Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Pacific wrote:
So is the Dung beetle knight expansion an extra scenario thing to be played with the game, like the Ram one?

Yes.

Core Game - everything you need, includes Survivors and "basic" Monsters.

Expansions - different, special Monsters, special rules for Survivors and their fights against the new Monsters. Not strictly necessary to play, just more variety.

Pinups & Narrative Survivors - things that look nice and can count as Survivors, with minimal gameplay adds, if any. Almost totally unnecessary to play, but great eye candy to look at.

The Dung Beetle Knight is an Expansion and plugs into the Core Game. The Dung Beetle Pinup can count as a Survivor, but doesn't really expand the game in any significant way.

Adam has said the Nightmare Ram's armor kit (the Alpine Armor) is going to be a seperate item from the expansion itself, something about how the amount of fur in it makes it not really compatible with the rest of the armor system.

Generally speaking, I kinda like the idea of a monster expansion having the 4 narrative survivors to build and use as is with the armor kit being an optional buy-in. Especially if it means the kits will be generally available.

As for monsters and how they function in the game: there are three basic types of monsters (with, of course, a weird exception or two).

First are quarry monsters: these are the ones you go hunt and collect their bits from to make gear and what not. In the base game, these are the White Lion, Screaming Antelope, and Phoenix. They each have full sets of armor and suites of weapons and gear made from their specific drops and are meant to be hunted multiple times each over a campaign.

Second are nemesis monsters, which show up to mess with your settlement for their own (or their master's) reasons. There': no Hunt phase since they come to you, and the reward for beating them is generally stop them from doing something bad to the settlement versus phat loot. In the base game these are the Butcher, Kings Man, and the Hand.

Finally are the boss monsters, which are a subcategory of nemesis, but they are the final fight of the campaign. In the current edition of the base game this is the Watcher, but with the new one it's becoming more of a mid-boss and the Gold Smoke Knight the new end boss.

So each expansion fits into one or more of the above roles. Roughly speaking, new quarry monsters don't have to replace the base ones, but practically speaking adding and hunting too many monsters means you will have a hard time completing their armor sets (important as complete sets give excellent bonuses) or farming specific drops for specific gear. Also, some have full armor kits and are intended to be hunted a lot, but they also introduced ones with more limited and specialized gear that are more suitable to hunting a handful of times.

"Full gear" quarry expansions include the Gorm, Spidicles, Dragon King, and Sunstalker.

"Limited gear" quarries include the Flower Knight, Dung Beetle Knight, and Lion God.

New nemesis monsters generally replace a base game nemesis outright. These include the Slenderman and Manhunter. The Lion Knight is a weird sort that is nemesis but doesn't take up your Showdown phase the turns he shows.

The two new boss expansions have already been mentioned: the Dragon King and Sunstalker. That's because they actually offer two ways to use them: either add them as huntables to the base campaign, or use their campaign variant which changes the starting narrative of the settlement and some of the rules for it works. For both monsters, they are not huntable in their special campaign mode but are instead the end bosses. In the Dragon King's campaign, his human form is also a nemesis monster.

Then there's the Lonely Tree, which is a once per campaign random fight that can show up in the Hunt phase.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and the Flower Knight also includes a campaign variant, though not as extensive as the Dragon King or Sunstalker and it remains a quarry rather than becoming an endboss.

So in the base game you hunt the same four monsters and then after 50 hours cap the campaign with a boss? Plus an occasional settlement fight? For $200 that's a bit underwhelming.

There are about 20 or so different ones. Each one at 3 levels each. The settlement phase show ups come once in a while. Death or Glory is pretty much the order of the day with that fight.

Of the 3 issued with that Lantern festival, we were all left hanging with an endgame all or nothing fight to the death against around 4-5 different expansions in that festival set. Though he says he is reworking it, I surmise that there will be a bit of a more ..... measured expansion selection... with that one. With each one roughly around 35-100, you can figure that there will be a more reserved measure of content... That one had the scribe, the king, and a few other ones that I forget, so- check out the figures in KD over at the site, and you can see for yourself the reason that he put the breaks on that one rather quickly... Thanks the accountants, I should think.

This is what Boardgame Geek said was in the proposed expansion at the time. Poots came back at the end and canceled the whole thing, and gave back refunds on it, TBD...

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/135872/kingdom-death-monster-lantern-festival-expansion

At the end of the game, I don't see anyone making it out alive against that enemies selection. You can see the models first hand over here...

https://shop.kingdomdeath.com/



The game is an equal measure of feast and famine, depending on your choices, rolls, results of the combat/ events... Survival of the fittest takes on a whole new meaning.

Clanan wrote:
So in the base game you hunt the same four monsters and then after 50 hours cap the campaign with a boss? Plus an occasional settlement fight? For $200 that's a bit underwhelming.

The AI mechanics allow for a lot of depth to each monster, and for each monster to play very differently from each other, and even for specific instances of the same monster to vary.

Each monster has its own deck of AI cards, consisting of Basic, Advanced, and Legendary cards (each group having more powerful abilities) and Special cards (which don't go into the deck put start in play to represent specific traits of abilities). Each monster (except the end boss) has three different levels, which determine its stats including how to build its AI deck for that fight. This means a given instance of a monster has a random subset of its overall possible abilities, but you don't know the exact mix. Decks for higher level monsters have more cards and a higher ratio of the more powerful cards - and since the AI deck is its health pool, more wounds.

As a quick example, the Level 1 White Lion builds its deck with 7 Basic and 3 Advanced cards and has no modifiers. A Level 2 White Lion builds its deck with 10 Basic and 5 Advanced, moves faster, is harder to wound, rolls more dice and does extra damage with its attacks - and has a Special card that says at the end of each of its turn, if there is a survivor adjacent to it, it basically grabs them and drags them away from everyone else, doing damage and knocking them down - adding a whole new dynamic to the fight. The Level 3 Lion has even more cards, stat boosts, and an additional passive ability.

And that's the *simpliest* monster in the game. There is very much a learning curve to each monster, interactions with the gear you have (crafting being its own mini-game), abilities you may have from choices made regarding settlement development and innovations, and so forth.

Clanan wrote:
So in the base game you hunt the same four monsters and then after 50 hours cap the campaign with a boss? Plus an occasional settlement fight? For $200 that's a bit underwhelming.

Aside from the monster models being *awesome*, and having a zillion options to build your survivors, maybe. Can you show me another game with better models quality and value? Hell, ignoring the game a la Imperial Knights Renegade, can you show me a set of model kits of comparable quality and value?

Clanan wrote:
So in the base game you hunt the same four monsters and then after 50 hours cap the campaign with a boss? Plus an occasional settlement fight? For $200 that's a bit underwhelming.

There are differences.

Each monster has different "levels" that you can hunt them at, and higher levels tend to give them more static abilities that completely change the fight. For example, the lvl1 Lion is quite vanilla and is pretty dangerous. The lvl2 Lion gets a static ability where at the end of turn, it grabs and drags a survivor. The 'personality' suddenly shows up and you're doing a strange dance around the enemy making sure weak players don't get killed, sidestepping out of the way, etc.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
So is the Dung beetle knight expansion an extra scenario thing to be played with the game, like the Ram one?

Yes.

Core Game - everything you need, includes Survivors and "basic" Monsters.

Expansions - different, special Monsters, special rules for Survivors and their fights against the new Monsters. Not strictly necessary to play, just more variety.

Pinups & Narrative Survivors - things that look nice and can count as Survivors, with minimal gameplay adds, if any. Almost totally unnecessary to play, but great eye candy to look at.

The Dung Beetle Knight is an Expansion and plugs into the Core Game. The Dung Beetle Pinup can count as a Survivor, but doesn't really expand the game in any significant way.

Many thanks for that, very useful to know

Starting to see how this can be so expensive, although it does look like you get a tremendous amount of content at the $250 level.

Guys, with the add ons do we need to increase our pledge before the kickstarter ends to get them? Or is it the same as other kickstarters I've backed where you add to your pledge afterwards with the pledge manager thing?

Yannick hennebo has posted his master sculpt for the Twilight knight male pin up on facebook

It's definitely my favourite figure that has been revealed so far in this KS, including any artwork, and who would have thought it from a male pinup?

I can imagine painting it up with demonic glowing eyes and very pale skin.

Clanan wrote:
So in the base game you hunt the same four monsters and then after 50 hours cap the campaign with a boss? Plus an occasional settlement fight? For $200 that's a bit underwhelming.

As others have mentioned, there's radically different levels of monster. While the random nature of the battles can mean that fights are very short in either direction, typically against the survivors but not always, the higher-level monsters can take quite a while. I recall hearing Adam mention a level 3 Phoenix battle that took hours on its own.

For something a bit more verifiable on length of time, in an interview with Tech Raptor at GenCon '15 he said that it took the playtest groups about a month to get through a successful campaign, and that those people were playing the game as a job at 40 hours a week (relevant quote is at 9:55 in the linked video if I didn't do the URL right). The estimate is thus about 160 hours and if you listen further it was typically the third campaign that was actually successful. Adding all that time up and if a group sticks with it, that's more along the lines of 200 hours to get through the base game. The unaccounted for factor in that number is if they were doing any "hobby" things with assembling/painting miniatures. I would suspect not, and for some people that's not an activity the group would do more than once. Still, just the monsters that come in the base game are going to add another chunk of hours. There's lots of meat on that bone, in other words.

On the extreme end for hypothetical number crunching, let's say the top-end cost for "useful" content is $1,666. Let's assume you have a gaming group that takes 160 hours to get through one successful campaign, and after you have your winning plan you cut the time by half (so 80 hours for later ones). You have 2 variant campaigns, and I wouldn't be shocked to have 2 more added in this campaign since we know the Lantern Festival models are likely to make an appearance. That's a total of 320 hours in additional campaigns (4x80) plus your initial one (160) plus a lowball guesstimate of about 40 hours to assemble everything (it's a ton of stuff at the "everything" level). That's a total of 520 hours which for people playing the home version is a bit shy of 22 days of non-stop gaming, and we're not really factoring in failed campaigns and one-off "let's just fight a monster" sessions. Putting that 520 hours into further perspective, if a gaming group meets weekly for 4 hours, it will take them 130 sessions or two and a half years to play through all the content. I think the average gaming group will give out before the content well does, honestly.

It's a huge outlay for an individual, sure, but a gaming group is eyeing an excellent eventual return on investment, presuming they enjoy the game. That's really the tricky part. If you don't like the randomness and you don't like that survivors are expendable it could be a frustrating experience to avoid. The game is designed very much to screw with you and wreck your plans and give you no choice in the matter (other than ignoring whatever rule, which...it's your game, ignore it if you want!). The goal was the if you reach the end in spite of the obstacles, you've defeated a difficult challenge that not many people could do, and it's been quite evident that the odds were never in your favor.

That twilight knight looks great, but I think he needs to lay off the fruit rollups

Eh... he's pretty good, but I think I kinda' burnt out on singles. They're just a pretty bad return considering how much game content you can get for a monster (for instance, looking at what's been announced, 3 little guys, or 1 monster and 4 little guys and 8 bugs (maybe models maybe tokens, probably models) and something nearing 150 cards for $5 less.

I feel like it's getting into that GW realm of people think it's a good deal because it's discounted, and not because it's a good deal.

Or maybe I'm just not the audience for expensive singles since (unless it's phenomenal) I'll generally grab whatever I feel has the best return in volume/content, from what I like.

Okay, I see how the content can last awhile. I think my assumption was that fights would be relatively quick and repetitive (like most games) whereas here, fighting a single monster can take hours and can be different each time.

So if the tactical combat is interesting, then those fights will be interesting.

I'm still on the fence. I'm holding onto a Black Friday $200 pledge but I'm leaning toward bowing out.

There are a lot of playthrough videos and Campaign write ups out there, I'd suggest checking them out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And as much as we talk about the fights, there is also the whole civ-style settlement management. What tech/social innovations will you develop? What gear will you craft? When do you start stockpiling resources for a new settlement location (unlocking more gear and settlement actions)? Will you bury your dead or eat them? Will you try to breed more survivors this turn or bang on the drums to try and cure a disorder of an otherwise powerful survivor?

Clanan, each session (development, events, one fight) takes around 1-3 hours, depending on experience, options, and difficulty, in a 20+ session campaign, so, yeah, there's a lot of content.

The mechanics of the fight might make things wildly different each time as the monster's "wounds" are also the AI deck. You can end up in a scenario where only the nasty cards are left, and thus are constantly being cycled (akin to the "enrage" mechanic common in MMOs), or you may luck out and the early wounds took out those bad things; as they're discarded face down you don't really know what you've taken out of the monster's abilities. Nemesis showdowns also play out very differently from hunts, and there's a definite list of strategies to pursue with all the monsters where one tactic is better for Monster X but a miserable failure for Monster Y. Not trying to give spoilers, but there are resources that can be gathered from hunting particularly monsters that are of use in countering other monsters. Gathering those resources means that less energy is going into killing the monster though, which is typically a bad thing.

The finite number of hunts also plays into what they're talking about with all the "Civ" elements in that the players are called upon to make choices for their settlement. Do you hunt one type of monster exclusively to pick up a particular armor set or spread out the variety but forgo being able to get the top-end benefits? Do you spend the resources on a new location for the settlement or on better gear? What do you do if your best survivors get killed during a Nemesis encounter? Which path do you take when on a hunt and presented with an option of what to do?

The above doesn't even really get into the gear affinity system and the progression of survivors. So while there's a high degree of "lethal random" inherent in the systems, there's also a vast amount of meaningful player choices to be made as well. It is definitely a scenario where good choices don't guarantee success, but bad ones will almost always guarantee failure. I won't say it's a unique game, but the overall experience I've had in my few play sessions marks it out as very different from most everything else I have.

Kinda lame that the Nightmare Ram expansion doesn't include an armor kit. I hope that isn't a trend going forward.

Albino Squirrel wrote:
Kinda lame that the Nightmare Ram expansion doesn't include an armor kit. I hope that isn't a trend going forward.

I agree; I don't mind if a "look" is just too detailed to make work well for modular parts (like fur) so they go with more static poses for the sake of increasing the detail. The mix-and-match part of building the survivors is one of the more fun parts for me though so I want truckloads of parts to add to the organizer I already have brimming with options.

A middle-ground like JHDD suggested earlier of a torso+legs part where you can swap in arms, weapons and heads would probably be a decent compromise as well.

 Krinsath wrote:

Albino Squirrel wrote:
Kinda lame that the Nightmare Ram expansion doesn't include an armor kit. I hope that isn't a trend going forward.

I agree; I don't mind if a "look" is just too detailed to make work well for modular parts (like fur) so they go with more static poses for the sake of increasing the detail. The mix-and-match part of building the survivors is one of the more fun parts for me though so I want truckloads of parts to add to the organizer I already have brimming with options.

A middle-ground like JHDD suggested earlier of a torso+legs part where you can swap in arms, weapons and heads would probably be a decent compromise as well.

Which is pretty much all the case here according to Adam - there is plans for a separate modular Alpine Armor kit, but it's prob not going to be as compatible with the overall armor kit system, all because of the large amounts of fur (and presumably it's layered/draping, as opposed to the White Lion armor which is small, relatively form-fitting pieces of fur).

Yeah, it's only because the nightmare Ram armour doesn't really work with the others and is being released separately. I don't think it's going to be a trend.

I just need it...

I'm a hardcore Monster Hunter fan, so for me, a fur-covered hunter with a Ram's head hammer sort of defines my memories of Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, specifically. :-p

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
I just need it...

I'm a hardcore Monster Hunter fan, so for me, a fur-covered hunter with a Ram's head hammer sort of defines my memories of Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, specifically. :-p

What ram headed armor were you using in MHFU?

Only furry sets I can think of are Blagonga and Kirin.

As a MonHun fan as well, the mix and match aspect was one of the things that immediately set Kingdom Death apart from just about all other tabletop games.

Albino Squirrel wrote:
Kinda lame that the Nightmare Ram expansion doesn't include an armor kit. I hope that isn't a trend going forward.

It does include four survivor types, though. Can anyone tell me how big the Nightmare Ram mini is? I'm pretty sure I want to get this expansion, but $40 + $17 +$2 seems pretty steep for four people and a scary horse.

EDIT: Wait, does the Nightmare Ram not even come with some static pose guys?

It seems to come with "4 narrative Sculpture alpine armor survivor". The size of the creepy horse is also in the following image:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Albino Squirrel wrote:
Kinda lame that the Nightmare Ram expansion doesn't include an armor kit. I hope that isn't a trend going forward.

It does include four survivor types, though. Can anyone tell me how big the Nightmare Ram mini is? I'm pretty sure I want to get this expansion, but $40 + $17 +$2 seems pretty steep for four people and a scary horse.

EDIT: Wait, does the Nightmare Ram not even come with some static pose guys?

It comes with 4 monopose survivors - and in addition to the usual monster decks it also has cards and tiles for laying out its dungeon.

Think that actually sounds like a very reasonable price for an expansion, if it's a whole new campaign/story to play through and minis to go along with it.

Pretty much the going rate for a lot of other board games, and that's discounting how beautifully detailed slot of the miniatures are.

The tiles and cards add a lot to the game, then? Are they useful on their own, enough to motivate someone to buy them from me at a decent price?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Pacific wrote:
beautifully detailed slot of the miniatures

Autocorrect seems to have some preconceptions about Kingdome Death, although perhaps not incorrect ones.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
beautifully detailed slot of the miniatures

Autocorrect seems to have some preconceptions about Kingdome Death, although perhaps not incorrect ones.

Now, now, KD's not Manufaktura Miniatures...