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White Box Buyers Guide: Part 1 Seasonal Content
🕑 Added 2023-01-13 10:00:03 +0000 UTCI had a request for an updated guide into the various extra pieces of content that have been released over the years, this content provides a wide range of different options for players to rebalance and alter their play experience from one campaign to the next. The intention of this updated guide is to give discerning players (rather than collectors) the information required to understand what a particular piece of promotional content provides, both in regards to its power level and what kind of players it will help the most. With that kind of information you can then work out if it is going to be good value for money and make an informed decision when purchasing from the store.
Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO), and collector syndrome are large areas of human psychology that product sellers make use of in the current age, thanks to the internet it is even easier than ever before to get lured into the desire to purchase things “just because I might want it in the future”, “this is my only chance to get it” and “I must have a complete collection.” Board gamers and miniature hobbyists are no exception to these weaknesses, we've all been there, limited time purchases that might never come back are a hard lure to resist.
So below you are going to find a brief summary of the game content involved in each of these releases; I am not covering Beta releases (though you can find full reviews of those under the Promo tag at the bottom of this page); the reason for leaving those particular items out is because it seems they are a once and done option and the level of design quality is of immense variation – ranging from wonderful quality of life improvements all the way to utterly broken bad for the game nonsense. In addition I am not covering promotional gear without an official way for it to be constructed in game. After a short mini-summary and review I will finish each item with what kind of player I think this content is for and what portion of the game it affects (if appropriate) and then giving it a tier list rating from F (Worst) up to A (Best) with a special “S Tier” representing boxes that I think are a must have for any Kingdom Death player. I won't be reviewing the miniatures here outside of noting if you can use them in game to represent a survivor accurately.
With all of that preamble done and dusted, let us get going, I'll be starting with the seasonal content in year order and then after that we'll go through the other “White Box” items that turn up when they are in stock in part two – I did try to put this in one single post, but there's a lot of content to look at even when I'm doing it in short form.
Note: Some of this promotional content appeared in “The Legendary Card Pack”, as far as I can tell there is one item from that box in this list (There are more in part 2):
- Holiday White Speaker Nico
Valentine's Day Twilight Knight
This release has been out for a while now and it includes the Scoopy Club, which is a club gained for free when scrap smelting is innovated. The club itself has some interactions with vomit based keywords (for example the Gorm's Retch action); there are a lot of ways monsters and survivors can throw up, so the additional Daze ability of this club will be online quite often. It's also worth noting that the tool keyword is a significant one in addition to the club weapon keyword giving this weapon late game viability with Lantern Armor.
On the whole the Scoopy Club is far, far too strong for how it is gained, this means it is best utilised by new players that have settlements that are struggling to craft good weapons in the portion of the game where you are transitioning to Leather Amour and Node 3 quarry monsters. More experienced players can leave it in the box and as such I think this is content worth passing on because of the high price it has (due to the 50mm miniature in the box).
Tier Rating: B or C (I can't decide, this weapon has saved terrible campaign runs, but it is a bit too pushed due to being basically free and a club and a tool.)
Till Death Do Us Part
This content gives us access to alternative options for Partnership; while the wording on one of them is a little wonky the intent for both options is clear and I think they are both improvements over the original version. This matters because Hovel is the weakest of the Innovation tree options in the base game and having more powerful innovations in that tree helps a great deal in making your innovation decisions have more player agency rather than 'no choice' options.
The two miniatures for Amanda and Steve are also excellent additional survivor options for players and therefore have added value. As such I pretty much consider this one to be a top tier purchase.
Tier Rating: S
Easter Aya
Affectionately known as the “Ancient EggPoots” the Ancient Root that comes with these two miniatures is part of the Doomed package alongside the Erza of Dedheim content; the Ancient Root is ridiculously simple to unlock and it gives you a 50% “dodge” against the monster's first hit along with an excellent location for a Blue affinity – balanced only with the inclusion of the heavy keyword. The main issue outside of how powerful this item is for how easily you get it is the price of this content due to it including a 50mm miniature alongside the 32mm one.
This one is not a high priority and if you don't own the Dung Beetle Knight it is not worth buying at all.
Tier Rating: C (Used to be a D, but Urza of Dedheim made it more useful and interesting in a really fun manner)
Easter Pinup Twilight Knight
The Haremite vermin resource (not pictured here, for some reason) which comes with is a resource that exists to essentially give the settlement access to a huge amount of extra movement, but it comes at a cost. If you are not able to keep growing your population then you will need to consume all of these in order to stop the growth. It is actually an interesting puzzle piece to encounter because extra movement is completely busted when you reach certain thresholds and even without stacking the extra movement having 6 movement is a huge deal for melee survivors.
While the miniature is useless unless you're playing People of the Lantern Pillow Fight mode with all your pin ups, the Haremite is interesting enough to include in games played by experienced players. Newer players will want to avoid this because keeping a healthy population is challenging while learning how to navigate the game's systems.
Tier Rating: C
Summer Goth Twilight Knight
I reviewed this once recently and I am still trying out its content in as many different ways as possible; however marks are immediately scored against this content due to it being locked to People of the Lantern campaigns only. This means it is not compatible with any other campaign currently released or any future campaign not involving Lantern Hoards. That reduces its overall value; especially because it is only for the latter portion of exactly one campaign.
The gear itself is interesting, but not essential and most campaigns will probably not utilise it even if they do have the option to craft it. I would pass on this one unless you are someone who plays a lot of post-Watcher games due to the increased price that comes with having a 50mm miniature in the box.
Tier Rating: D
Oktoberfest Aya
It is very hard to recommend this box for anyone outside of collectors, One of the patterns requires the Lonely Tree to be in the campaign and the other requires the Screaming Antelope. However, the Brave Dirndl cloth armor is decent for its costs and rewards Song of the Brave survivors who go out in a supporting roll wearing this gear. I would put this armor on an archer most of the time, they do not need complete armor sets and may even appreciate the protection compression this piece of armor represents.
The Afterdeath Brew on the other hand is not great due to requiring the Lonely Tree, using a valuable (and hard to get) fruit and providing a benefit that is essentially a meme most of the time and rarely provides any benefits outside of edge cases. If this gear was held outside of the gear grid you would consider it, but otherwise it is a hard pass.
The Durendal weapon is in a similar place; it is a very cheap piece of gear, but its creation and continued existence is entirely dependant on having a savior going on the hunt and once that savior ceases to exist the weapon is archived as well. The most useful place for this weapon is right near the end of the campaign where you can field your savior in every showdown for the remainder of the settlement's existence. This means it is more common in a People of the Lantern campaign.
That means this set has lowered value for players without the Lonely Tree or Echoes of Death I, while also having less value for Players running People of the Sun/Stars (unless they encounter the L3 Lonely Tree and get a Drifting Dream fruit) and is as such highly situational. This, along with the oversized painters scale mini, means I can't highly recommend purchasing this one on the basis of its game content.
Tier Rating: C
Halloween White Speaker
The Black Ghost Dagger requires owning not just the Dung Beetle Knight, but also the Slender Man expansion. If you don't have both of those, this content is not going to be usable in game for you. It is a pretty interesting and powerful weapon with a well designed scaling method and it helps round out Dagger options for settlements.
If you do have the two aforementioned expansions then I consider this one a good purchase even without any [Pumpkin] Monsters in the game at the moment. It's a good design for a Pattern weapon. I think due to its decent design and synergy with good expansions you should pick this one up when it is about if you intend to get both.
Tier Rating: B (A if you already have both of the expansion monsters)
Halloween Survivors 2
This was a fun release with some lovely models, however what we got in the end was a bunch of gear cards that you wear for more armor points and don't activate. The White Lion, Screaming Antelope and Gorm based costumes all have kind of mediocre abilities, but they do provide 1 armor to all locations, which can be very useful for builds that seek to compress their grid slots – you're basically getting a Leather Shield's worth of protection for each one of these you wear.
The Big Bite costume however is a notch above the rest, it has generic crafting costs andit also has an ability that is worth activating because while it is still a coin flip if you get something good or bad, the bad result is worth the risk (unlike all other costumes released so far).
This isn't a great value proposition overall, but it is fine. Which means it gets an average tier rating.
Tier Rating: C
Flower Knight Halloween Survivor
Similar to the second batch of Halloween survivors, but with considerably less value due to getting only one model and pattern card for half the cost of getting four. The Flower Costume is at least worth trying to utilise due to it handing out a Luck counter, but it is still not as strong as the Big Bite Costume above. If this had come with two survivors and patterns then I'd be able to recommend it, but ultimately I think this one is poor value for money – especially because it requires the Flower Knight to work.
Tier Rating: E
Devil Satan
The Halloween edition of “The Stan Twins” comes with a weapon that replaces the Adventure Sword with the Hope Stealer if you are Insane. This means that not only do you need to roll Hunt Event 85, but you also need to have 6+ courage and be insane. Also wielding the spear will kill the survivor at the end of the showdown – I hope you didn't like that 6+ courage survivor.
The weapon itself is a sentient which means you have to be insane to attack with it and the weapon's strength is equal to your settlement's death count. If you are like me and often churn useless survivors into bodies in order to generate more endeavors and newborns then your death count is probably going to be high, and the Hope Stealer will add to that. This means that this weapon can easily reach 20+ strength when you are approaching the end game even if you are not really trying to abuse death mechanics. Dying at the end of the showdown is of course meaningless if it is the last showdown of the campaign. So normally the Hope Stealer will sit in settlement storage until it is time either for a Red Shirt Plebian survivor to come out and wield it or it is the final battle.
It's basically a weapon that is unhealthy for the game's balance and as such I really can't recommend this box set. I do love the miniatures though, they are awesome.
Tier Rating: F
Halloween Twilight Knight
Halloween sure gets a lot of content doesn't it?
I can't fully speak for the new version of this content, it was updated without much of an announcement so I won't be able to pick it up until next year. However I can say that the Pumpkin Lantern that comes with this set is decidedly meh, if it's only been turned into a pattern card and not had its in game abilities changed it's very hum drum. I think I've only crafted this lantern once or twice in all the years I've played this game.
Rating: E
Halloween Ringtail Vixen
We are still not done with the Halloween content; the Spooky season gets all the love at Adam Poots Games and the Halloween Ringtail Vixen is a part of that, supplying two items of mixed usefulness. The Vixen Tail is a decidedly mediocre piece of gear; only impacting hunts where you are ambushed as long as you are insane. The Vixen Tail also requires the Ringtail Vixen promotional content (more on that next time), so it is not only a weak piece of gear, but it needs other promotional content in order to work.
The Brazen Bat on the other hand is an excellent weapon that is a good price for its strength. Every part of its requirements can be easily obtained by the average settlement and it is close to perfect for when you would craft it. It also gets to scale into the late game thanks to Lantern Armor loving Clubs and it has minor synergy with Vagabond Armor.
Tier Rating: C
Urza of Dedheim
An interesting and overall balanced “Doomed” Package that really wants the Easter Aya to support it. I like what this boxed set is offering; however I am cautious to give it a high rating because of how much it needs to lean on the Ancient Root in order to really get going without having to use a second weapon in its gear grid.
I really like the “Doomed” archtype that APG are creating here, it's refreshing and unique, therefore it is something I'd recommend for more experienced players seeking a challenging playstyle.
Tier Rating: B
Winter Solstice Lucy
This is one of the most important pieces of promotional content out of there. Noisy gear in the game is hard to utilise on hunts due to the Harvester basic hunt event deleting the survivor without any way to mitigate it. The Winter Muffler lets you take out one noisy gear card in your grid while also providing good extra benefits. I would never have experienced the delights of Cello and Three Horns in B Flat without this item. Also being able to take the Whisker Harp out on hunts is amazing.
This one is for everyone, essential purchase. Lucy is also the best survivor.
Tier Rating: S
Santa Satan
This boxed set comes with the strain event "Atmospheric Change" that is completed by the Flower Knight timeline event "Necrotoxic Mistletoe" or the "Story in the Snow" promotional settlement event (see below). Once completed it adds a new basic resource to the deck.
Lump of Atnas; is a fine basic resource to be added to the deck as it can help settlements who are struggling to keep population up. In fact the only downside is it requires the Flower Knight or the Holiday White Speaker Nico content to be able to activate the strain. However, you can shuffle it straight into your Basic Resource deck straight away if you don't own the Flower Knight or Nico. It's fine, just increase your cheating count by 1 at the start of each campaign, I won't tell anyone. It can be our secret, just between you, me and Nico.
Tier Rating: B
X-Mas Special Pinup Twilight Knight
The Xmaxe is a fun weapon that can be kind of busted if you seek to abuse it, but without that level of mechanical abuse it is just a solid option for an axe that scales well throughout the entire campaign. There have been better designs that have come out over the years and this one is showing its age which makes it a bit less essential than it used to be.
It's nice that you get three plastic Xmaxes to use with survivors.
Tier Rating: B
Holiday White Speaker Nico
I love the settlement card that comes with this model because it provides a reduced chance of drawing the really unfair cards in the Settlement Event deck. But it also helps that it is a fun experience and can let a Protect the Young settlement turn into a Survival of the Fittest one during a campaign.
It is a bit weird that it references and legitimises cheating as an actual mechanic in the game that you should count instances of. But KDM is a game that can be so unfair with its randomness at times that I would absolutely never condone someone who admitted they had cheated in some fashion while playing. Fun is a very important part of playing games, and losing Murder down the back of the sofa is a legitimate decision.
Tier Rating: S
Longer form reviews of much of these white box items can be found in the tags for this post under Promo.
Comments
Jake Crowe
I haven’t dived into White Boxes yet, but this is helping me understand that some of them might actually be useful! Now just to hope I ever find them.
Clayton Grey
I appreciate these updates, even owning many of these, it's nice to see your updated context for them. A also laughed multiple times. Thanks!
