short. After a quick walk to the actual temple you can find there a statue of your new best friend in an arena-like showdown. The statue is protected and supplied with energy from three Shadow Locuses which can - and have to - be destroyed the same way as on the first map. This means each altar has to be activated and the spawning Shadow Lieutenants have to be killed and the Ulgu Crystal to be used for destroying the Shadow Locus. And all this, while being spammed with specials and elites:


After taking care of this ordeal, the statue of Be'lakor will partially shatter and you can leave the arena.

The Temple of Shadow itself comes with some "oddities". First of all, as an arena-like map it is shorter - as mentioned - and more difficult. Also, while it does supply some Pilgrim's Coins staches, there is neither a Chest of Trials nor are there any shrines for boons or weapons. This means visiting the temple robs you of the chance to upgrade weapons and to buy boons. However, this is partially circumvented by the map completion bonus being two Veteran Boons of the highest rarity.

Also, the Temple of Shadow is not the end of the expedition. You still have finish it normally.

Added with the update from the 23rd May 2024 are the Weekly Expeditions. These are similar to the Weekly Events from the campaign mode and offer an extra challenge. The Weekly Expedition can be accessed through a new extra tab:


Unique to the Weekly Expeditions is that you start your Chaos Wastes run already with several pre-determined boons which means you start stronger than normal. To counteract this, you also start with additional curses. The curses can be selected from the "normally" available curses in the Chaos Wastes as well as modifiers from the Weekly Event. Both the boons and the curses are active on all maps.

The boons and curses modifier stay the same for the whole week and reset each monday. By beating the Weekly Expedition, you can get one of four rewards depending on the difficulty you played on:

• Recruit: 5000 Experience Points
  
• Veteran: Weapon Skin - Bitter Dreams
  
• Champion: Two Emperor's Vaults
  
• Legend: Red Dust

With this, the Weekly Expedition are so far the only confirmed possibility of getting red dust, though it is hard limited by the weekly counter. Though, the really interesting part is the Bitter Dreams weapon skins which can only be acquired through the Weekly Expeditions. So far, I can not tell if the order is pre-set and if there exist skins for all weapons. I also have no clue what happens if you "skip" a week. If the skin rotates further or if it stays like this until completion.

To end on a positive note: Completing the Weekly Expedition counts for the Okri's challenge "Complete the Weekly Event."

In contrast to Adventure Mode, the players only have their weapons as equipment in the Chaos Wastes and no Charm, Trinket or Necklace. As mentioned in Section 1, the weapons you and your bots start with are the same as those chosen in the Keep although far weaker. Basically, you start with white equipment without any traits and properties and a reduced power level. The starting and maximum power level of the weapons in Chaos Wastes hereby depend on the difficulty. For Cataclysm for example you start with a power level of 400 and you can upgrade up to a power level of 700 (red weapons).

There are two ways for upgrading your weapons split over three different altars:



The two left altars - Soldier's and Hunter's Altar - are for melee and ranged weapons respectively while the right altar - Warrior's Altar - can be used both for melee and range depending on what you are currently holding. Soldier's and Hunter's altars provide one random weapon upon activation while Warrior's Altar improves the weapon you currently hold. Each altar can only be activated once, so especially for the Upgrade altar you should consider if you want to upgrade your melee or your ranged weapon.
Also, the altars are colour-coded. This means green altars upgrade to green weapons, blue altars to blue weapons and so on. Each upgrade does not only increase the power level but also give access to traits and properties depending on colour. Altars for weapon upgrades can only be used if your current weapon is of "weaker" colour. All of the upgrades as mentioned before cost Pilgrim's coins dependent on the weapon rarity you hold, the rarity you want to upgrade to and the type of altar - Soldier's/Hunter's or Warrior's. The increase in power level as well as the number of traits and properties per rarity are summarized in the following table


The cost of the weapon upgrades calculate as follow:

• Upgrade Cost = (Cost of Upgrade from White to Rarity of Choice) - ((Cost of Upgrade from White to Rarity currently holding)/2)

As such, the costs for using the Soldier's/Hunter's altar summarizes as shown in the next table:


This means if you continously upgrade your weapons you would end up with a cost of 490 Pilgrim's Coins. If you skip all upgrades but the red Soldier's/Hunter's Altar you end up with a cost of 300. You can save 38.78 % this way.

Subsequently, the costs for using Warrior's Altar summarizes as shown in this table (*take note that the ingame value for upgrading from orange to red is 330 instead of the calculated 325, this is a result of value rounding and only affects this specific upgrade):


Similar to the random upgrades you can save 39.39 % of Pilgrim's Coins if you skip all but the red Warrior's Altar which is still a lot. Although, regularly upgrading is not as unattractive as it has been before. So, if you want to wait for a red Warrior's Altar or invest early on is entirely your decision. However, if you want to get properties, traits and more power you should regularly improve your equipment. This is double important if you are host as the bots' power level increases with your weapon upgrades. Furthermore, if you get lucky you can roll an early + Pilgrim's Coins property on your weapon.

As for the decision between random and direct upgrades: If you want to keep control and keep the weapon you are currently using, you have to pay more Pilgrim's Coins in comparison to the random altars. Coins which can't be used for other upgrades like Boons and Miracles.

Also for clarification: the Power Level+ values are in comparison to the starting values of the white equipment you start with. So for Cataclysm, the power levels would be: 450 - 500 - 550 - 600 - 700
Additionally, it is noteworthy to mention that the Upgrade Altars are indeed "just" upgrading. This means that properties and traits you roll on lower rarities will stay the same while upgrading. If you get - for instance - + Pilgrims coins on a green weapon, the property will stay throughout the whole upgrade cycle. Same for the traits for an upgrade from orange to red rarity. Conversely, this means that if you want to change traits and properties using the random weapon altars is your only choice.

Sidenote: As runs are rather long, you might sometimes forgot what weapons (and especially properties or traits) you have. This can be easily countered by pressing the inspection button (default on "i"):


As you can see, the weapon power, rarity, traits and properties are shown both for your melee and your range weapon. In addition, you can also see what items you are carrying and what their effect is. While this is rather pointless for healing items and bombs, it will be a real help for your potions as the Chaos Wastes have several new potions with new effects (see Section 6 for information on those). Furthermore, active miracles are also shown on the inspection page.

In addition to the already known weapon traits from the adventure mode, there are a few Chaos Wastes exclusive weapon traits which I will list here. Take note that I have the german version of the game, so the translation might not be 100 % identical to the English original. Some weapon traits have restrictions, so they are only available on certain weapons. Unless I am reading this wrong, these restrictions are quite complicated for some weapons so I will mostly give a general summarization:


Since the code and the restrictions are quite complicated it is possible that some errors are in the list. But for the most part, it should be correct. I'll try to refine the list over time. If you note any mistake, please post so in the comments.

Sidenote : The list of available weapon traits has increased with the Be'Lakor Update from the 14th June 2022. In addition, several boons have been transformed to weapon traits. The list can be found here: https://www.vermintide.com/news/patch-47-39-13-patch-notes

As previously mentioned each Chaos Wastes run will start with the talents you've chosen in the Keep. In addition to this, you can gain further Boons, Miracles and other Bonuses over the course of your expedition. While they are mostly random, there are some influence possibilities.

Map Completion Bonuses

As shown in the screenshot in Section 2, completion of each map during an expedition run grants you a bonus. These bonuses are more or less equivalent to the properties currently available in adventure mode and compensate for your missing Charm, Trinket and Necklace properties:


So by choosing your route through the Wastes you have one tool to influence your build in your favour.

Holseher's Map Shrines

Aside of a new map/location, you can also find Shrines on Holseher's map. You will always encounter exactly two Shrines per expedition independent of which route you are going:


On the right side, you can see the boons. These will be random and have a cost depending on the rarity of the specific boons (Rare for 200 Pilgrim's Coins, Exotic for 250 Pilgrim's Coins and Veteran for 300 Pilgrim's Coins). There are four boons for choice and ALL can be bought if you have enough Pilgrim's coins. On the left side, you can see the Miracles of the Gods which functions as "group boons" and are most of the time either one-use items or one-map bonuses. These miracles are always the same per Shrine with three different Shrines existing in total:


With the multiple available choices as well as the possibility to buy all available boons, Holseher's map shrines are your best chance in order to influence your build and experience. What boons are offered is still up to chance though.

Special Sidenote: Similar to the weapon properties, you might sometimes forget what kind of boons you have picked up on your run. Actually, for boons, this issue is even more prevalent due to the insane amount of potential boons. As such you can also inspect your boons at all times by pressing "i".


Further information can be accessed by pressing the right mouse button and hovering over the specific boon icon showing its description. In addition, current active Miracles are shown.

These bonus boons can be gained during a map run, so make sure to search well. There are two different possibilities. The first one is the Seer's Altar:

Seer's Altar

The usage of the Seer's Altar will grant you one random boon of a random rarity (from Rare to Veteran) for 150 Pilgrim's Coins.

The obtained boon will be shown for a short time in the middle of the screen with a short description of its effect. As mentioned before, unused talents from the career skill tree (meaning you can have two or even all three talents of the same talent row), Charm/Trinket/Necklace traits as well as boons unique to the Wastes can be gained. Seer's Altars have a random chance of appearing during a map with multiple Seer's Altars being able to appear in a single map. So you can gain multiple boons in a single map. If you have the coins for it and are willing to spend them ......

Chest of Trials

The second possibility is the Chest of Trials:

Upon activation of a Chest of Trials, you will be provided with a randomly chosen challenge, in all cases to kill something before it kills you. These enemies will be summoned only after activation. So for better chances, it is recommended to activate the Chest after the last horde. After passing the Trial or a prolonged passage of time (about 120 seconds) - in case of enemies bugging out for example - the Chest of Trials will unlock and provide you with a choice between three different boons of which you can choose one (and ONLY one), giving you another possibility to influence your build.
So the Chests of Trials have both the advantage of not costing Pilgrim's coins (actually you can gain coins if getting a boss encounter and killing it, unless you ledged it) and giving you an actual choice for your boon upgrade. Per map exactly one Chest of Trials will spawn. Don't miss it.

It should be noted that with the update from the 28th of October 2021 (Patch 4.4.2: https://www.vermintide.com/news/patch-442-patch-notes ) Grudge Marks have been introduced to the game. More information can be found in Section 5. They are only mentioned here shortly as Grudge Marked Monsters can only appear in the final arena of the expedition OR ... Chests of Trials. This means that opening the Chests now has a higher risk than before with the more difficult to fight and kill Grudge Marked monsters.
It should also be noted that with the update from the 14th of June 2022 (Patch 4.7: https://www.vermintide.com/news/patch-47-39-13-patch-notes), additional Trials have been introduced which not solely consist of fighting a monster.

As mentioned before the Chest of Trials, the Seer's Altar and the Holseher's Map Shrines have all the chance for providing either unused talents from the career skill tree, Charm/Trinket/Necklace traits or boons exclusive to the Chaos Wastes. As the career skill tree talents and the Charm/Trinket/Necklace traits are well known or can easily be looked up I will just provide information on the Chaos Wastes exclusive boons:

Follow-Up due to the character limitation or whatever.

Covering the new boons added by Be'lakor. Some Boons are currently in part 2 due to character limitation issues.

Covering the new boons added by the Skull Update.

Follow-Up due to the character limitation or whatever.

Added to the Chaos Wastes with the update from the 23rd May 2024 are the so-called Event Boons. These are made up of a very small list of additional boons which are only available during the event. Furthermore, their appearance chance is increased in comparison to other boons to make it far more likely getting the Event Boons over other Boons. Though, both statements so far are speculations as so far only one set of Event Boons has been released.

Skulls for the Skull Throne 2024

The Skulls for the Skull Throne Event Boons have been added temporarily for the Skulls Event 2024. They comprise of a list of five different Event Boons which have an increased appearance chance in Seer's Altars, Chest of Trials and Map Shrines. They are also quite cheap costing only 100 Pilgrim's Coins in the Map Shrines. Though, it also means you can make a "loss" at Seer's Altars by getting them while paying 150 coins.


Take note that I so far have only the german names and descriptions. This means I have translated them by hand and the wording may sound weird or be outright wrong. If you spot something wrong, please give me a comment so I can correct it.

As mentioned in Section 4a, the Update from the 28th October 2021 (Patch 4.4.2) has introduced Grudge Marked Monsters. The information provided here mostly recaps what has been said in the Developers blog back then: https://www.vermintide.com/news/all-about-grudge-marks

Grudge Marked monsters might appear from Chests of Trials - depending on the Trial, the difficulty and the expedition's progress - and are guaranteed to appear in the final arena of the expedition. All Grudge Marked monsters are stronger than their normal counterparts by having 50 % more health, causing 20 % more damage and having 70 % less knockback distance after being staggered. And each monster can have up to three Grudge Marks. Also, all Grudge Marked monsters are named and slightly differ in their appearance by having two spears poking out of their back. The potential number of marks they have is dependent on difficulty and expedition progress:

• Recruit: 0 - 1
  
• Veteran: 0 - 2
  
• Champion: 0 - 3
  
• Legend: 0 - 3
  
• Cataclysm: 1 - 3

The first number gives the number of marks encountered on the first map while the second number indicates the number of marks for the final arena. This means that only on Cataclysm you will encounter a Grudge Marked monster on the first map. It also means that starting from Champion, the final arena will always have Grudge Marked monsters with three marks. At the moment, there exist ten different Grudge Marks with varying effects:


Each of the five existing monsters can have any of the listed Grudge Marks in any combination of up to three different Grudge Marks with a few restrictions though. Due to community feedback and some overly unfair situations the following restrictions to monster / Grudge Marks combinations has been introduced with the Warrior Priest Update 4.5.0 from the 10th December 2021 ( https://www.vermintide.com/news/patch-450cu35-patch-notes-amp-warrior-priest-faq ):

• Chaos Spawn and Minotaur can no longer be marked with 'Shield Shatter'.
  
• Chaos Trolls can no longer be marked with 'Invulnerable'.
  
• Reduced chance of getting 'Invulnerable' along with 'Regenerating'.
  
• 'Crippling' and 'Shield Shatter' will no longer appear together.
  
• Reduced chance of getting 'Illusionist' along with 'Shadow-Step' OR 'Invincible'

Shield-shatter restriction has been removed with the update from the 15th March 2022 and new Grudge Marks have been introduced and been tweaked: https://www.vermintide.com/news/update-46-is-live-now-on-pc

Here is a list of all the currently available Trials which can trigger for the Chests. For all Trials, the summons can be seen in the form of purple circles on the ground before the enemy appears. Take this time to reposition, as they can spawn in mid-attack animation.

It should be noted that the Trials are influenced by the map modifiers in two ways. The first one is determined by the enemy combination on the map. If you have Skaven/Chaos you only get Trials for Skaven and Chaos and no Beastmen Trials. If you have Skaven/Beastmen then it is vice versa. For this reason, I have separated the table in three parts. The first part is the Skaven Trials, the second part is for Chaos and the last part for Beastmen Trials.

In addition to the enemy faction, the +Elites, +Specials and +Monster modifiers also significantly decrease the pool of potential Trials. For example, if you have a +Elites modifier on the map ONLY Trials with elites in their spawn can trigger. This is especially helpful if are trying to get the Purified Skins as it may help you to find Chest of Trials with Grudge Marked monsters by visiting maps with the +Monster modifier.
A special note will be given to Khorne Maps. Due to Khorne loathing all forms of magic, the Blightstormer and Life Leech Trial will never happen and will always forcefully trigger the Skaven Specials Trials.

In contrast to initial thoughts, Minus modifiers (-Monster for example) do not have an influence on the Trials, the same as the other modifiers like +Pilgrim Coins or +Horde.

Potions are another big change in the Chaos Wastes. Nowhere to be found are the usual strength, speed or concentration potions. However, as replacement we got 8 new potions with new (although familiar) unique effects. Sad part, is that they are all red making them kinda hard to distinguish.
However, there are two helps for this. The first is the weapon inspection button as described in Chapter 3 which will show you which Potion you are carrying together with a description of its effect. The second one is that each potion got an unique icon attached to them, making distinction possible. Familiarization with the specific icons will help you to remember which potion you or your bots / fellow human players are carrying.

Most of the guide so far (with the exception of the potential map modifier) has been about the boons, bonuses and miracles the heroes can acquire as well as their equipment. However, these are the Chaos Wastes and the influence of the Chaos Gods is ever prevalent.
As such, each map has the chance to be cursed by one of the four Chaos Gods (Khorn, Nurgle, Slaanesh and Tzeentch) as well as the Dark Master Be'lakor, indicated by the halos around the map symbols on Holseher's map. Upon moving the mouse over the map you can also see which Chaos God is cursing it, however not which of his three potential curses is active. In addition to the random chances for a curse per map, you have one guaranteed curse at the final arena map which is identical to the "expedition curse". This one will rotate every week. The Chaos Gods' curses are summarized in the following table:


The Khorne curses deserve a special note as they have the additional effect that no Life Leeches and Blighstormers spawn on these maps even when a Chaos Faction is present. This is due to the distaste Khorne has for magic, as described in Lore.

So what are the rewards for playing the new Chaos Wastes game mode? One of the largest criticism for Weaves was that there was no reward which could be used in the Adventure Mode. This has been solved for Chaos Wastes as you get normal loot chests. You get one - after beating the first map - with increasing value depending on how much Pilgrim's Coins you collected, how many Chest or Trials and Curses you conquered. So the farer you get in the expedition the better this chest will be. You get two more Emperor Loot Boxes if you successfully finish the Expedition. So for a time frame of about one hour you can get three chests which is about equal to the acquisition rate of the Adventure Mode.

That said, there is no loot or some other kind of meta-progression for Chaos Wastes mode itself. You always start anew the same as before with the same strength. So the loot chests are kinda redundant for the Chaos Wastes mode itself.

In addition to the regular rewards there are also one-time rewards in the form of frames which can be earned for conquering an expedition for each of the four Chaos Gods and also for finishing the Citadel of Eternity with each character on Champion, Legend and Cataclysm.

With the introduction of the Grudge Marks, there have also been added new Purified Skins (mostly white) for each career which are granted for killing Grudge Marked monsters. Per career you have to kill five Grudge Marked monsters in total, one on each expedition and one of each monster type.

Guide is mostly done and should be about 98 % finished. Looking for screenshots of missing stuff. Will add them as soon as I get a screenshot of them. Also will replace the current screenshotted boon icons with the cleaner versions.

Sadly my gif is to large to present it here. As such:

Thank you for reading.

If you have any further questions feel free to post them and I'll check if I can answer them.

Acknowledgement: Better looking (and not screenshotted-and-paint-modified) boon icons have been provided as a courtesy by Royale w/ Cheese.
English names for the potential trials have been provided by Catpuccino.