Gen Con Releases: First Impression Reviews (Patreon)

I recently got to see the Gen Con KDM content ahead of it being reaching the shop, which I assume will be on the last Friday of August; this is a rare opportunity for me to review the content before the sale so you can make a slightly more informed decision about what is the right fit for you. So I am pushing this week's post release to Thursday (today) in order to give enough time for you all to get additional info. I am going to return and review these fully next month, but there are so many releases that I cannot do it here. Hot takes, so be aware that my impressions may change over time here.

Instead I'll give an overview of what game content is in the box, how it works, what other content/expansions are needed to utilise it (or what content it enhances) and finally my thoughts on how much value it is. I'm basing the price on what was on this board here (Third picture). These prices seem consistent with what we've seen in the store for similar product lines.

At the end of each mini review I'll include what expansions are 100% essential to use this content, a first impressions rating, who the content is good for so you can see if you fit into that category and how much value for money I think it represents.

As a reminder, these are just first impressions based on reading and my knowledge, not on play.

Indomitable Survivor Thumping Timpani Ledla

Price: $30

Game Content:

• 1x Smog Singer Indomitable Resource

• 1x Indomitable Pattern

• 1x Indomitable Gear Card

Ledla is this photoresin miniature (the one pictured was gifted to me by A Warm Unpleasant Feeling aka AWUF and more pictures are here) and she is one of my all time top KDM survivor miniatures because I love that she represents a different body shape than most of the female miniatures in the game. She's also full of SO. MUCH. CHARACTER. I love her.

She comes with an additional Indomitable Resource plus associated pattern and gear card. It has the same issues that all Smog Singer gear has, being blocked by the most dangerous hunt event in the game. However, it does have some interesting synergies with Knowledges that want to utilise attribute tokens. It is a drum item instrument that gives +5 survival on arrival and also lets you give survivors guilt tokens via encourage (remember you can normally only encourage a knocked down survivor), and once they have 3+ you instead give them positive attribute tokens. An interesting support gear card, but absurdly slow and it doesn't even have affinity colours that match with the Black Knight “Encourage” armor set as that is a blue/green armor set.

I love Ledla, I love instruments, I adore the indomitable pattern system. But I can't really recommend this one for anyone other than people who wisely house rule the Harvester (or somehow never run into it) and even then the Smog Singers are not that great a quarry to repeatedly hunt at Level 3 where you would get this and also be able to make best use of it.

Required Expansions: Gambler's Chest (Smog Singer Quarry)

First Impression Rating: C

Good For: People who want to expand the Smog Singer L3 fight content

Value for Money: Not good.

Survivors of Death I

Price: $75

Game Content:

• 4x Character Cards

• 1x Collective Cognition Card

• 3x Knowledge Cards (Level 1,2 and 3 of the same knowledge)

• 1x Seed Pattern

• 1x Seed Pattern Gear

• 1x Frogdog Indomitable Resource

• 1x Frogdog Indomtable Pattern

• 1x Frogdog Indomitable Pattern Gear

Our big release box for Gen Con comes with four miniatures and a new line that is in essence “Echoes of Death V” but wearing a different hat. This box has the in universe versions of the Azure Knight, Hospitalar, Investment Sniper and Bullet Dancer.

The character cards are 2x abilities and 2x impairments, and I think that all of them are interesting enough that they are strong contenders to put in the Character deck at the start of a campaign. The Knowledge we get is based on the Bullet Dancer and it requires Ranged Monsters to advance; at the moment we don't have a lot of those, two of the most notable ones are the Crimson Crocodile and The Tyrant (People of the Stars specific Nemesis Monster). So you might have trouble levelling this one up at the moment. That may change when we get more monsters with Ranged attacks.

The Seed Pattern Weapon is our first crossbow, this means it is less valuable than other weapon types because like Thrown Weapons it does not have a mastery. The weapon itself is however has fine stats and interesting in design. Enough that I look forward to figuring out what kind of survivor will be able to best make use of this weapon and its reduced fire rate.

Finally the Indomitable Resource, Pattern and Weapon are for the Frogdog. I'm kind of annoyed that this wasn't included in the Frogdog expansion itself, that feels stingy and mean. Especially because this gear card is in essence an indomitable resource that also requires the Bullfrogdog to be defeated. When I saw there was only 2 indomitable patterns in the Frogdog box the cynic in me immediately assumed we'd be getting more Frogdog patterns, and here we are already. I kind of feel like my Frogdog expansion is worth a smidge less now that I have to pick up an additional box of stuff to get a reasonable number of Indomitable Patterns (especially one for the Bullfrogdog).

Despite that, or perhaps because of it, Survivors of Death I represents the best value out of all the Gen Con offerings. The Echoes of Death series was decent for the price, this is better than that.

Required Expansions: Gambler's Chest and Frogdog

First Impression Rating: A+

Good For: People who own both the Gambler's Chest and Frogdog who also have a desire to expand on that monster and the GCE systems.

Value for Money: A-

Legendary Character - Glow

Price: $30

Game Content:

• 1x set of survival action trackers including Fist Pump (GCE Survival Action)

• 1x Character Card

• 3x Patterns

• 3x Pattern Gear

Glow is the in universe translation of the Holy Mage Generic hero and I'll get into this in detail eventually, but it seems that we have our first drag queen inspired set of gear here. When setting up the Character deck you can choose The Glamorous as your single Legendary Ability in the deck, and as that character levels up you'll get access to a new pattern at the first, second and third age milestones.

These three pieces of gear combine together to give us two protective items (not armor, items) and a Sword/Whip. I really like everything I see here, but this Legendary Ability, while interesting, is weaker than other options because once you have all three patterns future draws of this ability do nothing. If this was a non-legendary ability it would be about right, but as a legendary ability it is a bit weak. The Sword Whip looks a lot of fun though and I like the storytelling that the gear and their patterns have.

I'm sure Zachary with his love of dresses and other sexy outfits will squeal in delight at this one.

Required Expansions: None, but this works best with the Gambler's Chest Expansion.

First Impression Rating: B-

Good For: Players who run a LOT of campaigns and want to mix up their legendary abilities.

Value for Money: Average. It is fun, but it has less in game value than other options in this Character card slot. The extra character/survival action tokens are nice to have, but we have already received plenty and this release highlights problems that occur with each new survival action.

Legendary Character - Lantern Armor Aya

Price: $60

Game Content:

• 1x Character Card

• 2x Seed Patterns

• 1x Additional Pattern

• 3x Pattern Gear

First up, I am so disappointed that this is the choice they go with for a Painter's Scale miniature. Lantern Aya is one of the worst proportioned miniatures (up there with Morgan, these two miniatures are so absurd that I sometimes laugh when I see them). I started painting the photoresin one and gave up part way through because I disliked it that much. Fortunately this should be the last time we have game content saddled with Painter's Scale miniatures (at least that is what we were told previously by APG/Team Death). So hopefully in the future customers who are here for game content do not have to pay $60.

In contrast to the model, the Game Content is pretty solid and if this was a $30 release I'd be giving it top marks despite the (in my opinion) ugly miniature. You get two seed patterns, one which gives you an alternative Lantern Cuirass and the second gives you an upgraded Lantern Halberd (King's Man Weapon/Guidepost). The Cuirass can be further upgraded into an even better form and that is a fun interaction.

Also there is a new specific Armor Set for this variant cuirass and it is a 4 slot hybrid armor set that leaves the head slot open. The really powerful thing here is that because it is a hybrid armor set, you get 5 armor points to the head even though you do not have any gear there. Glossary text here, I have italicised the relevant section.

Hybrid Armor Set

A survivor wearing all armor listed on a hybrid armor set will have completed the set and gains the benefits of the corresponding armor set card if the settlement has acquired it. When a survivor departs with a hybrid armor set bonus, set their armor points at all hit locations to the number of armor points printed on the hybrid armor set card (before adding modifiers). Losing an armor set bonus during the hunt or showdown does not change armor points at any hit locations. Multiple survivors may gain the same hybrid armor set bonus despite there being only one copy of the hybrid armor set card.

Meaning you are at a 5/9/9/9/9 armor profile and you can raise the head armor further with any metal helm (due to the lantern cuirass giving +4 armor points to any location wearing metal armor after the hybrid bonus is applied). That is super cool, armor sets with less slots is a huge thing in a game where most survivors only have 9 places to place their gear. I've experimented with the design of 4 slot armor sets myself along with playing several shields to "replace" armor. It is very freeing, though builds that do not need armor at all such as Crystaline Skin and certain Marrowism survivors are even more engaging.

The Character Card representing “The Red Survivor” is a Legendary Ability that gives weapons in your gear grid all weapon type keywords. This is worthy of the Legendary Ability category and there are a lot of avenues to explore with this, I think it is as good as Weapon Master, which means interesting choices when you build your character deck at the start of a campaign.

This is a really good set of game content cards held back by an expensive amount of plastic, if you have the GCE, play KDM at least weekly and can afford it then you will get a lot of value from this one.

Required Expansions: Gambler's Chest works best with these releases. However you do need a way of getting the Lantern Halberd Rare Gear for one of the two Seed Patterns, this is usually gained from King's Man/Guidepost Innovation or the Guidepost Terrain Card (GCE - The King)

First Impression Rating: B+

Good For: Players who reach the Blacksmith a lot and want variation in their Lantern Armor options.

Value for Money: Bad but only because of that Painter's Miniature.

Beta Content Golden Bat Hunter - Foltron

Price: $30

Game Content:

• 2x Gear Cards

Heck yeah! Golden Bat is the first super hero, happy to see him get a shout out in KDM after I played with him in Unmatched: Tales to Amaze (great little short length boss battler btw). I also assume that Foltron is a reference to Voltron.

Foltron comes with a new take on the “upkeep weapon”; we've previously had the failure that is the Vespertine Foil and the success that was the Unbreakable Zanbato. The Serrated → Guilded Greatcleaver that comes in this box is at the success end of the spectrum. This is a weapon that once crafted from 2x Perfect Bones and 3x resources from a Node 3 monster has two forms, the first is a solid 7 strength grand/saw/cleaver/bone weapon which can be upgraded with 1x scrap or 2x endeavor to turn it for one showdown into a stronger form that has higher strength and Deadly.

This is an absolute delight of a design and it is all generic, however as I have discussed before. Another Perfect resource gear card is diluting the excitement of getting this card. We only have so many perfect resources to spend per campaign and each new option can muscle out others.

However, this is a close to perfect design and the only drag factors is that perfect resource and my honest opinion that the Beta line should be retired.

Required Expansions: None, but it has synergy with the Killenium Butcher because it is a Cleaver

First Impression Rating: A

Good For: Anyone who wants this weapon because they find it interesting.

Value for Money: C+

Next week will be the Black Knight review, sorry I pushed it back this week but I did not want to miss an opportunity to give you guys better information about what is in these boxes before they reach the store.