Kingdom Death: Monster – Gusk Knives Grimmory White Box Content Review (Patreon)

The monster's malformed maw drooped at one swollen side, spraying with pus as the monster swayed and lumbered. Even though it sensed its own failing life, the Gorm lunged with its fangs at the remaining survivor. With a final exhausted thrust into the monster's mouth, Grimmory landed a blow on the massive, angry cyst pulsing in the monster's jaw. An unimaginably loud howl of pain tore his eardrums to shreds.

The indomitable monsters that stalk the darkness unchallenged tend to grow features not normally found in younger specimens of the species. Survivors brave and lucky enough to survive encounters with these monsters gain indomitable resources. These unusual components inspire new configurations of gear worthy of these hard won treasures. – Gusk Knives Grimmory Lore

Guilt is the force that drives Grimmory. Betrayals mar his conscience, sins for which he can never fully atone. His shoulders are heavy with death and his heart is lost in the past. His Knives serve two masters. Grimmory believes he is the stronger of them. – Grimmory Original Release Lore

Grimmory is the latest of the various beta resin releases to make the transition from experimental into fully realised game content and he has also joined the ranks of the game's indomitable survivors. This is a little bit of a surprise, because I expected either Morg to come out or failing that Badar and his Spidicules based weapon to turn up before we went back to the Node 1 monsters again. It just feels more complete and satisfying to work upwards through the various monster “linked” survivors and turn them into indomitable survivors before returning.

However, as Morg has not yet had a physical release, this does still make sense, as for tabletop only players this release gives us our first Gorm indomitable survivor to have in person. Grimmory is honestly a very welcome character for myself; his hunched posture, greasy looking lank hair and overall appearance of a JoJo villain has always made it something I quite like to see on the table. In addition to that, Grimmory has a brother in Repocratis along with his connections to the Gorm and the “two masters”. He's a fun level of intriguing and also stands out from the crowd.

The Model

Frankly I love everything about Grimmory's miniature, and the release in plastic is a huge step up from the photoresin one because it is honestly quite a frail piece in resin. Those daggers are very long and extrude out enough that breaking them is a genuine risk when trying to use the model as a game piece. I've had more than one harrowing moment with my painted Grimmory you can see him on my instagram here, hanging out with other photoresin models.

The translation from the photoresin to the plastic version has been close to flawless and I really think that Grimmory is one of the two best looking Gorm Armored sculpts alongside Hungry Basalt from the White Gigalion boxed set (three if you count Morg, but he's not in physical form at the time of writing this).

So I have no criticisms, no notes, just praise for this particular model. I hope Badar and Repocratis come out in plastic soon also. Actually, if I'm honest I'd just like to see the entire Beta project retired and we go straight to these plastic releases instead.

The Game Content

Our second ever Gorm Indomitable weapons (and first in physical) the Gusk Knives are a paired set that require hunting a total of at least two Gorms to craft them. This is because the pattern requires 1x Impacted Gusk (the new indomitable resource), 1x Acid Gland along with 2x Organ and 1x scrap per Gussky (as we have nicknamed the Gusk Knives here). At the moment the lack of other Indomitable resources means that we can easily craft both if we want to use them paired by hunting just two Ancient Gorms (Level 3). That's not going to continue once more indomitable resources come out, so one has to consider how good these Knives are going too be when used in isolation.

Here they are alongside the original Gusk Knives on the right.

These weapons have changed dramatically from their original release; losing the shield keyword, the Block 1 ability, and having the Consecutive Spaces keyword removed in exchange for a new version. They are very different in their function when compared to the original Gusk Knives, the play pattern with the original ones was to block a hit from the front and then slide around to the back of the monster ready to attack in the blind spot. It was a very unique, engaging and powerful way to operate. Allowing a survivor to be a hybrid damage dealer and “off-tank”; flexing between roles as needed. It also allowed for a smoother completion of Shield proficiency without stuff like the Immortal Arm (from the Croc).

Our new Gusk Knives are a more traditional and offensively statted set of Daggers. They have retained Paired plus the Blindside ability converting <R> Wound and <R> Reaction to failures, meaning that they can worry less about reactions when attacking from the rear. The Gusskies also have an interesting scaling ability where the survivor who uses them moves around in “unrepeated” spaces with gradually increasing strength for each time this is done per wound attempt. So potentially, with paired, all six hits could go 7 → 10 → 13 → 16 → 19 → 21 strength.

I am not entirely clear how definitive “unrepeated” is, at this time the glossary doesn't define it. So I cannot tell if it is per activation, per attack or just as the entire survivor's turn. Consecutive Spaces was more definitive because it had a glossary definition, so until we get an entry on the glossary page or a clarification in the FAQ I have just been running them as no repeated steps during the attack and referring to Consecutive Spaces because that is at least defined in the rules. Also trying to track every single space you have moved through in a turn is a headache, even on the KDM Simulator!

Here are the relevant entries from the previous version of the Gusk Knives

Rest in peace Grimstep.

The switch to three spaces is a bit of an interesting one also, because all it really requires is a step backwards, one to the left (or right) and then a forward move. Creating this sort of semi “looping” pattern which is only interrupted by survivors or obstacles. How easy/awkward this is very much depends on what Team Death define “unrepeated” as; and I must express disappointment that they have moved from a clear definition supported in the glossary where anyone with internet access can get to in a couple of clicks (as per Consecutive Spaces) to one that needs to lean on common general language understanding of the word. We have a similar problem with avoid vs. cancel vs. ignore all of which are not defined in the rules, but have very different meanings in common parlance – thereby implying that they are all different effects. Its frustrating, and can be forgiven when dealing with beta content, but not so when we are dealing with white box releases. There is a certain standard projected by that line of boxes and this doesn't meet it. I do expect better clarity from a brand selling products at this price.

That tangent aside, I am very impressed with this new version of the Gusk Knives; they are very capable of scaling upwards from an attack thanks to the Blindside ability allowing for the lower strength attacks to cancel reactions (from the blind spot) and kicking off scaling. If a survivor can “dance” from one blind spot to the next then this is a paired weapon that is close to perfect. When you only have to worry about hitting the trap rather than trap plus reactions with your high speed weapons then you can go a bit more hard on speed. Also the 7+ accuracy means 6+ in the blind spot (aka 50% accuracy), which translates into an average of 3 hits per attack in the blind spot. This is all stuff that is well within the acceptable tolerances for a weapon. Combine that with the base weapon strength, strength scaling plus reaction cancelling and you end up with

Summary

Another really great Indomitable Release here, the Gusk Knives are thematic for both their weapon type and the monster they come from. Grimmory is also a really distinctive and unique looking survivor who doesn't fall into any of the typical tropes that most survivor sculpts line up in. We've had a bunch of these sculpts in the beta line; Grimmory, Repocratis, Badar, Gnostin and Galanthus all feel very different from each other and run a range of different personalities.

If you own the Gorm (and you really should), I think this one is pretty much an easy recommendation from me, especially if you play digitally.