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Kingdom Death: Lolowen Box Content Review
🕑 Added 2023-05-19 09:01:00 +0000 UTC
Lagomorphs steal the poorly guarded eggs appearing in nests around their settlement. They return to the settlement and feast on the glowing green yolks before the ornate shells become too tough to break. The raw eggs are easily gained but rarely sit well in the survivors' digestive tract. To prepare for the blood rites, survivors will spend a lantern year incubating the eggs with their body's warmth, until the iron-hard shells crack, disgorging the helpless downy creatures they consume for their preparatory feasts. When it came time for Lolowen to incubate her egg, she lacked the patience to produce a sacrifice for the feast.
The Lore
The wheel of time turns and the age of Easter once again came and passed; this time giving us the first pattern cards that we can't use until the Gambler's Chest arrives due to it not being allowed to join the deck as it only has the seed keyword and that completely orange pattern card back (unless you want to spend for opaque American size card sleeves). This of course makes it rather hard to fully assess because we do not know how many seed pattern cards are going to be in the deck total (and what they are like).
The Lagomorph survivors are something that has grown in Kingdom Death's lore to the point where they overshadow the Ringtail Foxes in every aspect; this tribe of cosplayers have appeared with the Easter Twilight Knight, Easter Aya, Lagomorph Survivors Duo, Pasha and now Lolowen. For those of you who are interested, Lolo is a Christian female name that means Wealth, while the suffix “-wen” is a Welsh Celtic feminine form (“-wyn” and “-win” are the masculine versions). So it roughly translates to Wealthy Fair Female.
If you're curious about more of this, you can see Tolkein use it alot with various Elves (The Elves are coded with a deep part of Welsh Celtic in their tropes – something that's become hard coded into many fantasy stories thanks to the influence Lord of the Rings phas had over the genre). Arwen, Eärwen and a few even female Humans like Morewen use the “-Wen” suffix. The notable area this is used is in the deliberate naming of Éowyn with a masculine form namesignalling the way that she dresses in a masculine form to travel with the Riders of Rohan and this is the sole use of the wyn suffix in the tale.
Lagomorphs are; of course, rabbits and hares. The Lagomorphs in the world of Kingdom Death are a little different due to their size and laying of eggs (like the Easter Bunny) rather than just being symbols of fertility, sensuality, rebirth and resurrection in western culture or longevity in Chinese culture and here are the other pieces of text from each release:
The survivors live under a canopy of glistening tendrils that disappear into an infinite horizon they cannot reach, no matter how long they journey. When they are disturbed, the quivering tendrils fill rapidly with twisting obstructions that burst forth from the engorged threads. Commonly, fleshy lagomorph creatures emerge shrieking, attacking the settlement. In the undisturbed silence, the survivors hear the tendrils singing in their language.
– Lagomorph Survivors
Pascha is a survivor from a settlement that primarily hunts Ashen Lagomorphs, also known as Milk Rabbits. What they lack in intelligence, they make up for in viscousness and a high capacity to breed. Milk Rabbits never stop growing, and their appetite increases with their size. Most die from madness, others from their front teeth getting so long they curl under their chin and cut their jugular.
Milk Rabbits have poor eyesight and scent, wearing fabrics and makeup made from their fur and fat is a great way to confuse them while on the hunt.
Pascha’s shears are specially made to cut dense Milk Rabbit fur that is so fluffy and matted it acts as a layer of armor!
Her settlement lives in fear and respect for the monster, often holding festivals to promote health, fertility, and a healthy body.
– Pasha
We even have the delight of seeing one of the Milk Rabbits in Wenjuinn's artwork:
This suggests that there are two different types of Lagomorph survivors depending on if the local Lagomorphs are the Ashen/Milk variant or normal; with the normal kinds being more aggressive and capable than the endlessly growing and partially blind Ashen ones. That certainly would explain the extreme differences in the cosplaying between Lolowen/Lagomorphs and Pasha.
The Miniatures
We get two miniatures in this box; it is again something that is aimed at hobbiysts/painters with an afterthought of game content to hook in the majority of players in also. This is a similar thing to what is happening with the beta content; where photoresin printed miniatures are bundled alongside small drips of content
Honestly, the larger of these two depictions of Lolowen is a pretty ugly miniature that lands right in the crosshair of the people who criticise the large amounts of cheese cake that surrounds Kingdom Death. It is especially noticable here; where the normal scale Lolowen is dressed in a typical Lagomorph fashion, while the Painters Scale one has no pants on. I don't mind nudity; I very much like Summer Aya, the Bone Eaters and the female Lagomorph survivor for a few examples but what we see here is something that I wouldn't really want to paint and display on a shelf. The nudity isn't the thing I dislike however, it's the hands and face of this miniature. Maybe they'll look a lot better when painted, but my eyes are drawn to the face or hands I find myself pulling a face like this 😑.
The smalller miniature of Lolowen with the Kanabo however is a great little sculpt which will certainly grace my table at appropriate times. It's got all of the classic Lagomorph trappings with a fun pose and I'm looking forward to painting her. Still, a good small miniature doesn't compensate for the sheer price of this box.
The Content
The content itself here comes in two parts; the first part is an additional system to bolt onto the game's core mechanics; this is the character system and it is another system on top of the strains and patterns (ignore the creaking that the mechanics are making, it's fine, it just works). However, here it is the element that fits into the game in the simplest manner; without the Character innovation this new character card is an ability that's given to the next/first survivor born in your settlement.
The Hasty is nothing but a great ability to have; while +speed can sometimes get your survivor into trouble, it can always be overcome here through two different approaches. Either you can only activate the Hasty survivor first when the bonuses are something your weapon requires; or you can ignore the +speed entirely by choosing to utilise a slow weapon. Slow weapons are a popular part of the normal playstyle because of how they provide a huge level of control for hunt parties (as long as you can withstand the additional time through an unbreakable defense. However, the downside of Slow is very much an 'all eggs in one basket' situation – you get one attack roll, if that misses then you've spent that activation for nothing. That's where the additional accuracy comes in; you do not need to use the speed if slow has overwritten it.
So overall this is a card with very few downsides; it's not even a Fighting Art or Disorder; it's an ability, and while it is an ability that can only be given to the first born survivor in a settlement, it is going to help out there a fair bit when you do eventually start using the survivor.
Crafting Cost:1x bone, 2x broken lantern
Crafting Requirements: a club, scrap smelting
The Lagomoph Kanabo is based on the Japanese weapon of the same name; this club originated as a way to overcome samurai armor. Because Japanese armor smithing was not great (for the best armor one would need to go to Milan) this kind of spiked wood/metal club was a decent option that could cause deep tissue damage. This weapon would become closely linked to the Oni due to its brutal style that could break the blades that were common amongst the samurai.
A gear special rule. When your wound attempt total surpasses the monster's toughness by X or more, the monster suffers an additional wound.
– Surpass X rules
The mechanics of this weapon greatly tie into that with the Surpass 5 synergising with not just the weapon's affinity ability, but also club mastery overall. It is a solid early game weapon that has synergistic ties to The Hasty Character card and also some moderate scaling. However Rush is quite a price to pay for this against tougher monsters:
A special rule. When a survivor hits 3+ times in a single attack, they Rush for that attack.
– Rush Rules
This means you can get one powerful hit, but then the remaining two are pretty weak without good strength to back the weapon up. Early testing of this weapon is revealing that it is not great; with the heavykeyword making this weapon even less desirable. On top of that, its early game construction currently requires the Bone Club (or rushing the weapon crafter, or a Gorm Riot Mace); so you'll be constructing this with a weapon that is either strictly or situationally better than the Kanabo.
That strands this weapon in an odd place; however the real piece of the puzzle which we are missing is basically the rest of the entire jigsaw. Without the Gambler's Chest Expansion (GCE) we cannot really assess this content in the context of the campaign where it seems to be intended to be used. It is possible that the GCE might offer a new, alternative to the Bone Smithy where a Bone Hammer is constructed cheaply and thereby making progression to the Kanabo a lot smoother. Likewise we might actually have decent scaling of monster toughness in the GCE, which might make strength 3 weapons last a bit longer than they do in the typical 1.6 campaign.
The Summary
All this means I can't really recommend getting this content as it stands right now; there are too many missing pieces to make this worthwhile, the miniatures together are; (no matter how much I love the Lagomorph concept) only average, with the painter's scale miniature inflating the price for the content even further. So for now don't go chasing after this one, perhaps next Easter things will be different.
