Purchasing Priority for the Newer Player (Patreon)

 I had a request from WingsOfDaidalos on the Discord about this subject, and because we have Black Friday looming this month I figured that it was just about the best time to put out a public article on my hindsight opinions on what expansions you should be prioritizing if you are on a budget and can't just 'get them all'. I'll be looking at the current Expansions and the Micro-Expansions (White Boxes). Usually I place the medium sized expansions such as the 10th Anniversary Survivors, Gigalion and Echoes of Death into their own category as mini-Expansions because they don't hold enough content to be classed as actual expansions, but for clarity of purpose here I'm putting all of them into mini-expansions except for the Gigalion which I'll class with the big boys for once.  

The critera I'm judging these under is straightforward, it's pure, simple value for money. I'll be classing the expansions into several different buckets, this allows me to cover expansions that represent poor value for money at MSRP, but can become worthwhile at a reduced price as well as ones that are simply just low value and should be left as late as possible.  

 What do I mean by 'value for money'? Well in this case it is down to the following categories:  

Breadth of Content (Breadth)

A wide range of different forms of useful content means that the experience when you play can be very different because you have more options available to you. Perhaps the expansion provides an alternative campaign, or it gives you reach into weapon types that the core game doesn't really support well. 

The polar opposite of this is expansions that remove or make obsolete elements of the game, a poor breadth of content score means that it actively removes or replaces parts of the game, either by direct elimination or power creep.  

Depth of Content (Depth)

Sometimes the content you gain isn't very wide in scope, but what it does give you supplies a wealth of options based on the strategies within. Deep content can provide new gear cards which fuel entire strategies, fighting arts that change the way you play/experience the game or simply monsters that are so different each time you fight them that you have a new experience and have to adapt to it. 

 
An example of a not very deep piece of content is the White Lion, all of the relevant gear can be gained from the L1 White Lion and most of it is discarded by the time you transition to the mid game. In addition the only real behavioural change of note is when you transition from the L1 to the L2 White Lion, the L3 essentially does what the L2 does, but more dangerously. It doesn't feel like a new monster.  The Screaming Antelope is another example of a relatively shallow monster for the same reasons, but the Phoenix is deeper than both due to it's L3 version having a compelling reason to hunt it.

Difficulty

Simply put, does this expansion make the game easier or harder? I'm not looking at artificial difficulty via one off 'gotchya' moments, but overall does access to this particular expansion lower the game's skill floor/ceiling or raise them?  For example, the Flower Knight's Vespertine Bow lowers the skill floor of the game astronomically while playing Spidicules fully official raises the floor and ceiling.  
  
Frequency of Use (Frequency) 

This one is a very much personal one, but I've played through over a thousand settlements by now in various iterations and I've been keeping an eye on which expansions I keep in and which ones just make guest appearances depending on the situations. This score will give you an idea about how well the expansion holds up over time. But to be honest, if it's not a wide or deep expansion (the previous two categories) generally it probably doesn't turn up much in sessions these days unless I'm memeing or testing out content combinations.  
  
Finally, and I am sure many of you are going to say 'no duh' but these are personal opinions, while I do spend a lot of time being critical and logical about my choices when it comes to advising people what to spend their money on, your mileage may differ. I don't care that the Sunstalker is a spurting chode with a penis tentacle attached to it or that the Dragon King has an internet meme asshole for a chest. 

These things, are basic attempts to shock rather than true body horror, so they don't bother me, if they bother you (and the Sunstalker really does seem to bother a lot of people) that's fine, some expansions are more mainstream than others and it's OK to prefer those.  Likewise, some expansions make the game easier for players, if that's what you want/need that's also fine, I'll note where they exist.  

Before we move into the full text, here's the short list of my hindsight purchase:

• Gorm
• Sunstalker (#1 if your budget can afford it)
• Dragon King
• Dung Beetle Knight
• Manhunter 
• Slenderman (this is basically interchangable with the Manhunter, it depends what you want from your first nemesis expansion, more content or improvements over the weakest spot of the core game experience)
• Lonely Tree - When on sale 
• Flower Knight - Higher if you want to reduce the difficulty of the game
• Lion God - A lot higher if you have Silver City already ordered or you are finding the quarries too easy
• Spidicules - because of the cost of the expansion, it should have had its own campaign
• Lion Knight
• Green Armor - higher if you want it as bonus content for Gorm/DBK/FK over the "campaign"
• Gigalion - Yup, I'd get even the Lion Knight ahead of this one.

However some of these move up the rankings when they are reduced in cost, the Lonely Tree and Spidicules are in this category.

Bucket #1 – The Cream of the Black Harvest Crop  

This bucket contains the premium expansions, these expansions provide a huge amount of additional value to the core experience, which honestly can become very monotonous after a few plays due to the lack of variety in quarries. The core games' three quarries are not sufficient to carry the game for a full People of the Lantern campaign for most players, visually it can devolve into an endless parade of kitties, goats and chickens.    
  

In addition there are problematic gaps in progression choices for some weapon types, these expansions can help with that, either by making rarer made choices more viable though buffs or providing strong options in those paths less trodden.  
  

The Gorm (Green Armor Package)  

Most people will recommend The Gorm as one of your first expansion choices, and it was indeed the very first piece of KDM content I got (even ahead of the core game which was delayed in shipping for me).  The Gorm is very much the quintessential 'this is how it should be' quarry monster as it fixes a lot of the issues that the early game presents by giving you a third early game quarry to play with and also giving great options for axes, clubs, shields, grand weapons and Daggers. It also provides an 'easier' to craft alternative to the omnipresent Cat Eye Circlet  and an armor set that still isn't 'figured out' by the community (because it's a bit underpowered compared to other options and lacks focus).  

Additionally each of the Gorm's three different levels expresses a different portion of its life cycle and behaves in a very distinct fashion. You really do feel that you are hunting a different monster each time you face a different level and the strategies involved change.  

However, this expansion has some issues; the Black Sword is one of the most problematic and overpowered weapons in the game as it is able to trivialize most monsters in a way that few other things can. The Settlement Event “Gorm Climate” can be obnoxious and frustrating for players who do not like the 'use it now' economy that it forces and many of the weapons can feel a little too 'pushed' in power.    
  

Breadth: With an exceptional amount of expansion to the way the game is played, the Gorm allows a lot of new strategies to be developed. 4/5  
  

Depth: As each version of the Gorm has differences in behaviour and different reasons to hunt them this is a long lasting early game quarry. In addition there are a wide range of strategies that can be created using the gear involved and the Gorment Armor can feel very rewarding if you want to experiment with it. 4/5  
  

Frequency: This one is in every single campaign I play unless I specifically decide 'OK no Gorm this time'. 5/5  
  

Difficulty: While it's not all roses and happiness. The Gorm does without a doubt make the game easier because of its strong early game options and it also holds the single most overpowered individual weapon in the Black Sword.
  

Final Score: 9.5/10 This represents a huge amount of value for money at $60 and in my opinion it should have been a permanent fixture in the core game from the start. It is one of only 3 expansions that almost always features in my games.  
  

Sunstalker (Has Campaign)  

Originally undervalued and overlooked because of its weird appearance, the Sunstalker has risen in stock over time and continues to do so for many good reasons. One of two 'campaign' monsters, the Sunstalker not only boasts a robust and enjoyable alternative campaign, but it also has one of the most robust and tactically deep selections of mid to late game gear in the game.  

Breadth: The Sunstalker not only provides a huge amount of different weapons for the mid to late game, all of which feature and support a wide range of different builds; the armor set also allows a whole host of other more situational weapons to become viable options. 5/5  

Depth: There's a massive amount of depth in this one, not just because of the prescence of the additional campaign, but also the various pieces of gear give you a huge amount of new choices and options. Things like the Ink Sword require planning both to build and then use. 5/5  

Frequency: It turns up in just about every single campaign, of particular note is it's constant presence alongside the Dragon King in the campaigns I play because of how much synergy it has with that quarry. 5/5  
  

Difficulty: While there are some exceptional power spikes caused by the Sunstalker Gear, it is also no slouch at the higher levels; requiring, nay demanding a far more furious and aggressive style to deal with it. Overall I'd say that the Sunstalker makes the campaign somewhat easier if you are not going to be abusive with its gear, but it can make the campaign considerably easier if you use its armor to make powerful stuff even more powerful rather than situational stuff strong.  
  

Final Score: This one is a classic, it gets the same score as it did when I first reviewed it. 11/11
 

Dragon King (Has Campaign)  

As more expensive big box option, the Dragon King offers the single strongest campaign experience released so far, but lags behind when added as a quarry to other campaigns. In particular it requires support from the Sunstalker gear in order to unleash its true potential.    

Without People of the Stars, this expansion would land in the second bucket thanks to its fun, but somewhat unrewarding quarry experience. However, the presence of the Tyrant and his story buoys this one up a lot.     
 

Breadth: It is very hard to talk about the Breadth of this expansion without the campaign distorting eveyrthing. The quarry monster is not that wide an experience, it is a great set of armor, a very powerful quiver and some nuclear weapons that come to life if you work hard on making them do so. Most of the gear it has is very sub-optimal and not worth using. Which means that generally once you've crafted a set of the armor, the Dragon King devolves into becoming a Stat and Iron gaining farm. 3/5  
  

Depth: There is a surprising amount of depth to the Dragon King's gear, its armor is deceptively powerful, looking underwhelming to the untrained eye, but continuing to impress more and more with use. One of the largest requirements to 'unlock' its potential is using other expansions that provide powerful weapons that benefit from the Dragon King's set bonus.  4/5  
  

Frequency: Initially the Dragon King wasn't a quarry I used often outside of taking advantage of its campaign, but as time has passed forward the sheer number of synergies it presents when combined with other expansions has meant that he has become a staple. 4/5  
  

Difficulty: The Dragon King as a quarry tends to be something of a wash on the difficulty, it is a moderately hard fight with a punishing hunt phase but it is a premium source of Iron. The campaign is certainly a lot "easier" than Lantern when you know what you are doing, but this is mostly because the final nemesis is understatted, and something that has been promised to be addressed in Campaigns of Death. However, despite the mechanical (and only balance) issues with the final nemesis, Stars is the most complete, intricate, enjoyable and interesting experience you can have right now. It is most certainly 'Kingdom Death as it Should Be'.    
  

Final Score: The higher price and lesser value puts this one behind the other three expansions in this top tier bucket. However it is still worth picking up old sphincter chest when you can so you can experience his nuclear poots all over your face.  Also the Tyrant is one of the best boi characters in the game. 7.5/10  

Dung Beetle Knight (Part of the Tactics Card Package) (Green Armor)  

Breadth: Like the Dragon King above, there's not actually a wide range of options introduced by the Dung Beetle Knight, in truth it's one of the scantiest quarry monsters when it comes to crafting choices. You have an armor set, one weapon, one upgrade to a previous weapon and the rest is rare gear, monster meat or very situational.    This is the only place you can get good Katar progression at the moment however (LK and Giggles don't count!)
 

In addition, a large portion of the content is locked inside the Black Harvest, which is something that you can experience just every 3-4 lantern years. It is not the worst, but it's not as amazing as people would like to make you think. 3/5  
  

Depth: While there is a feeling of not much gear compared to some of the other expansions, what there is has more depth than many other expansions. This is because of how interchangeable and “splashable” the armor pieces are alongside the extra little things that the Black Harvest gives and the QoL improvements little things like the Digging Claws having the pickaxe keyword and the Rainbow Ring Belt providing a form of fixing for Early Iron. 5/5  
  

Frequency: This one is in most campaigns I play, though it has increasingly become a 'splash' monster over something I focus around. 4/5  
  

Difficulty: This one adds a lot of complexity and difficulty to the game, the DBK's fight requires constant vigilance because slipping up can result in massive harm at a moment's notice. This difficulty climbs up to one of the highest peaks in the game when you face the L3 and L4 (TOM) versions of the monster and the fights against those two feel like being on another level compared to most monsters.    
  

Final Score: I consider the DBK to be the third choice for a mid to late game monster these days, it's fine as a splash monster, it's not as good as a main focus. 8/10  
 

 Bucket #2 Nice to Have if...  

Each of these entries is conditional, it's something that adds to the game if you are looking for a specific element or if a certain criteria is met. I don't consider them to be 'must haves' but sometimes they have exceeded expectations in unusual manners. Most notable in this category are the expansions that have fallen to the wayside because they currently do not always provide a great experience for long term play.    

Lonely Tree  

Breadth: There is not a lot to the Lonely Tree at the moment, it has a showdown encounter, some varied fruit rewards, a secret fighting art, terrain version and that's kind of it. It is in fact the narrowest selection of content in the game. 1/5  
  

Depth: Despite this narrow selection, the actual potential of the various options is huge and unique. Each fruit can fuel an entirely new strategy for a survivor, and my only complaint is the abilities gained by this survivor cannot be bred onto new survivors which means that they tend to be best utilized on ageless survivors rather than allowing you to take your settlement in a new direction each time.  The other depth issue is you have to sort of jump through hoops somewhat to get to fight the Lonely Tree more than once per timeline, it feels a bit weird and 'not as intended' when you do it, but it does happen. 4/5  
  

Frequency: This is the only expansion that never, ever gets removed from my campaigns. It is low impact because it doesn't turn up every time, but I always want the potential to encounter it. 5/5  Difficulty: At first the Tree can feel like an absolute beating because of its level design, unusual showdown, powerful defenses and gotchya. But once you get settled into how and when you should be attacking it then it becomes a solid optional nemesis. It does make the campaign slightly harder when it turns up as terrain, but the nemesis monster, being entirely optional, doesn't directly make things harder as such.  
  

Final Score: A lot better than you'd suspect from most people's opinions. I land this one at a 7/10, but the caveat here is, you should only pick it up at sale prices, it is not worth the full MRSP as it stands unless you're a hobbyist.  

Manhunter (Green Armor)  

Breadth: There's again not a lot of breadth to this one, there's a couple of fighting arts and disorders that are interesting and some gear cards, but it's not exactly an expansion with a lot too it. There was some potential in the rules for a settlement that becomes cowed by a Manhunter, but the truth is there is little reason to continue to let that happen. It cannot be described as adding a lot of width to a campaign outside of the general improved chances to gain weapon xp and the above mentioned parts. 3/5  
  

Depth: While the expansion is not very broad, it is deep. There are layers to the experience and the L3 and L4 versions even provide fuel for a bunch of interesting and unique builds. While the meta is certainly tired of the Acanthus Doctor/Pickaxe build at this point, it's not the fault of the Tool Belt as such that this has happened. 5/5  
  

Frequency: This one is in many of my campaigns as it is a fun fight with a lot of character and the options do always provide depth. 4/5  
  

Difficulty: There is absolutely no doubt that the Manhunter makes every campaign he is in easier overall. The monster is rarely a challenge (though it can surprise wreck you with the right combination of cards) and the gear is very powerful. The L1 reward is something you'll end up using most (if not all) of the time and the L3/L4 ones can fuel very powerful builds.  Also you get additional opportunities to increase weapon proficiency, and that's a huge leg up.  
  

Final Score: This one does make the game a lot easier, but it's just good old fashioned F U N. So it gets a pass a lot of the time. The reason that the Flower Knight (see below) gets slated for making the game too easy and the Manhunter doesn't is that variety of gear/experiences and fun factor. Zach Barash did a heck of a job bringing the Manhunter's character to life and perfectly blended this slaver, witch hunter, bounty hunter, WWE Wrestler from the Holy Lands together and gave him such life and character.  8/10  
  

Slenderman  

Breadth: As (currently) the only nemesis monster with craftable gear, the Slenderman is on another level when it comes to increasing width of play options. In addition, Slendy replaces the King's Man and while removing content usually reduces the breadth of the game, the King's Man is significantly shallower content than Slenderman as it represents the most underdeveloped and obnoxious part of the core game experience. 5/5  
  

Depth: There is a huge amount of exploration you can be undertaking with this expansion and its multi-tiered gear. Many combos exist both obvious and less so. Also, because Dark Water is a difficult resource to acquire, you often have to play multiple settlements in order to experience everything the expansion has to offer. 4/5  
  

Frequency: Once you're over the experience of the King's Man, this one becomes a staple of most sessions as it is a more than adequate replacement for the King's Man and it will likely remain that way until we see what the Gambler's Chest has in store for repairing the King/Hand storyline. 5/5  
  

Difficulty: Not for the feint of heart, the Slenderman is elusive, powerful and very dangerous at higher levels. This is one of the hardest monsters in the game and it is never completely tamed.  
  

Final Score: For the experienced player this is a must purchase. If you have the money spare, you should also consider picking it up, but it is not as high a priority as some of the expansions in the category above. Also, considering that Sony own the copyright on Slenderman and there is no indication that this one has been created with their permission, one day the Slenderman might get Cease & Desisted. This is the only expansion where this could, maybe happen. 9/10  
  

Flower Knight (Part of the Tactics Card Package) (Green Armor)  

Breadth: There is not very much breadth to this expansion, outside of the (secret) fighting arts and one piece of gear the Flower Knight mostly exists as the Screaming Antelope 2.0 (a resource farming monster). Most of the other gear is either poor or highly situational. 1/5  
  

Depth: The expansion has a little more depth than breadth, there are some interesting strategies that can be undertaken with Acanthus Doctors and the journey to gain True Blade is a fascinating experience. Also the 'People of the Bloom' variant has some unique gear and can be a nice alternative – as long as you do not expect much more than an “easy mode” People of the Skull modifier.  2/5  
  

Frequency: This one rarely appears on my table now, the exceptions being when I want to play with Swords (as I love True Blade) or when I am constructing Green Armor. However, for newer players who want to splash this monster to help get a power boost in order to reduce the difficulty of the game, it is a valid option. 3/5  
  

Difficulty: No other expansion makes the game as easy as the Flower Knight, I've written about its various flaws and issues many times in the past and these days I can only recommend this expansion for Green Armor players and those who find the game too difficult and don't mind a one dimensional strategy to winning.    
  

Final Score: Beautiful miniature, problematic game content. Great as a 'training wheels' monster, but becomes less interesting as time passes and ultimately either spends its days sat on the shelf or as a “limited” hunt (hunting it only a few times for specific things rather than abusing it's design). 4/10  
  

Lion God  

Breadth: Not a very wide expansion, it is somewhat designed to be successfully hunted 1-3 times in a campaign or held as a scary challenge monster. Most of the best gear is with the L1 and L2 monsters and for the casual player the coolest stuff is available with just the L1. There is a number of good reasons why this monster is getting its own expansion, the lack of content is one of them. 2/5  
  

Depth: There is more depth to this expansion than you'd first think, mostly because of the Necromancer and Sinkhole gear. The Sinkhole gear in particular is a very interesting and exciting selection of Stuff that mostly does unique things – of the other stuff, it's either an upgraded Cat Eye Circlet or a bunch of stuff that is intended to improve White Lion Armor, but doesn't really pay off well enough for how dangerous it is to get. If the Lion God had been a Node 3 monster with greater variety then the White Lion Armor improvements would have mattered, but as a Node 4 which has WL gear locked behind the L3, you really shouldn't be interested in those elements. Shame. 3/5  
  

Frequency: It is easy to fit into any campaign, but you might not fight it as often as you'd like because there's not much to entice you there. This expansion is kind of more stick than carrot. 3/5  
  

Difficulty: Very hard at all levels, but as a quarry monster you're not forced to fight this one and the rewards are so light that you can make sure you're over equipped before you go in.   
  

Final Score: The Silver City will hopefully bring more life to this interesting part of the Kingdom Death universe. This one is more of an investment for the future while currently existing as a challenge monster for unique stuff. The Necromancer alone is worth a lot of the price of admission.  4/10

Green Armor (Green Armor)  

Breadth: It is almost unfair to place the Green Armor within the same category as these other expansions as it is more a micro expansion than an actual full fledged one. However, despite it being “just” a bunch of rare gear cards that require other expansions to be constructed it has a surprising amount of width to its play. You do not just need to use these cards in the Green Armor campaign, any campaign which has some of the pieces can benefit from partial crafts. Of particular note is the sword, shield and helmet. The Helmet is very notable because it is purely DBK resources and events only and it works well with Rolling Armor, which means it is in essence an additional piece of DBK Craftable gear and that helps bulk out that expansion also. 3/5  
  
 

Depth: Depth is where Green Armor really excels, the journey to constructing this set is a long and challenging one that requires planning, forethought and a slice of good fortune. Getting it built is a staggering achievement in its own right and the only downside to that is once you have it constructed there are precious few monsters who can stand up to the full set. All of the Final Nemesis monsters in particular are as durable as paper plates in the face of a Green Armor survivor.    
 

There is also a lot of neat things you can do with the individual parts of the armor even if you do not construct a full set. 5/5  
 

Frequency: Anything with the constituent expansions (Dung Beetle Knight, Lion Knight, Flower Knight, Gorm, Manhunter & Spidicules) in sufficient quantities can make use of this stuff, either directly or in mixed sets. It doesn't have to just be used in full alone. 4/5  
 

Difficulty: Hard to make, with a lot of challenges along the way, but once it is constructed the game becomes considerably easier.    
 

Final Score: My largest concern with this is how the design of the Green Armor is going to work vs. the Verdant Knight in Campaigns of Death. That final nemesis has to be very strong in order to stand up to the green armor, but if it is then there is the additional issues that other survivors will just be curb stomped and any campaign that fails to build Green Armor because of poor outcomes (some of it is in the hands of chance atm) will also be doomed to failure. Hopefully the campaign addresses these pitfalls.  
In the present, this one is really good for the price, it's small, but it holds a lot of options, even if you're not doing the full campaign. But in order to really benefit from it, you want to own at least the DBK, Gorm and FK expansions. 7.5/10  
  
  

Bucket #3 - Needs Deep Cuts

This category contains the expansions that I feel represent the least value for money and they should be held off unless you want them for very specific purposes, they are on sale for a steal or you want them for miniature painting. These are the expansions I am most hopeful will get improvements in Campaigns of Death.  

Lion Knight (Part of the Tactics Card Package) (Green Armor)  

Breadth: Depends on what you plan to do with the Hybrid Armors, many players allow them into all campaigns (unlocked from the start) and this does a lot to make at least that part of the expansion's content enjoyable and used. Outside of the Hybrid Armors and a few abusive exploits, the Lion Knight doesn't have much breadth at all because it is very self contained. 2/5  
  

Depth: There is a moderate amount of depth to the Lion Knight expansion which is unfortunately undercut when you figure out how to demolish the LK's AI and leave him virtually “helpless”. More than any other monster in the game (apart from maybe the Flower Knight) I firmly believe that the Lion Knight needs an AI rehaul from the ground up, saving the elements that can be while closing out the sections that trivialize his threat.     
  

Even with that fixed, you're not doing too much in this expansion; unlocking armors, saving for Katar Mastery and possibly trying to get the one good Secret Fighting Art.  2/5  
  

Frequency: I don't put this one in the game unless it's Green Armor time and even then I often want to avoid the showdowns because of how painful they can be to sit through. The Hybrid armors get a lot of use, but that's a lot to pay for 3 cards. 2/5  

Difficulty: This one used to be moderately difficult, but it's since become nothing more than a chore and a bore. It all depends on how experienced you are and if you are comfortable with using surge to shut a monster's actions down every single turn.  It's not actually hard unless you choose to make it hard, it's just unpleasant, even more unpleasant than the King's Man experience.

Final Score: I love the model and the characters in this expansion, but the gameplay value is nowhere near as strong as the others. 4/10  

Spidicules – (Green Armor - barely, it's 1 innovation that's required, which is kinda a dick move on the consumer)  

Breadth: So many of the Spidicules weapons/armor are made redundant by the existence of White Lion, Gorm and Core gear and that is quite an issue on the breadth front. When you dig into it, you find that the only relevant weapons are the Silk Whip, sometimes the Scimitar (for a F&T survivor) and sometimes the Amber Poleaxe. The two rare weapons are great!  

The armor is in an even worse position, it lacks focus and has some very questionable affinity activations along with just the worst hat unlock in the game (L3 Monster to complete your strictly worse than leather armor set?)  So it is generally the non-weapon Spidicules gear you'll be aiming for: the three Rings and the Silk Body Suit in particular. 2/5  

Depth: There is a genuine depth to the Spidicules expansion, you have tantalizing gifts that reward you for spending a lot of time hunting Spidicules; there is the Legless Ball, the Grinning Visage, the three rings and the Silk Surgeon all of which are wonderful things to get. Spidicules is a very self intensive expansion. If you are hunting Spidicules, you tend to do it a lot. 4/5  

Frequency: Less than I'd like, Spidicules makes your campaign either become a series of meta-gaming actions, house rules or just a miserable experience. Players who want more grim dark and don't mind the bizarre situations that Taken causes. It still doesn't have any covering for the situation where you beat Spidicules with just one survivor alive – a situation that becomes absurd if you have also triggered Spidisisyphus (another moment where KDM references Greek Mythology!) 3/5  

Difficulty: Spidicules absolutely makes the game harder by raising the skill floor, but it is very important to note that if you become good at making the various rings, the skill ceiling of the game plummets as even the weakest of the three rings (Blue) is still immensely powerful. When combined with the Slenderman expansion you can also break the game to the point of literal 'is this easy mode?'  

Final Score: If this one had some more game content to justify the price, things like the Silk Surgeon were not so difficult to score and it had more respect for the elements of the core game it is removing when you do the 'replacement' then Spidicules would be one of the all-time classics. As it is, the monster is over priced and represents poor value for money.     

I am ever hopeful that Campaigns of Death and/or the Abyssal Woods will change this situation with gear upgrades, mastery for scimitars/thrown weapons and general balance/bug fixes, because if there is any monster that has the potential to become a top tier one, it's Spidicules. 5/10  
  

Gigalion 

Breadth: The newest expansion on the block contains not just a sort of extra new quarry, but a standalone showdown that is ideal for teaching new players about the game. It gives them a taste of the mid game, with a selection of different abilities, but nothing too slow, sluggish or overly complex. The Vignette portion of this expansion is a welcome, new addition to the roster.  

However, the Gigalion's involvement in the actual campaign is not one of increasing options, but decreasing them. Its existence eliminates the L2 and L3 White Lion from the game almost entirely and its gear also has a couple of problematic entries. Of particular note are the arrows, which power creep heavily over the (current) best arrows in the game and the fur cape which powers up Screaming Armor to ridiculous levels and combines with the Silk Body Suit.  The Hooked Claw Knife is a welcome and needed part of the game, I recommend putting it in all your games as an alternative to the Cat Fang Knife if you are not having the Gigalion as a quarry because of concerns about the arrows and cape. 2/5  
 

Depth: There's not a lot of depth to this one, it is in essence a modified White Lion, a lot of what works against the L2+ White Lion works here. The gear is all very obvious in design and function, without much use outside of the obvious forced synergies. It seems that things were once again designed to try and push White Lion armor (see the Lion God for more of this), but instead other strategies benefit more and White Lion Armor remains on the 'avoid this' list. 2/5  

Frequency: Once unlocked this one is in every single campaign that has the White Lion in it. The Strain Unlock isn't even an in campaign thing, it's a very questionable design that's linked to the completion of the vignette instead. But it is omnipresent, you have no other choice. 4/5  

Difficulty: The single largest piece of difficulty this expansion represents is the way that it's vicious trait makes it move. Every. Single. Turn. Regardless. It just feels like broken AI when compared to how Cunning works on the normal White Lions and that is a genuine shame.  It is kinda hard to fight because of it's constant running away every turn, but it's not a good kind of difficulty.  The gear makes the game significantly easier by pushing strategies that were already used to even higher levels. The Dagger is the best part of this expansion's main game content.  
 

Final Score: I would have preferred this monster to have been released as a 50mm replacement for the original White Lion. The Vignette is good, the Dagger is good, everything else feels rushed and poorly thought out. This is the last expansion I'd recommend anyone buys and it's really only for the absolutely dedicated collectors and hobbyists (because the sculpts are very good) or people who want a solid standalone session to introduce new players to the game. 5/10 

I would score this one a lot lower if it was not for the Dagger, miniatures and Standalone scenario. There are serious issues with this expansion that demonstrate a lack of good QA testing.

This has been an exceptionally long piece and I still have to do a look at the White Boxes, so they'll be next Monday.