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The Black Knight 5 Year Squire Campaign: A Review
🕑 Added 2024-04-12 09:00:07 +0000 UTC
Image of the expansion contents. See more at the official shop page here.
The Black Knight arrived at the same time as the Killenium Butcher for myself, and while I am still exploring the way that having this boss as a Node 3 Nemesis Monster impacts the normal 25+ year campaigns I have pretty extensively been through the Squire Campaign and completed it successfully a few times now. Enough to have considered thoughts on what the campaign is trying to achieve, what it succeeds in and where it is a bit weaker. So this week we're going to go through all of that.
The structure of this review is going to first look at the overall benefits for short campaigns existing; what they bring to the table and where you can utilise them in general followed by an assessment of the Squire Campaign. After that we'll look at the individual characters in this campaign, their sculpts, gear grids, personalities and so forth. Then we'll walk through the campaign, discussing each of the five bosses in detail. Last of all there's a little bit of spoiler discussion about the story (which I will mark the start and end of with a SPOILERS AHEAD header, I'd recommend you either stop reading at that point or close your eyes and scroll the the bottom before moving back up) and then we'll finish with a summary wrap up. If you want an entirely spoiler free assessment because you've not played this yet I would recommend you skip to that section and then come back here after you've played the campaign a few times.
Later on, once I have enough reps against The Black Knight in general completed I'll also write up a review of the entire $150 boxed set expansion as a whole.
Kingdom Death: Monster and Short Campaigns
So, before we get into this campaign its self; let us just take a short while to discuss short campaign games, why they are relevant for board gaming in general, why they are relevant for Kingdom Death in specific and what an ideal version of a short campaign might coalesce around.
Short campaigns are something that players can experience as a group over a relatively reasonable time frame. Of course what might be considered reasonable will vary from one group to the next but in general something no longer than eight sessions (two months once a week) feels very much like the upper length of what I would consider to be short, and even that number is a bit of an extreme. So for my purposes I'm going to define it as a period that's no longer than about 4 to 6 weeks at one session a week.
At this kind of length it should be a high impact experience, something that delivers wow moments at a reasonable pace, while also escalating from one session to the next. You want players to be surprised and excited about what is coming and also because you are moving towards a fixed length goal the increasing escalation and power increases work well because of that finite and short time limit. To provide an analogy; a movie can do all the work that an entire season of a TV show does during a far shorter period by condensing things, increasing the pace of escalation and paying off a lot earlier. Burn short, burn bright.
Kingdom Death: Monster's 25 and 30 year campaigns are very much akin to the (traditional US) TV show in that analogy; something slow that plays out over four to five months on a weekly basis. It doesn't have major escalations every single year, instead leaving them for first encounters with higher level monsters, higher node monsters and of course the various Nemesis monsters. Our biggest story beats in a 30 year campaign outside of emergent ones (like a settlement struggling in a death spiral) are when the Core and Final Nemesis monsters turn up. With those two acting as the “Halfway” boss and Final boss in the campaign's story.
In between these big moments are smaller, personal goals, triumphs and defeats that the players set themselves along the way. Unlocking new crafting locations, getting a rare resource drop, philosophy/age milestones and so forth. Things happen, but it is more of a grind towards the next big nemesis encounter or new quarry monster; business as usual instead of exceptional.
The issue with these campaigns is that length of time, not all people who board game want their game evening dominated week after week by the same game, and asking players to commit to something that could last two or three months and fail to reach the final showdown altogether is a tall ask for the average gamer. It is part of why the concept of the vignette is so good, it provides a one-off boss battle at decent complexity for players to experience the early/middle portion of the game and see where things go when you have more than just a stone and a modesty cloth.
An ideal short KD:M Campaign then will provide a curated experience where players get to start at an interesting play point, one where they have a decent selection of meaningful options for their activations each turn. It will then escalate from week to week with each session adding more power to the characters through player decisions (allowing for player autonomy and alternative play patterns) while the bosses also escalate in power to match.
The goal here is for the story to reach a climax each session that feels there is a lot on the line that builds up and up, ending with something that is satisfying for all involved and leaves the players wanting to experience that same feeling over a longer period of time where they start lower down and have even more autonomy over their growth and development.
In brief, a campaign like this ideally should act as something engaging for entrenched players while also giving new players a “Kingdom Death in a Nutshell” experience, so they can step from the vignette towards becoming full fledged players. As a quick additional note, if the first fight of this campaign is good enough to run as a vignette by itself, then that is another huge bonus.
The Squires
We start our investigation with a look at each of the four squires. Two of these are based on previous resin sculpts, with some updates to modernise them and reflect the additional new equipment they now have.
Before we get into each individual and their gear grids I want to once again bring up the same criticism that comes with the vignettes, when printing self contained gear grids like these, all survival actions should be printed in full on one side of the gear board (or via a reference card) and any specific fighting arts, abilities, impairments or disorders should also be printed for reference as well. This makes the experience more self contained while also ensuring that new players have everything they need to hand immediately.
I would have also liked a small pad of squire campaign specific survivor sheets; which could have worked as another place to record the details of survival actions, disorders and similar. These have to be utilised anyway and the campaign has its own overarching sheet (though in limited quantities) so anything that makes the experience more accessible for introducing fresh players the better.
First up for our scrutiny are the two junior OGs:
Squires Owen & Elle of the Citadel
Unbreakable
Owen is one of the two original characters released in resin along with Elle, and while they are very distinct individuals within the story progression, with branching paths for their load outs and story beats they do both start from a very similar position, being not just original sculpts, but also they are both most junior of the quartet and initially fulfil a similar role due to having the same starting gear grids. Their personal stats and story however do deviate, and they greatly diverge during the campaign, with Elle even gaining the option to switch weapon proficiency if she so desires.
The sculpts are frankly wonderful, there are so many elements of show don't tell storytelling here; with Owen being the only squire (apart from Cain) who covers his legs and also his pose has him hunching over to make himself as small as possible. Elle on the other hand has a more neutral 'squire' like pose that has her holding onto a bunch of different weapons, some of which she might gain access to depending on decisions made during the campaign's progression. She's also the only one of the squires who (mostly) covers her head, with only a few wisps of red hair poking out from the sides.
Also I'll mention it here rather than going through it each time, the squire sandals are in particular a superb example of monster theming and show, don't tell. The sharp spikes on the heels make the squires walk on the balls of their feet, which softens and dampens the noise they make when cleaning up the citadel after another one of The Black Knight's episodes. But they also make the squires stand in a manner that is lupine, further mimicking their Lord's posture. Kingdom Death is full of these outfits that reflect the monster, but the squire outfit might be one of the best there is.
Their stats are very reflective of their individual back stories at the start of the campaign. Owen has 0 courage because he is cowardly, but also starts with 2 starting hunt XP, +1 strength, 9 understanding, 1 Insanity and has Dagger Proficiency at 1 (meaning he can reach specialization after the second showdown). His cowardliness is further supported by his having the [FA] Extra Sense (giving him a second dodge per round). Owen's Cowardly ability is new and unique to him, he is the 'disposable red shirt' member of the quartet in that if he dies (or ceases to exist) he returns to the group during the Aftermath. This makes him an excellent choice for the experienced player to take, because you are the only Squire who can die without causing the campaign to end.
Novice Acolyte
Elle also has Daggers at 1 proficiency, but she deviates with 2 courage and understanding, 3 insanity, 2 starting hunt XP and +1 strength and [FA] Mighty Strike, which gives her +2 Strength until the end of an attack per Perfect Hit. While Owen can switch off from support/damage duties to work as a temporary “tank” when the more durable members of the group are unavailable (and also throw himself into serious danger when the situation needs a sacrifice to win); Elle is more of an alternating support and damage dealer.
Elle also has a neat interaction with the Black Knight as she has red hair, this allows her to perform a far more supporting role in the showdowns against their guardian benefactor because the Black Knight will shy away from targeting red heads because of lore reasons. (Also, a quick note, we the community figured these lore reasons out long before the Black Knight expansion was released and I want to praise Team Death for not deviating from that, it doesn't matter if people figure out the “twist” in advance. Changing it because you want to still blindside all of the audience is sign of weak narrative confidence. Team Death stuck to their guns and the story is all the better for it.
Before we go and look at the gear grids though; I do have to highlight one disappointing error on Elle's grid. The Squire Toolbelt has been misaligned as you can see here in this comparison image (Red Lines added to highlight this issue - I've checked this on three different gear grids, all have this issue). Hopefully this is fixed in future releases.
Elle is on the left, Owen & Iola's alignment is on the right. I've laid cards out for printing many times before and this is something that can happen, but should be caught way before going to print. It's been approved by multiple people at this stage and one should expect better, especially given that Owen and Elle's gear grids are essentially cut and paste copies of each other with just the name plates swapped.
The Grids themselves are identical mechanically, but have spaces for new pieces of gear to be added, also the campaign rules allow for the printed gear to be covered up if players so desire. We get a full set of Squire Armor for 4 armor points to all locations; a damage reduction ability as long as the body armor points do not reach zero, +1 movement, +1 evasion via the sandals and the hood gives us a bit of deck scouting/control.
Their weapon is the Black Guard Knife, a dagger with sufficient strength to remain relevant throughout the campaign and it also comes with a couple of neat abilities; the first being Persistence 1 (+1 Survival on a Perfect Hit, same as the bone dagger) and also if you get a perfect hit when attacking from the blind spot you gain +1 luck for the attack on top of the weapon having Deadly already. That helps lean into the 'backstab' trope that daggers and knives have.
This dagger is incredibly well designed and shows the depth of understanding that Team Death has moved towards with their own game. I think this kind of weapon would never have existed without them getting to see how the community engages with and demolishes the mechanics with clever play and smart crafting decisions.
Speaking of clever design; the Squire Toolbelt is another great piece; while it is most obviously utilised during the Black Knight showdown to stop being knocked into terrain or off the edge of the board grid there are other monsters in this campaign which utilise knockback in a significant manner. It is very much a 'fire and forget' thing like the crimson crocodile's Mindlock and I can't stress enough how good these type of things are. You find a moment to set it up and then later on you might be rewards, and you can do all of that without being forced to surge during a flow step (while also having the opportunity to do so).
Iola of the Citadel
Master Artisan.
Iola's a POC! HOW COOL IS THAT?!
Iola is also a squire, but she is more of a traditional squire in that one of her main focuses is around supporting Cain's position as the main tank. Iola's miniature is a wonderful look at a more mature individual, she's clearly referencing a smith-like trope with her hammer, muscular physique and burning brand.
In game Iola has 6 courage, 2 understanding, +1 strength is a Club Specialist (3), 4 insanity, 3 starting survival, ; with [FA] Combo Master (something that has got me in trouble more than once while playing this campaign, see picture) and she is Prepared.
There was only 5 HL cards left in the deck. Hello Trap my old friend.
Here is her gear grid.
Her gear grid is identical to Elle/Owen apart from a switch away from daggers to the club Fist of Hamate (a hamate is one of the carpal bones in your wrist) and you can see the hand design both on the art and on sculpt itself. This weapon does a lot to change the texture of Iola's role in the group, which demonstrates how well crafted its mechanics are.
Apart from being a beastly weapon with a good strength level, speed and accuracy. It also has the activated ability to let Iola repair the armor of any survivors. This makes Iola the quartet's off-tank, she'll be near the frontline with that hammer, but is also capable of switching to support the other three survivors with deck scouting or healing. I love the Fist of Hamate so much, “healing” like this is really interesting when it costs an entire activation to use. One could look at this as being a balanced version of the Green Ring from Spidicules.
Cain of the Citadel
Stalwart vanguard.
Finally we have the "old" man of the group with Cain. Cain is very different from the other squires in that he wears an entirely different, superior, set of armor with the Marchioness Armor. He also does not need to wear Squire Sandals, which indicates both his experience and status. Cain has done his time, he doesn't need to clean up any more. He is also the sole miniature from this group who could be used in normal campaign play to represent a male survivor in the Marchioness Armor, so his miniature performs double duty and has a bit of extra value.
Cain is the most experienced member of the group at 9 hunt XP (don't worry, one can still go out when retired); he also has +1 luck in addition to +1 strength, 6 courage, 4 understanding, 2 starting survival, 7 insanity and Sword Proficiency at 6. He is also the only squire who starts with an extra gear card in the Black Gauntlet and he has [FA] Clutch Fighter on top of Explore and Stalwart abilities.
Cain's role in this posse is the main front line tank; through Marchioness Armor he is able to keep a cycle of Deflect tokens up while attacking. It is a very fun playstyle for tanking and is more appealing to a wider range of players than the traditional “immovable object” shield playstyle that is normally utilised. Marchioness Armor is one of the pattern armor sets you can unlock through play in normal campaigns and it is really very fun to be able to point that out for new players. (Don't forget the armor set card when you use this!)
I like how Cain plays, he is very much giving out 'main character' vibes and it is a great option for a player who likes a loop of 'attack attack attack' while other players cover the busy work of supporting and occasional attacks.
I'll cover Marchionesse Armor in more detail in the future. It is a really fun set to use.
This entire quartet of squires are great; while they are not as incredible as the Killennium Butcher survivors were in design, their more “cookie cutter” design with similar gear grids for three of the squires helps cement the military/knightly order aspects of the Squires overall (while also making things easier for less experienced players as they have similar things to relate to with each other).
On the physical front I enjoyed putting these four together, something I cannot write when considering the Black Knight himself.
The Campaign – Light Spoilers
It is impossible for me to write about the campaign without spoiling the five fights that happen in it, I am going to be covering purely mechanical spoilers here; anything else will be in the HEAVY Spoiler section that follows this.
As a five year campaign with a heavy emphasis on narrative every single fight in this campaign has been curated to a certain degree, some of them are lightly touched, others more heavily. But in addition to that, there is a new character mechanic specific to this campaign surrounding the squire's suspicions about each other. Each squire gains a suspicion card, this card has a trigger on it that will increase the suspicion count when something happens involving a different squire. It is a way of delivering unique story beats and as a concept it is fairly interesting, though for myself here the execution of it leaves a little to be desired. I will however, leave the full details of that off the table until the spoiler section.
Other alterations include changes to the hunt phase, which is different from the standard hunt phase, I'll note the mechanical changes in each lantern year. Changes have also happened to the settlement phase, squires do not get a traditional settlement phase, instead they have a selection of options to spend endeavours on and instead of gaining crafting locations, gear is gained by the aforementioned endeavour options.
Finally our game over condition here is a lot harsher than a normal campaign, as mentioned above, if any squire other than Owen dies before the fifth lantern year then the campaign has failed and is over.
Lantern Year 1 – The Black Knight (L1)
The new board is a delight to navigate, though it has a lot of busy work and upkeep involved in it with the breaking terrain.
We start with what is honestly a solid “vignette” scenario all by itself with a showdown against the Level 1 Black Knight, there are a few changes here, one Hit Location card is removed and the citadel tiles all start the game revealed, but apart from that this is mechanically a very normal fight against the Black Knight. I think this fight here is an excellent showcase of what the game's mechanics are capable of during the “mid game” portion of the campaign and it was my first encounter with the Black Knight outside of watching it played during Gencon.
At the start of this showdown the Squires gain an additional, new, survival action called the Black Guard Code. It is token removal via survival action and it is useful in bleak situations as the Squires do not have any form of bleed removal, it's not the most important survival action in this campaign, that is surge, but it is a useful tool. At the end of this lantern year; Elle can switch to Grand Weapon use, gaining +2 ranks in it immediately, though she will have to wait for a future year to receive her grand weapon.
This is a strong start for the campaign and as I wrote above, it is actually just a great one off fight to boot.
Lantern Year 2 – The Mountain Lion (White Lion L3)
I only photographed the first two showdowns during my playthroughts and the reason I managed to remember to photograph this one because the lion died in three rounds. This was a "squires ambush" showdown before the dead monster terrain turned up. Ambushing this Mountain Lion was a HUGE boon. Other attempts were not always as successful...
At the start of this lantern year we get our first settlement phase, one of the quad will have to Clean the Battlefield but the others get to choose from a list that includes extra armor points, extra strength tokens, more survival or gaining [I] Forbidden Dance. I honestly think this is the only settlement phase where there are “correct” choices, I won't list them here though as it requires knowledge of everything that happens ahead of this moment.
The Hunt Phase has a 1d10 table that is rolled on three times, this is a really swingy portion of the upcoming showdown fight, which is a highly curated and challenging battle. Rolling well on this table can make a massive difference to the fight, I like the variance that this offers, but perhaps the Mountain Lion showdown fight was not the best place to put this table.
I write that because the Mountain Lion is in my opinion the single hardest showdown fight in this entire campaign, it is a Level 3 White Lion that has been given a new trait which allows it to gain extra AI actions if survivors “move away” from the monster (end up further away than they started). In addition to that, it also has a fixed AI deck including two new cards and a lot of knockback. This AI deck has the Legendary card Vanish on top of it at the start of the showdown and it is protected from any form of pruning because the monster has the Life (20) trait instead of removing AI cards as wounds.
Players absolutely do have the tools to win this fight, but for first time encounters, if a group does not take the time to think about everything and consider the situation a death can happen very quickly. This means it has a steep learning curve and offers potential frustration.
I do really like how this showdown demonstrates a core principle of Kingdom Death, that just because a given monster shares the same miniature as the rest of its species it isn't identical to any of the others. Given the way that AI and HL decks are shuffled, that the AI deck has a semi-randomised selection of cards; you can be pretty confident that I have never faced exactly the same White Lion as you have, ever. The variables are just too high. So the Mountain Lion, in addition to its new trait and two new AI cards (which I have added to the normal pool of White Lion AI cards because I like how they increase the variability of the existing White Lions), is an excellent showcase in how to change a showdown fight with just a few brush strokes.
Despite that though, I think that maybe this fight needed to be right at the start of the entire campaign because the failure rate on it is likely the highest in the campaign. I honestly would advise players encountering this for the first time to maybe take a quick snapshot of their situation at the start of the lantern year, in case a defeat happens. It'll happen quick if it is going to occur, the lion wants to isolate and kill a lone target, and if you try to deny its Cunning Grab through dashes, then it'll punish the heck out of you for that.
At the end of the showdown, the Squires will have a bunch of White Lion resources and hopefully will have progressed their weapon proficiencies (apart from Elle if she made the weapon type switch).
Lantern Year 3 – The King's Man (L2)
The settlement phase this year requires one survivor to Pack the bags; gaining two new pieces of gear while doing so. Otherwise once again strength tokens, armor points or survival can be gained. Also this is the point where resources can be traded in to gain one of three different rare gear cards. A bow, a tool for Iola or a Grand Weapon for Elle. If you have switched Elle's weapon proficiency then you are going to have to grab Fellbrandt and I honestly think that Everburn is something I don't want to pass up on getting, so the choices here are for myself a bit more limited. I'll dive a bit deeper into the five new pieces of gear available here in the spoiler section.
As this is technically a Nemesis showdown, the hunt phase is entirely narrative, while the showdown itself is a bog standard level 2 King's Man. The most interesting portions of this showdown fight, which personally I have always felt is one of the most monotonous and dull experiences thanks in part to Silent Hymn dragging everything out; are the lore based ones. I shall not spoil those here, but I really like them.
I don't really have too much else to write about this fight, it is not mechanically special and I never really enjoy fighting the King's Man, though I will note that at least the Trap Card here can't be blanked due to a lack of shields, so that at least keeps the trap more interesting than it is in normal campaigns and it is also nice that the King's Man has a weakness to daggers that one can take advantage of here.
Lantern Year 4 – The Phoenix (L3)
The settlement phase provides options for armor, strength tokens, insanity gains, survival gains, de-aging to get another Age Bonus later on or gaining understanding. But the really interesting one is if Iola has the Everburn she can activate the story event Time Forge and craft a new weapon. YES PLEASE!
The hunt phase is three rolls on the Hunt Event Table, but all of the tens (10, 20, 30 etc) are removed and replaced by a specific event in the Squire Campaign. What a surprise, the Harvester had to be removed from the campaign because noisy gear is given out early on.
The showdown itself contains my favourite Phoenix of all time, this is a Level 3 Phoenix that has zero legendary cards, thereby ensuring that Deja Vu can't turn up at all. (We really are getting a greatest hits of the weakest elements of the core game being omitted aren't we, well except for Silent Hymn which just won't ever go away no matter how much I ask our dog to eat it).
Personal gripes aside, I mean it when I called this my favourite phoenix; the combination of the squire campaign, the squire gear plus the removal of most of the legendary cards allows one to really enjoy the experience. It is a fun challenge and another fight that just showcases Kingdom Death at its best. I could easily see turning this into a vignette by taking a snapshot of the set up for the squires at the start of the showdown.
Lantern Year 5 – The Black Knight (L2)
Our final settlement phase allows the Squires to gain armor points, strength tokens, survival and insanity + [FA] Orator of death. But it also allows the squires to “build the bell” for a nice final boost before the final showdown if sufficient resources have been gathered and retained. The last hunt phase will trigger any “revelations” if any individual suspicion tracks are full and if all are full there will be an additional “Final Revelation”.
The showdown fight is a modified Level 2 Black Knight fight and it is again a really good experience. I'll write more about the Black Knight showdown once I've faced it a few times in the campaign setting, but my initial experiences are all very positive. This is a fun final battle, it is a really well designed showdown and a suitable climax for the entire experience. I'm being brief here because I'll be writing all about the Black Knight showdown itself in detail sometime in the near future.
If the squires prevail, there is one final piece of text and with that the story is over.
So that means it is time for those of you who want to avoid spoilers to stop reading.
The HEAVY Spoiler Section
SPOILERS AHEAD
First up let us go through the rare gear that comes in the campaign, you're unlikely to utilise all of them in a given campaign, and they're also interesting enough that I want to discuss them a little here. I'll look at them in the order they can be found during the campaign, starting with the least interesting with Cain's Black Gauntlet.
Black Gauntlet
The main use of this is thematic as it is tied to Cain's own story, so I will not be discussing that in much detail except to praise its inclusion. Mechanically it helps support Cain's position as the front line tank, by giving him both extra armor and the ability to ignore severe injuries to that location.
Fellbrandt
Fellbrandt is our alternative weapon choice for Elle if we choose to take her down the Grand Weapon path and I really like this weapon so much that honestly I'm going to pick it pretty much every time. But I might not be giving it to Elle, because it has the sword keyword, meaning that Cain can also make use of this weapon if he wanted. It is an improvement over the Sanctuary Longsword, so it is a lovely bit of design to make this weapon viable for more than one squire.
The first time I played through I tried this on Cain as a replacement weapon and kept Elle on Daggers and the second time I switched Elle and had her use this. Both options felt fun and interesting to play with
Shrieking Bow
First up, before we get into the weapon itself. I want to express just HOW wonderful it is to be writing about a noisy weapon and not have to worry about the keyword doing anything other than adding flavour. The lack of the Harvester in this campaign is such a load off the design and what we have here as a consequence is a wonderfully rich and thematic weapon that taunts by shrieking when it is fired. Just about everything about this weapon is great and I would be thrilled to see this bow in campaigns without the Harvester as it is such a super thematic thing.
Within the campaign itself the Bow is a little bit below power in isolation. The issue is that the Squires all have a base +1 strength and the bow is a base strength of 5 for a total of 6; the monsters that this bow will be facing have respective toughnesses of 15, 15, and “16” which means that it is way below what it needs in order to be able to operate.
As this is not a starting weapon, that is a little rough and it means that it needs support from Iola and Everburn to be able to function. So let us take a look at that next!
Everburn
Everything about Everburn is something I love. This is a tool that not only enables crafting of the Magnum Knives, but it can also be used as a “weapon” (but it cannot sharpen itself, it is not a weapon) and it helps the Black Guard Knives/Shrieking Bow get enough strength (via Sharp) to keep up with the monster toughness levels.
I adore how thematic this tool is; as it supports the concept of a squire maintaining and improving weapons for their knight. I really do not have much of a critique, it gives extra options during the showdown, it synergises with other weapons and it drips as much theme as it does molten metal.
Camping Bag
In most cases the Camping Bag's -1 evasion is not much of a downside at all; it is negating the +1 evasion from Squire Sandals,but even with this -1 I think the sheer amount of extra survival this offers is worth that price. So many of the bosses in this campaign need to be cut down quickly before they can attrition the squires too much, also because crafting locations do not come into play, farming for resources is a lot less important than just securing the kills (another great thing about limited campaigns/scenarios like this is the removal/reduction of farming tactics).
Otherwise, it's just a nice, neat, simple item that I would once again love to see come across to normal campaigns.
Portable Waterphone
Before we get into the specifics of this one, I'd like to quickly note that this is a close to exact replication of a waterphone and the fact that this is called “Portable” suggests the existence of a non-portable version and I really like that smidge of world building (intentional or not). Also, as you'll hear if you listen to the video linked above just how incredibly Kingdom Death this instrument is.
The way that this instrument works is also unique, but not super powerful because of that 30% chance of success. The Black Knight alone is impacted by this because the Level 2 Finale version of the big doggo converts removed toughness tokens into damage tokens. Here's a tool to help you manage those while also affecting other tokens if they get onto the monsters encountered before.
I like having this as an option, though it is not something you use all the time because it is unreliable. A neat counterpart to the Whisker Harp for sure.
Magnum Knives
Finally we have the Magnum Knives; a triple weapon type that has two attack modes, the 3 speed standard and the automatic hit single shot. I sound like a broken record at this point, but these knives are just so much fun and why I absolutely consider the Everbrand to be a “must take” (along with how that tool helps other weaker weapons). Cain, Elle and Owen can all make great use of these Knives and again I hope to see a similar design turn up in the future for more general usage.[Insert usual Fen note about how we need a Thrown Weapon Mastery even though it is not relevant to this campaign.]
Onto the negative point now; and the final revelation story event is the biggest black mark I hold against this campaign, while it is a seriously cool and interesting moment from a lore perspective as it is revealed that Owen is in fact the Pariah, the in game application of it is a little sloppy. The suspicions are really intriguing for players, they are a mystery box that just beg to be opened.
Due to this natural human curiosity, getting to each individual one does feel rewarding as you get a little insight into one of the characters in this story. However, the final revelation effectively “kills” Owen and eliminates Owen's player from the campaign right before the final showdown. This kind of pre-showdown elimination (usually from hunt events) is one of the weakest moments in Kingdom Death's gameplay loop for larger groups and it is one of the reasons why smaller group sizes than the “maximum” 4 are often recommended. It just feels awful to sit down, get ready for the boss fight and then be eliminated without even placing your piece onto the board.
It is further compounded here because this is not just any old single showdown that is being skipped, it is the finale of the entire experience and it is triggered by something that people are genuinely going to want to do. Max out everyone's suspicions. That's human curiosity and how people are encouraged to explore games, what is that piece of extra unlock? They are going to want it.
So honestly for myself that means as the 'teacher' of the game, I am going to be the one who takes Owen. I'll obfuscate the reasoning behind the justification that 'Owen is the disposable member of the team, if he dies the showdown will continue.” Or something similar. But in truth I am taking Owen in full knowledge that I may not get to play in the final fight and will instead sit it out in a “Games Master/Dungeon Master” role instead.
All of this could have been avoided if the final revelation was triggered after the Black Knight finale, then it would have been the bittersweet moment of storytelling that it is, without mechanically eliminating a player's unit from the game. It is a shame and it is also frustrating because this is an issue that purchasers need to be aware of if they are going to use the Black Knight expansion squire campaign as a way to hook new players in.
SPOILERS END
Final Summary
This short campaign format is something that Kingdom Death has needed to introduce new players to the game just as much as it needed vignettes. The Squire Campaign is a rich, engaging story with interesting characters; however it has some rough edges which means it is smidge more akin to the White Gigalion vignette rather than the Killennium Butcher's more refined and perfectly polished version. There are two areas in particular that hold this one back as something to grab new players; one of which exists in the spoiler section and you may want to work around and the second is the Mountain Lion encounter.
That encounter against the Mountain Lion is an excellent example of how a well designed trait and tailored AI deck can change the texture of a showdown fight against a particular boss. However it is far too over tuned for new players and it turning up in the second lantern year is a point of frustration before the players feel invested. Having such a disengagement point at such an awkward early in the campaign makes it very hard to recommend this as a way to bring new players into the genre, you're going to have to just figure out what your group are comfortable with – a “save state” is probably a good option. Without going into details about the second issue it is a matter of timing that can create a feel bad situation of about the worst kind and you should probably solo play the campaign beforehand in order to get an idea about it and how you are going to handle it.
However, outside of those two points of friction what exists here is an excellent first attempt at a single campaign and for experienced players who are inoculated against the disengagement there is a lot here to like. The four squires are interesting and the little story beats that expand on their individual personalities and how they view each other are. I really wanted this to be the second step in introducing new players to KD:M after the Killennium Butcher vignette and while the story writing is up to the same standard as that wonderful boxed set; the game balance here is not as even as that masterpiece.
I am also not sure how/when/if I will play this campaign again in the future solo, while it is really well done, there are less decision points for development than I would have liked and that harms its re-playability for myself as a huge part of what makes boss battlers interesting for me is constructing and refining new builds. I came for the bosses, I stayed for the gear grids.
It is still an excellent campaign, amazing world building and something that I will use to introduce new players to the game. So overall, I think this is not perfect, but it is amazing and gripping. Great stuff.
You can order this boxed set from the official store; link here. At time of writing this expansion is also currently being developed for the KDSimulator.
Comments
Sergiy Demchenko
"which allows it to gain extra AI actions if survivors “move away” from the monster" Hey Fen, Please note the wording on the Trait. The Lion will remove a token AND draw an AI card. Meaning, that even if you don't remove the token, he is still going to draw a single AI card. This has been confirmed with Taste and it makes the fight much tougher, however it is now "safe" to dash once from Cunning
Jake Crowe
I got to that Lion and thought, “How am I going to beat this!?” I think the second time ‘round I’ll get it, but 😮.
