The Useless Appendix aka King's Man vs. Slenderman (Patreon)

Now that the Gen 1 expansions are arriving with backers I think it's time that I wrote a compare and comparison between the King's Man and the Slenderman because these two are the only monsters that genuinely work as replacements for each other (as 1.5 the changes to the Antelope have made Spidicules a really poor choice as a replacement, and it was a good choice in 1.31).

I'm going to spoil this right in advance, the King's Man does NOT come off well in this comparison, it is literally the Useless Appendix I am referring to in the title.  It honestly does not have to be the case, but as it stands right now from most perspectives there is no reason to keep the King's Man in any of your games.  

Still, we're going to explore why:

Lore:

The Slenderman is a the first piece of genuine internet folklore; while the rights to the Slenderman are owned by its creator Eric Knudsen and the movie rights are with Mythology Entertainment the creature itself is sort of out there as the first Internet born mythological creature. You can read more here and over on TVTropes it's pretty interesting.  

(During my research I couldn't find out if Adam Poots LLC licensed the rights from Knudsen, Mythology or Sony - there's no reference in the rulebook to state that's the case.  This does leave me concerned about legal issues; but it's not really my concern.  You can read more in the Copyright section of the wikipedia article.)

The Slenderman of Kingdom Death is some shadowy, tentacled creature who wears finery and comes from a place filled with dark water.  It seeks to abduct people for whatever purpose and it's so awful that people involved suppress the memories (or have them suppressed for them).  

The King's Man is a survivor twisted by the King's Curse into a soulless automaton, their armor is constructed from the bones and organs of the very person who inherited the curse.  It's transmitted via contact with a dying King's Man, and possibly via The Hand or The King.  The Hand can see everything that all the King's Men it commands sees and they work as the 'fingers' of The King. Grooming settlements ready for the feast.

Honestly, lorewise The King's Man wins out by a long margin, except for one issue.  The story of The King in People of the Lantern gets cut short, ending after The Hand turns up in Lantern Year 13.  While the King's Man turns up again in Lantern Years 19 and 28 the story itself stops being interested in The King at all and just leaves the threads hanging.  Instead it moves off to take a look at the adversarial (and bizarre) relationship between the Gold Smoke Knight, the Watchers and the Survivors.  

Everything in The King's Man/Hand storyline feels like it's building up towards the arrival of The King, but it never happens because The Lantern Festival was cancelled and the story was patched. So both The King's Man and The Hand feel sort of useless, interesting, cool, but useless.

I still give Lore to The King's Man, because we know more about that creature and I love the tragedy of a doomed survivor, fighting to protect the people they love while the curse consumes them.  The Slenderman's lore just isn't as fleshed out, it's a huge mystery.

Winner: King's Man

Timeline Mechanics:

This is more the mechanics surrounding the two monsters rather than any specific showdown related ones.  The King's Man has Armored Strangers as their introduction; they turn up and depending on the size of the settlement they either help them or harm them.  Thematically this is very cool; mechanically it's not great.  If you are at population 7 or less, then fantastic, you're in a good position and the King's Men approve. They'll give you something to help out.  But if you are at 8+ (and most settlements  are at 8+ unless the players are new, or something has gone very wrong/deliberate culling has happened) then they slap you down (unless you roll a 10).  You can resist this, but beating the King's Man in LY6 is very unlikely and even if you do, one survivor will suffer the King's Curse (effectively dying unless they have/get Crystal Skin).  Essentially for me the 8+ result has become -4 population unless I roll a 10, because I'm not losing 5 population, an innovation or my highest courage survivor when I can just sacrifice 4 plebs.

The only other timeline effect that the King's Man has is to King's Curse a survivor. Which places a cursed piece of armor on a location during each aftermath, the armor is basically 4 armor to a location, it doesn't have any set bonuses, no outfit, no affinities, nothing. So the survivor who gains it often becomes pretty useless.  1.5 gave us an out with Crystal Skin, but that's not guaranteed. However it can be fun to try and save a survivor by giving them rolling armor and a pick axe, they've got 4 years to successfully find the Crystal Lake then.

The Slenderman's timeline impact runs a little deeper; you have 'It's Already Here' to replace Armored Strangers, but then you also get 'Forgotten Fear' just before the Slenderman turns up, which adds a little more context and flavor to the Slenderman's arrival.  However after that it just turns up whenever the King's Man was originally scheduled to arrive.

Winner: Slenderman, though it was a close one so I'm going to call it a tie because I feel sorry for the King's Man.

Showdown:

I'm not going to go into the Showdowns in detail here, that's for a different series. The fact is that both showdowns are very challenging and difficult; but the additional flavor, fairness, resource gathering and synergistic links with The Butcher alongside a lack of being able to be cheesed means that this showdown section goes to the Slenderman by a landslide. It's hard, harder than the King's Man at times, but the effort and rewards feel worth the difficulty.

Winner: Slenderman by a long margin

Core Game Synergy:

This one isn't even close, the King's Man has synergy with The Hand, who will reward settlements with the Guidepost occasionally and some synergy with Crystal Skin. Plus the updated King's Man gives out Spear Proficiency and randomly either some basic resources a random fighting art for each survivor or a steel sword + 1 basic resource.  It's pretty stingy.

You also get the King's Step SFA if you beat the L3 King's Man with Nightmare Training, however it's just easier to get that SFA via the Forbidden Dance innovation.

The Slenderman's reward section (and fight) is built around getting Dark Water, a strange resource that can then be used to construct various pieces of kit that use parts from the core game. Including specific parts from the White Lion, Antelope and Phoenix.  There is also in showdown synergy with The Butcher if you managed to gain Legendary Lungs.  It's a great deal of fun to build the various items from the Slenderman expansion, they're all unique and interesting and figuring out how to make use of them is immense fun.

Additionally, the Slenderman has synergy with Crystal Skin, hands out Iron during the rewards section (along with Dark Water) and beating the L3 Slenderman gives a survivor +2 evasion permanently if you have face painting innovated (at the cost of not being able to be encouraged because you are forgettable). 

It's worth noting that in People of the Stars both the Slenderman and King's Man somewhat suck to fight, you'll end up facing The Butcher and The Hand most of the time there.  But if I was going to pick one, I'd pick the Slenderman every time.

Winner: Slenderman  

"Welcome to my Dark Place."

So there we have it; The Slenderman wins with a score of 2-1-1 (and I gave that tie out of pity).  But more importantly I hope you can now see why the Slenderman is pretty much a permanent part of my games while the King's Man languishes on the shelf.  I wish it was some other way, I wish that Lantern Festival had become a thing, but it isn't and that's why I consider Slenderman to be the 1st essential Nemesis purchase (just ahead of the Manhunter).  There's really no point to the King's Man, but maybe, just maybe, the Gambler's Chest will fix this and make playing a cursed, dying survivor fun and interesting.