Purchasing Priority for the Newer Player - White Boxes (Patreon)

Note: Second Half of Designer's Diary on early game weapons to come next friday. I want to be certain this information is all out there with as much time to spare as possible before Black Friday hits.

This section will cover all the various small White Box releases, including Echoes of Death and the 10th Anniversary options, but excluding the Gigalion which we looked at in the previous entry over here. Spoilers, it got last place in the purchase priority order for anyone who is just looking for campaign content (it's higher if you want a solo session KDM game to give people a taste).

White Boxes cover a bunch of mini and micro expansions which tend to cost either $25 or ~$60. Mini-expansions are a single miniature with one single piece of game content (normally around 1-5 cards), while Micro-Expansions have multiple models and slightly more robust game content (but not much more). A lot of the price increase between a mini and a micro expansion is the additional miniatures, not the game content. 

When it comes to game content, all White Boxes are very specific and narrow in their focus. They almost always cover one small subset area of the game and while that change can often be small it does sometimes impact on the strategy and your experience of the game.

I will be listing these in no particular order, because some of them are seasonal and/or hard to get.  Because these expansions are all small in scope, I am not going to break the entries up into subcategories the way I did with the main expansions, but I will note when an expansion adds a surprising amount of breadth or depth to the game.

I cannot cover the following items because I have not had a chance to see the game content in full: Oktoberfest Aya, Halloween White Speaker, 10th Anniversary White Speaker. If I have missed any of the others, because there is a HUGE amount of them, please let me know and I'll add the entry. Also, apologies for typos or missing lines, it is a nightmare laying this out in the Patreon editor because there is no preview button. :(

Before we start, here are the ones with the most bang for your buck:

• Ringtail Vixen
• Fade
• Before the Wall
• White Speaker
• White Speaker Sword Hunter
• 10th Anniversary Survivors
• Till Death Do Us Part
• Percival
• Allison, Twilight Knight

And while they are more expensive, the following expansions have high quality game content.

• Pinups of Death I
• Holiday White Speaker Nico
• Holiday Pinup Twilight Knight

In no particular order; onto the mini-reviews!

1. White Speaker

Contains: White Speaker model, White Speaker Cult Knife & Bloodskin Gear, "Wares for Trade" Sticker to Modify the White Speaker event from the core game.

The White Speaker Cult Knife is one of the most important Daggers in the entire game alongside the Acid-Tooth Dagger (Gorm) and the Hooked Claw Knife (Gigalion) as it provides decent dagger progression into the late game. It also fuels a number of different powerful strategies. However, the addition of the keyword 'Fist & Tooth' to this weapon means that it is normally used instead as a way of leveling up that mastery. Some people find this to be 'Overpowered' or 'Broken' but personally I welcome any tool that shortens the chore of getting F&T mastered.

The Bloodskin is one of the few alternatives to Bandages for a way of removing bleed tokens and with its up and down green affinities it also has numerous areas where it can help with a build that is trying to get Monster Grease activated.

In both cases these items are not that cheap to get, the cost on the Dagger in particular is somewhat prohibitive for the early game and Storytelling is a weak, high tech level innovation in the core game. So I find this one to be an interesting addition, especially for players who are fans of Daggers.

On the whole, this one is an easy pick up for anyone who wants to expand their options, as it bolsters an innovation, a weapon type and a gives solid support gear that finally provides some other way of handling bleed outside of 'Just Bandages 4Head'.

2. Allison the Twilight Knight

Contains: Allison model, "Tattered Parcel" Sticker for the Hooded Knight Event, Blue Lantern, Dormant Twilight Cloak

This mini-expansion exists only to make the Hooded Knight event from (mostly) People of the Lantern a bit less punishing. I will warn you now that it fails on that due to one key omission, the Hooded Knight still forces the Twilight Sword onto your most experienced survivor, who is (unless you meta game the situation 🤢 🤮) your survivor with your highest weapon proficiency. This is the key reason why the Hooded Knight stinks and it is not addressed here.

What you get instead is a gear item which provides a way for new survivors to get around the Sentient keyword on the Twilight Sword (which does help a bit) and a solid and unique style of Lantern that is held back by being cursed, so you tend to hold onto it in storage until you get into the end game of PotLantern. 

This one does help with People of the Lantern and sometimes the other campaigns when they get given a Twilight Sword via a hunt event, also the model can be used to represent the survivor who has the gear (as long as they are female, which they should be, hard pass on male hunters thank you very much).

I have this one, but I don't use it very often. Your mileage may vary.

3. Before the Wall

Contains: Aya model in Vagabond Armor, Tabard gear, White Dragon Gauntlets gear, Vagabond Armor set bonus card.

One of the most powerful entries in this entire list, Vagabond armor holds the most broken, easy to achieve combination in the game with the Vagabond Armor set unlocking the "true potential" of the Black Sword as long as you are not a Barbaric society. Something which is signaled as being 'as intended' by the very weapon that Aya is wielding (a Black Sword). 

On top of that, even without the Gorm expansion, this armor set is strong, providing a huge boost in power to every single sword in the game and making training up sword proficiency a lot easier than the norm. The Tabard, when used in multiples for a romantic society (best society even without Vagabond armor anyway) creates situations where encourage gets an immediate survival "refund" chain running.

Currently the White Dragon Gauntlets have no way of being crafted, they are assumed to be involved with a future expansion, but Adam has confessed that he has no idea what that will be, when or even if. It was just a cool idea he made up at the time (something that happens a lot). The Tabard is craftable, it uses starting cloth as part of its recipe.

You get a usable miniature, strong gear and a nice, super powerful armor set that is just a variant leather set. This one is a must have, though you might get tired of seeing it all the time.

4. Beyond the Wall

Contains: Aya vignette miniature (unusable in game without modification), Hard Breastplate gear & Cloth Leggings Gear.

While this is the "other half" of the Vagabond set, you have no obligation to purchase it because Before the Wall contains everything you need to use Vagabond Armor. Beyond the Wall just has a few extra variant options for Vagabond/Leather and an ok accessory.

You don't need this one, it's expensive for two pieces of optional gear and a miniature that is not on a standard base size. Leave it for the fanatics and hobbyists.

5. Pinup Warrior of the Sun

Contains: Warrior of the Sun miniature, Prismatic Lantern Promo Gear.

A small expansion even for mini standards that comes with a very powerful lantern. The ability to sacrifice this Prismatic lantern to gain 1 permanent affinity of an colour cannot be underestimated. This is an affinity that often you can only get via the Swamp and it helps enable a whole bunch of builds that have to use filler affinity gear most of the time.

If you do want to use this, I recommend following the house rules I suggest down in the Sci-Fi Twilight Knight section, in particular make sure that this is a once per timeline craft as it is the archive part of this gear that makes it so strong.

One for hobbyists in particular, but if you love People of the Sun you will get good use out of the model.

6. Pinup Wet Nurse

Contains: Wet Nurse Pinup Model, Nightmare Breast Pump

There is not in game way to add the Nightmare Breast Pump to your game and this one is strictly a blue back promo. I do feel that it is also important to highlight that, while Breast Pumps are not an offensive item at all, and breast feeding is likewise not something that people should take offense at. 

The entire affair here in this specific case though does lack some dignity and may not be for everyone. The Nightmare Breast Pump is a poor taste creation, which seems to be doubling down on the controversy that the original Wet Nurse started anyway.

Meh-chanically the NBP is not very good anyway (which is fine for promo gear), it has multiple problematic keywords (fragile, noisy) and abilities (sentient, irreplaceable) while also compounding the 'female hunters are the best hunters' issue even further. But I do think that the mechanical idea of gear that you take out and gain benefit from only when you return to the settlement is a very strong one that needs more exploration.

Hard pass on this one except for the fanatics and hobbyists.

7. Detective Twilight Knight

Contains: Detective Twilight Knight miniature, Detective Cap gear, Twilight Revolver gear.

Another clear entry in the 'promo only, just for fun' line, none of the gear here fits the theme of the game at all. There is no usable game content and I would recommend strongly against integrating these into your games because of numerous balance issues.

The Detective Gap is relatively underpowered, it is not something you would use at all and it has even been incorrectly designed with the 'accessory' ability stuck into the keywords instead of above the rule text which is where it should be. It's also got the armor keyword, which means that it follows armor rules (replacing any head armor), and that runs counter to the addition of the word accessory. It's an example of inconsistency in card design and muddying of mechanics which often creeps into these things. Just don't worry about it.

The Twilight Revolver is the opposite, it is a bananas creation which is hugely overpowered and campaign distorting with ridiculous strength and a crazy 'fan the hammer' ability once per showdown. It is fun to play as McCree, but his gun is too strong for this world.

I would leave this one for some fun future scenario. Hard pass.

8. Pinup Order Knight

Contains: Pinup Order Knight, Twilight Thong

Another 'just for fun' promo, this one is amongst the more balanced options, it is in essence a replacement for the Rawhide Pants as it has rawhide + outfit and mechanically it is on the strong side, but not overpowered. Be warned that, just like the Pinup Wet Nurse gear, this one might raise some eyebrows and be considered not suitable for all, but it doesn't expressly spell out what is happening.

If you wanted to integrate this one, I'd recommend having it be a skinnery location gear that requires Ammonia and uses 1x cloth, 1x rawhide. This is because it has a stronger overall suit of abilities than the Rawhide Pants.

Not essential, bit risque. But more balanced than many of the pure blue back promo options.

9. Halloween Pinup Twilight Knight - Halloween Holiday only

Contains: Halloween Themed Allison, Jack O' Lantern gear card.

So the Jack I' Lantern is a craftable, consumable lantern item for the late game in People of the Lantern. That's about all the positive you can say for it. It lacks affinities and the ability it has triggers on the death of another survivor. Stuff that triggers when another survivor dies in the hunt/showdown are very low in utility and desirability. They need to be obscenely powerful to compensate for an increased chance of a total party wipe happening. Spoilers, the Jack O' Lantern isn't it.

If it had affinities, so it could do other things, we'd be in business.

Pass on this one.

10. 10th Anniversary Survivors - Sold Out currently

Contains: 4 models in various mid game gear, 6 patterns that allow you to craft 6 different gear cards (8 cards total). 2 Paired Axes, 2 Paired Daggers, 1 Spear, 1 Shield and some support gear.

I am going to be writing about this set in full soon, but the short version is that I feel it is a problematic creation that needed more time in the testing lab. The Tempered Daggers, Shield and Vault Key Earrings represent great, balanced design.  The Spear and Axes are strong to ridiculously overpowered and the Circlet is a highly situational meme that's almost a joke card (Trust Erza the Idiot to be wearing it, she's always been the settlement idiot of the four starting survivors in the art).

However, this one does represent very solid value for money with four great models that have usable gear equipped  and a few pattern cards that add to the game without handing out too much power. I'd get it when you can but be cautious about adding in the Axes in particular, they are O B S C E N E monsters with (current) end game power levels.

Get it, but with great power comes great comes great responsibility.

11. Halloween Satan - Halloween Only

Contains: 1x 54mm Stan on a Pumpkin filled with phalluses, 1x 32mm Stanley with Hope Stealer, 1x extra Hope Stealer plastic, 1x Hope Stealer card.

So while this is one of my absolute favourite miniature pairs, the Stans themselves are the best part of the content. The Hope Stealer is an extremely problematic piece of gear, when it is first collected, it will kill whoever managed to get it (they will be high courage) and replaces the Adventure Sword when it happens. That feels really bad in the first place because losing a great survivor on the hunt sucks and the Adventure Sword is fun content that's hard enough to get as it is.

However, when you have it, the Hope Stealer turns into the ultimate 'red shirt' monster killing weapon. Good settlements in Kingdom Death have a high death count anyway because of how you should turn useless survivors into corpses to generate endeavors via Graves (which can then be used to make better survivors or other benefits). So often this spear climbs up to astronomical levels of strength and all you need to make it really good is Screaming Armor + Spear Mastery in the settlement.

It also causes mechanical issues when the last survivor alive is the one with the Hope Stealer. You get another one of those 'Victory with no living survivor' moments that Spidicules causes via taken or the Dragon King can cause with his Radiant Core. Currently Kingdom Death has no rules to cover this situation, one can hope that the Scout of Death rules covers this area.

As much as I love this incarnation of the Stans, this is a hard pass micro-expansion when it comes to game content considerations. Not only does it partially exclude rare, fun content, in the adventure sword, but it also provides a rather broken piece of gear in exchange.

12. Percival

Contains: Percival 'Old Stumpy' miniature, 1x Hunt Card where you encounter her long dead corpse and the Black Guard Style Secret Fighting Art.

The Percival model is the main reason why people love this so much, there is no argument that Stumpy is one of the most beautiful miniatures in the game, sadly she is wearing and using gear that survivors will never craft, so she's one for display only right now. I am hopeful that she'll become more useful when the Black Knight is released (hopefully the craftable Black Knight gear includes stuff similar to hers at the top level).

The event has the survivors encountering her dead body (we know it's her because of the one hand and other lore information elsewhere), and you can learn the Black Guard SFA if you have Pictographs. 

Black Guard is not a very good SFA overall, but it is still one of the better sword based fighting arts out there and it has a very good 'succession' ability that I think should be on more SFAs in general. 

Has more hype than she deserves, this is an okay expansion, but no-where near as good as the best ones in this list. Get it if you really love the model, or if you have some spare cash after picking up the best ones.

13. Fade

Contains: Fade miniature, Hunt Card, Newborn & Sword of Silence Gear cards.

This one is the peak of what a good white box should represent. It is a top level hunt event card (one that goes in with the basic hunt event cards) and it represents interesting, difficult choices at almost all times. 

When you encounter the Baby and the Sword you will have to decide if you are going to risk one of the most dangerous hunt events in the game in order to get some additional population (if you manage to bring that heavy, fragile child back from the showdown safely) or a very strong sword.

Even if you do take the sword, it has considerable (thematic) downsides to balance its power. Disabling one of the powerful events survivors use for leveling. 

One of the best mini-expansions released so far, get it when you can.

14. White Speaker Sword Hunter

Contains: Sword Hunter Settlement Event, Sword Hunter White Speaker miniature, Sword in the Stone Hunt Event, Excalibur sword gear card.

This one is up there amongst some of the best additional content I have experienced from mini-expansions. There are some genuine feelsbad moments that can happen, especially if the forced pull kills a survivor, you have made the "mistake" of having an experienced survivor carrying Excalibur or if the Sword Hunter when she turns up steals an essential sword. However, I forgive all of this (somewhat, death on the hunt mechanics are still ass) because of how well it tells a complete story and encourages the use of a less popular weapon type (swords). More than most mini-expansions, you are going to want to make use of Otherworldly Luck when this Sword Hunter is involved.

Good, almost great. Can cause some upsets because of forced involvement in automatic death without any way to mitigate/avoid it, but it tells a great story and is often nothing but fun.

15. Easter Aya - Spring/Easter Only

Contains: 54mm Aya, Small Easter Aya, 3x plastic Ancient Root armor kit gear pieces, 1x display giant ancient root (like the giant masks in the core game), 1x ancient root gear card.

NOTE: REQUIRES THE DUNG BEETLE KNIGHT EXPANSION TO USE

So you are picking this one up for the Ancient Root if you want game content and to be honest, it is not a very good deal. The Ancient Root is spawned by the Black Harvest timeline event, which is a Dung Beetle Knight only occurrence. 

In addition to this pre-requisite (which should be posted on the shop page if it is not), the ancient root is a hugely powerful piece of defensive gear. It's absolutely insane how strong it is. 

Also, there is no limit to the number of these you can spawn when you trigger the event except for the number of cards you own. See my comments on the Scoopy Club for more information about why this is not the best design.

Another non-essential item, this one brings a lot of power with little difficulty in getting it. Only for people with the Dung Beetle Knight expansion who also have money to burn.

16. Holiday Santa Stan (Satan) - Winter Holiday Only

Contains: 2 Stan miniatures as pictured, a Cube of Atnas resource card and a Strain Card to unlock it. 

THIS REQUIRES THE FLOWER KNIGHT EXPANSION TO WORK.

So when you achieve the strain unlock via the Flower Knight Quarry only Timeline Event Necrotoxic Mistletoe then you will permanently get the Cube of Atnas basic resource shuffled into your basic resource deck. 

In addition to having a hard requirement for the Flower Knight, the Cube of Atnas is mechanically a problematic thing. Here is the text in full so you can make an informed decision.

So the wording on this one is pretty awkward, it is clear that this trigger is only intended to occur once, and that is how you should play it (+1 Population each settlement phase). But, the way that the mechanics in KDM are designed; each and every single cube would trigger when you are at 5+ Cubes and strictly speaking this would result in +X Population where X is your total number of cubes. This could have been avoided with the text 'Limit once per lantern year'. 

This kind of thing is endemic across the "promo range" they seem to often be rejected or rushed designs that are put out because someone liked them but didn't take the time to quality assurance them fully.

If you don't have the Flower Knight, this one is a hard pass, and even if you do, it is a tall ask to get something that might basically be a sneak peak at the Atnas content in the Gambler's Chest.

17. Holiday White Speaker Nico - Winter  Holiday Only

Contains: Holiday Nico Miniature, Story in the Snow Settlement Event

So this settlement event is one of the best in the game in my opinion.  Most of the time it gives you a 'do over' on a failed showdown at the cost of losing any saviors. It also sometimes turns your Birth Principle into Survival of the Fittest on a 10+.

There is an odd precedent set with this promo card's 10+ result, it cares about the number of times you cheat in a 4th wall meta game mechanic - the more you cheat, the more likely it is to happen. This seems to be a very self aware nod to the fact that Kingdom Death's harsh, arbitrary randomness is often fudged by players.

Good settlement events are always welcome because they reduce the number of times the obnoxious ones turn up. However, this is an expensive item and you should not stretch your budget for it if you are not very well off.

18. Holiday Pinup Twilight Knight

Contains: Xmaxe craftable gear, 3 axes, present miniature and Large size Twilight Knight.

Xmaxe is a craftable axe that costs,  2x Leather, 2x Bone, 1x Fresh Acanthus and requires the following two innovations: Sculpture, Storytelling. You can see details of the axe here.

This mini-expansion is very expensive due to it containing a "75 mm" Twilight Knight model who has no in game use. The game content is the Xmaxe along with 3 sculpts of it for use with your armor kit survivors (one for each hand and one that with no hands attached).

The Xmaxe is an exceptionally powerful weapon akin to the Gloom Katana, but better because it's easier to craft and has a lot more affinities. If you are not abusing insanity gains via the Butcher, Gorm or Screaming Helm then this gear is reasonable and balanced without being overpowered. So it is up to you how ridiculous this piece of gear is, I recommend using it without excessive Insanity gain abuse.

While it is irreplaceable, the crafting recipe is so reasonable that this downside is not a major issue.

Not good value for money, but if you are a pinup painter or serious collector, the Xmaxe does add options to the game.

19. Ringtail Vixen

Contains: Ringtail Vixen model, Bookmark Rules for Intimacy

An evolution of the sticker model used in the White Speaker/Allison, the bookmark design is one of the most innovative and brilliant designs we have had come out in recent times. It allows for temporary and randomized changes to occur to mix up the core rules without reprinting entire pages of the book.

The changes here give you a large piece of 'death spiral' mitigation, one of the main ways new settlements die is when the first intimacy roll results in death(s). This is an awful experience and one that cannot be mitigated at all by good play, it just happens and you have to live with it (and often watch your settlement die early). Instead, you get a special baby who is the perfect starting Fist & Tooth user, which means that not only does this expansion help mitigate Intimacy blues, but it also reduces the chore involved in getting your obligatory Fist & Tooth master.

Must have! This one is the kind of additional content that is great for the game, its bookmark mechanic a strong evolution on the two 'sticker' modification additions and what it does to the intimacy event here is a worthy addition to the game.

20. Pinups of Death #1

Contains: 8 pinup miniatures, Strange Spot Settlement Event Card & Belt of Gender Swap

This one is not a cheap purchase by any stretch of the imagination. Most of the cost is because this micro-expansion comes with a large pile of pinup models of various categories. At the moment, most of these models are not that useful for in game play, the pinup Twilight Knight and Survivor are the two which have the most relevant gear. The Pinup Savior is the other one which may be of some interest and use. 

Game content wise you get a single settlement event, now this event has a 10% chance of killing a returning survivor, and that sucks, but the rest of the results are fun and in my opinion make up for the death result (especially if you play with Survival of the Fittest to reroll on the table).

If you can get the content somewhere, do it. The full set is only worth it for the die hards and hobbyists.

21. Black Friday Ninja - Black Friday Only

Contains: Black Friday Ninja mini, inexplicable 54mm Black Friday Ninja Mini head, Black Friday Lantern Promo Gear.

Like the other non-craftable promo lanterns in this list, this one is quite strong as it provides +1 evasion. The archive ability here is not very good, so that at least balances out quite well and as such I recommend you use it via the house rules I mention in the next entry.

Not worth a lot, get it if you like the miniature.

22. Pinup Sci-Fi Twilight Knight - Gencon only?

Image from Vibrant Lantern, one of the best KDM resources on the net. 

Contains: Dying Lantern and Vibrant Lantern Promo Lanterns 

There is no direct, official way to insert these two gear lanterns into your games. The Dying Lantern gives you +1 evasion and the Vibrant Lantern gives you +1 Accuracy. They can also be archived to provide a resource and insanity or survival gains. 

These two lanterns are very strong if given out to starting survivors (especially the Dying one), so my suggestion to integrate these is to make them each craftable once per timeline via the Post Watcher location (to try and not be too spoileriffic) and use the crafting recipe for the Survivor's Lantern. 

On the whole, this is not really something you need to get at all because these two lanterns have no official way to integrate into the campaign. 

23. Sci-Fi White Speaker

Contains: Blood Plasma Katana and Blood Plasma Gun

Apart from being completely the wrong genre and style of gear, these two items also have no official way to integrate into the game and they are both exceptionally busted in the level of power - sitting above the level of most end game weapons out there right now.

I do not recommend inserting these two pieces of gear into your game at all as they are distorting in power, but you could design a fun one shot scenario using the various Sci-Fi characters (and the Detective) once we have Sci-Fi Aya from the Gambler's Chest.

You can pass on this unless you want the model.

24. Echoes of Death I

Contains: Strains rules, 4 strains, 4 strain fighting arts, 4 models representing the
"Echoes".

Full review coming on this one soon, but the short version is this is a high variance set of game content and I mostly recommend this for the die hard fanatics and hobbyists.

25. Echoes of Death II

You can read an in depth review of Echoes of Death over here. 

Short version is it is a problematic expansion, worth it if you want the models, but be aware that most of the in game content is at a minimum 'best in its category' and at worst 'the most powerfully broken fighting art in the game'. Overall Echoes I, despite its issues, is more balanced.

26. Valentines Day Twilight Knight - Valentines Day only

Contains: 54mm Cake Twilight Knight, Baker Twilight Knight mini, extra Scoopy Club plastic and 1x Scoopy Club gear card.

So, the Scoopy Club is simultaneously an awkward and interesting item. It has no crafting cost, it just turns up when you innovate Scrap Smelting, which means you get access to a club with premium stats at the right time. Clubs always scale into the late game very well because of Lantern Armor.

It is not clear what happens if you own multiple Scoopy Clubs as they are not unique. So it is likely you get as many of these as you own.  🤷🤷🤷🤷

The Scoopy Club's "vomit" mechanic is another awkward area of the game, vomit/retch and so on are mostly placed in the flavor area of the game. An example of one area that causes issues is the Motion Sickness disorder, it states on the card's flavor text 'Moving quickly makes you vomit' but doesn't define that any further. But never before have we had a situation where a non-ability, non-keyword style item like this - so you are going to have to put your best Games Master hat on and work these things out on a case by case basis.

Scoopy Club actually fixes an area of progression in the game that previously was just 'get bone club and use it forever unless you can get a Riot Mace'. However, there are problems with its design that you are going to have to handle with house rules.

27. Easter Twilight Knight -  Easter only

Contains: Easter Twilight Knight miniature, Gibbering Hairmite Basic Resource card

Adam himself admitted on Twitter that this one is very much a pure promo card in the way that the blue backed stuff is and it should be added with caution. Personally I wish he would mark these cards with a 'PROMO' logo in one corner and some text to make this clear, because the community interprets his stuff in a very different way to the intention he seems to have.

The Gibbering Hairmite is an additional basic resource that's just added to the deck, it's a very problematic creation filled with unbalanced and exploitable mechanics. You can, with good population management, ensure that all new survivors end up with +1 movement when they start their lives. Doing this involves consuming the hairmites with fresh survivors to ensure that you only have 1 hairmite in the settlement resource.

There is, again, serious problems with understanding how the mechanics of the Hairmite population gains work because of wording. It is not clear if you gain +1 Hairmite each year, or if you gain +X Hairmites (where X Is the starting number you have) because they grow exponentially. They are a Tribble/Rabbit reference, but if they grow exponentially, then the Cube of Atnas, which uses similar text, also grows exponentially. 

This is the kind of thing that needs a clear FAQ.

I would pass on this one, I think the Hairmite is just a lot of extra bookkeeping and confusion in exchange for something that has to be abused to make it worthwhile.

28. Till Death Do Us Part - Intimacy Survivors PhotoResin

Contains: 2 Photoresin Intimacy Survivors with starting gear, 1x double sided Partnership "Upgrade" card.

This mini-expansion contains two variations of the Partnership rules, I really love the Enduring Legacy version of this, I think that it is one of the strongest additions to the game we have right now because of how it encourages the style of play that Adam has always wanted.

The Devoted Union side is poorly worded and you'll have to fudge things a lot to make it work correctly, but it is an interesting hunt based ability. I often wish that there were more mechanics that rewarded hunt partner duos (stuff like Synchronised Strike and a Shield Master with a Spear Master). So I forgive the awkward, awful texting and just use this as I can see it was intended to be used.

I consider this one a must have, not only do you get two additional starting survivor miniatures without having to use armor kits, but you also get two great variants of Partnership, both of which encourage you to develop different settlement strategies. There is a lot of re-playability in this one.

29. Swashbuckler

Contains: Swashbuckler Generic Hero miniature and 1x Corsair Coat gear card.

NOTE: Requires either Lonely Tree or People of the Lantern to use

While I love the miniature in this one, the model itself is not very 'lore friendly' and I would have appreciated the release of an armor kit version of this model with the coat over the one which we have right now. This is just part of the disjoint between the Generic line of models (which take place in an alternative 'Heroic' version of the KDM world) and the one Monster is set in.

The Corsair Coat is, to be frank, interesting design, but has some problematic rules cases and is overall not very good. It is spawned by the Strange Dream, but only when the story is 'well told' and you have a "savior" tell it. This means that under official rules it cannot be gained by solo players and it is very hard to gain outside of People of the Lantern (you have to fight the L3 Lonely Tree, spawn the Drifting Dreamer Fruit, win the showdown, eat the fruit and then draw the right Settlement Event in time before the campaign ends. Also you can only take this thing out when there is a savior in the hunt party, because of course..

The problem with the rules is one that will take some gentle work with common sense and/or house rules. The issue is that the Corsair Coat is essentially a Stand, in that while it is attached to the survivor, the coat is the thing that is attacking when it triggers. They covered that this item 'ignores your attribute modifiers", but worded it that the coat is attacking, even though it lacks the weapon and ranged keywords and there is no part of the rules that cover how the reactions would work in this case. 

Yeah, it's a promo card, so expect some jank, but come on, a little slip with FAQ/rules to cover this would help a lot. In lieu of that, you'll have to work it out yourself on a case by case basis.

I think this is another one of those 'more hassle than it is worth' creations and you are best off just passing on it unless you want the model to paint.

One final thing before I finish, be VERY careful when picking this stuff up on the secondary market, many people buy these, take the game content out and then resell the models. You should be valuing the game content as 60-80% of the value of the box - the market is flooded with these items minus the game content, but rarely do you see the game content for sale on its own. Anyone who tries to claim that the minis are worth the most is deceiving you about the secondary market values.