Nothing But Net: The Dung Beetle Knight Showdown (Patreon)

There is no other showdown in the entire game that is as tightly balanced on a knife edge as the Dung Beetle Knight's. You can be in complete control, as safe as the last egg in a forgotten carton one moment and a single misstep later you're on the floor, broken and leaking yolk all over the precious Persian rug you inherited from your great grandfather's totally not colonial visit to the continent. Or something similar, that small piece of narrative got away from me somewhat, but it's staying, something about the concept of a broken egg staining an expensive rug really sells the sheer chaos that happens when you misstep when fighting the Dung Beetle Knight.

I wouldn't ever rate the Dung Beetle Knight as my favourite expansion, however there is no doubt that fighting the loathsome dung eater is one of the top showdowns in the game for providing that spectacle and unique experience (alongside the Dragon King, Sunstalker, Butcher, Gorm and Gold Smoke Knight). This is in a huge part because of the work done by Zachary Barash.

I've written about this in the past, but as a short reminder/teach – the bulk work on the Dung Beetle Knight's showdown was done by Adam; however what was happening during testing was that the Dung Beetle Knight would throw its ball once and then ignore it for pretty much the rest of the showdown as it rampaged around slapping the survivors silly. While this was a challenging situation, it was not what was originally envisioned and Adam could not figure out how to fix it. As such, Zachary B was given the task of trying to solve this issue (as one of his first tasks iirc), what he did was slice a mechanic off the Dung Beetle Knight as a matter of simplifying the monster (too many mechanics on a monster is often a problem that makes them unenjoyable to play against) and then after transplanting that mechanic to the Lion God (It's called Rampage) the Separation Anxiety portion of the Dung Beetle Knight was formulated and then grafted onto the Dung Beetle Knight – meaning that now the monster was compelled to try and get close to its ball at times and ensure that it remained a very difficult and dangerous threat that the survivors couldn't just overcome with the usual combination of blocking and evasion.

As an aside Zachary B is one of my three favourite monster designers alongside Anna and Adam, if I remember correctly he's responsible for the Dragon King showdown (not the campaign, that's Anna's) and the Gold Smoke Showdown – which I mentioned above as some of my favourite showdowns, he's very good at making a showdown have a unique and epic feeling to it. He's also immensely entertaining when running a game, just check out videos of him demonstrating the upcoming Black Knight showdown.

This mixture of Adam's base work and Zachary's polish results in the Dung Beetle Knight showdown now having twin goals, the more normal portion of mitigating damage dealt by the monster, harming it and gathering precious, shiny resources and the showdown specific goal of keep away.

This is because, if the Dung Beetle Knight starts its turn adjacent to the Dung Ball it's going to rotate the ball all around it's body, smashing anyone within two spaces of it (including diagonals) in a horribly bone breaking manner before tossing the ball at some poor unfortunate soul with such force and speed that it typically travels halfway across the showdown board before generating a red smear across the stone faces of the landscape like some poorly applied meat lipstick and survivor blush.

As players, this is not really an outcome we're looking to experience, as good survivors are something that is hard fought for and coming home from a showdown with nothing other than a pile of broken bodies and zero resources is exactly the opposite of what a healthy monster/survivor relationship goal should be. The only body we want broken is the one belonging to that pretty multicoloured insect humanoid, because it will make for pretty jewellery and suitable shoulder padding for our 1980s executive power suits.

As such, this brings us to the most important point of the strategy, the key point that must be paid attention to lest it result in a massive amount of damage to all. This is...

Ball Control

Nothing will send your showdown hopes spiralling down the drain faster than the error of letting the Dung Beetle Knight start its turn adjacent to the ball. That's because at the start of the turn, if the ball is within reach it'll perform the 'Power Forward' trait, which involves it doing this:

This delightful illustration demonstrates just what the consequences of this error are, and given that collision with a full dung ball not only drains survival, but also causes knock back and damage before even reaching a flow step, so no Dashing out of the way. A lot of damage, 5 damage to X (monster level) locations, which as I am sure you can work out – is a little bit too much for most armor sets to withstand on a regular basis.

On top of that, the Dung Beetle Knight will also then throw the ball 2D10 spaces towards the furthest stinky survivor (or a random survivor if no-one is stinky). And this all occurs on the first turn without any chance to stop it happening unless you get an Ambush.

As such, this means you're going to be operating the start of the showdown in a very similar manner each time. A tough, fast, stinky survivor is going to be placed as far away as possible from the ball and Dash before the ball is thrown in order to try and ensure that they minimise the chances of being hit by the ball. The monster will then full move towards the ball before drawing its AI card. This means that most of the time the early part of the showdown will take place in the lower portion of the showdown board and more often than not it'll drift into a corner quadrant.

Here in this demonstration image you'll see how I typically start the showdown, I know that the Dung Beetle Knight will target the red survivor because they are the furthest stinky target (always make sure there is at least one stinky survivor, Monster Grease is perfect for this job). If they stay where they are then when the ball is launched after spinning around the green circle (Launch point is the small version of the ball) it only has to move about 7-8 square to hit the survivor. However, if they dash in a straight line towards one of the short edges (red), the ball will have a lot further to travel (orange), and in addition to sparing other survivors it is also more likely that the survivor may not be hit (though without higher movement they still can be). Also the further the ball travels, the less likely it is that the Dung Beetle Knight will be in contact with the ball at the start of its next turn, which saves on actions.

The only way to stop this trait from triggering every single turn is by ensuring that the Dung Beetle Knight is afflicted with 'Separation Anxiety' which disables green AI cards/traits either completely or replaces them with the Ground Pound manoeuvrer. This trait card allows the monster to pull the ball back towards itself and you will have to watch out for collision when the ball is recalled this way.

This means you have two essential checks that you need to make sure you follow before all survivors have finished their turn.

1. The Dung Ball must be pushed away from base contact with the monster (Surge to do this if you have to and yes, the DBK pretty much asks survivors to have Surge & Dash innovated).
2. There should be no survivors in the spaces where the ball is pushed to, or between the monster and the ball.

Failure to complete step one will result in the Power Forward/Baller combination crushing everyone's dreams quite literally at the start of the Dung Beetle Knight's turn and step 2 will result in survivors being crushed through being simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because, make no mistake, the Dung Beetle Knight recalls its ball a lot.

So, with that lengthy portion highlighted and discussed, it's time we looked at the breakdown of the Dung Beetle Knight's AI cards. We'll start by considering how many of its cards involve Separation Anxiety, so we have a bit of a picture as to how often it recalls the ball.

A total of 7 of 9 basic cards are here to help the Beetle assimilate the ball back towards it, while there are just 2 of 9 advanced cards with Separation Anxiety. The breakdown of the dun beetle's various level AI cards is as follows:

• L1 7 Basic, 3 Advanced
• L2 7 Basic, 6 Advanced, 1 Legendary
• L3 8 Basic, 9 Advanced, 2 Legendary

And it's worth noting that the Legendary cards are all traits, so they will remove themselves from the deck if they are drawn as the monster's AI for the turn.

This means that even against a basic L1 Dung Beetle Knight you'll be facing between 5 to 9 Separation Anxiety triggering cards, which is a lot of work to prune away if you're seeking to remove the Dung Beetle Knight's ability to recall its ball. At the absolute lowest point, a lowly L1 Dung Beetle will have half of its cards capable of performing that Ground Pound/Basic Action recall combo.

This is why we've got so much text above covering the ball, because it's absolutely the second opponent in this showdown and if you do not stop it doing its thing, it's going to deal out a huge amount of damage that cannot be stopped with evasion, deflect or blocking. It's damage that you can only avoid by not being collided with in the first place.

However, the fact that it uses collision does mean that there are certain pieces of gear and a fighting art that will allow you to build in a safety net level of protection.

Tumble gives you a 50% chance of avoiding collision, and as such it's a far more desirable fighting art when fighting the Dung Beetle Knight than it is normally. So, in a settlement seeking to hunt dozens of beetles, sculpting Tumble may not be a terrible idea if it becomes an option.

However, if you cannot get your hands on Tumble, there is another method that gets you there. The Hybrid armor set 'Dancer Armor' from the Lion Knight expansion gives you access to the Tumble fighting art when you are wearing a full set – and because that armor set is incredibly manoeuvrable, slippery and decently durable – you might employ it on a stinky survivor who will act as the bait for the Dung Beetle Knight's bowling attempts.

The Active Behaviours

At this point I think we've stressed enough just how strong the ball is during this fight and we'll properly move onto the rest of the Dung Beetle Knight's AI cards. As is always the case, we're not going to dive into every single card in extensive detail, but instead we're going to look at the “peaks and troughs” - the cards which contain a large spike in danger (peaks) and the ones which provide opportunities to punish the monster (troughs). I'll be omitting talking about most of the moves that are cancelled if the Dung Beetle Knight (DBK) is not adjacent to the ball, because the solution to those is what's listed above – separate the two partners and reduce your punishment during the ground pound/basic action section as much as possible. Leather helps mitigate the bash portion if you're looking to stay adjacent to the monster when it Ground Pounds, otherwise Encourage is as good as ever.

Basic AI Cards

As we mentioned above, there are only 2 basic cards that are not green and they both prefer the nearest stinky threat. These are Resin-Plated Right and Shoulder Bash. The former is a relatively basic punch/claw type attack that inflicts bash and bleed 1. This is the kind of stuff that you should be very versed in handling, so it's a relatively soft attack to defend against. Shoulder Bash on the other hand is a little nastier, but it has very low accuracy (for a monster) at 4+. So durability, evasion and a shield should help weather the storm as long as you have ways of removing the bleed tokens if they build up too much. The nasty part of Shoulder Bash is after effect, where the monster will Ground Pound and pull the ball towards itself, because the DBK has possibly moved before recalling, this means the ball may travel in an unexpected path and cause some trouble for survivors.

Advanced AI Cards

The Advanced cards are shut down by Separation Anxiety far less often. This means they present the main variation in how a Dung Beetle Knight will behave it it's being separated in a consistent fashion by the survivors.

Beetle Flight is one of the few moods that the Dung Beetle Knight has, and it's a pretty tame one because it can give survivors a buff to their strength if they have higher levels of courage. It also gives the monster +10 movement and +1 evasion tokens. Both of which are worth the monster gaining in exchange for this self inflicted “wound”. In addition; if you break the monster's wounds with the associated permanent injury, this mood is archived. So this is a pretty mild AI card overall, however, it is worth noting that first of all it's going to draw a second AI card and secondly, if you're using distance to mitigate the DBK's trap – that +10 movement is going to stop that happening.

Boiling Resin Spit belongs to this category of DBK attacks that are inaccurate and (relatively) low speed, but have devastating consequences if they do hit. This is a card you don't really want to hit survivors due to how it can make them less mobile or accurate when it connects with the arms (Also not an attack you want to Cross Block unless you're a pure turtle survivor who doesn't roll to attack). It is also another AI card that is negated by a persistent critical wound, and unlike Beetle Flight above, this one doesn't archive itself, instead every time it's drawn it'll make the DBK wound itself and fall over. Yes, you're going to hear a lot about how good Critical Wounds are when fighting the DBK a lot.

Genius Architect is something that has to be highlighted even though it's a Green card because it is one of the few cards that punishes survivors for separating the DBK from its ball. In this case what happens in addition to the Ground Pound is Monster Level +3 damage to the legs and bash on ALL survivors. This is a card that you absolutely want to remove as a wound.

Grab & Pummel is a terrifying 10 speed 2 damage per hit attack that can utterly devastate a survivor if they're not prepared for it. However, it's wildly inaccurate (5+) and it targets the closest stinky threat in range. So, the old standard of having a monster grease covered, high evasion character as the main target is hugely important. I must confess I hate that so often the right answer to fighting this monster is 'have a high evasion, high armor, shield welding, stinky tank' but it absolutely is and I'd also recommend having a second stinky survivor capable of tanking/evading hits during these fights because of the core design the DBK has.

Over the Shoulder is one of the nastiest attacks that the DBK can inflict, because if it scores even one damaging hit (and that damage is a horrific 4 points) then the survivor is going to be tossed at the Resin Dung Ball and suffer collision damage. This is an attack that is accurate (for the DBK), with a decent level of speed and it can absolutely kill a survivor in a single hit if they don't have sufficient armor to avoid the severe injury.

Resin Sword Slash is the DBK's single most accurate attack and it's one of the few that employs the sword (Legendary traits aside) – it's accurate, hugely damaging, doesn't target the way the the main DBK targetting does and it will send the survivor sailing across the showdown board meaning that they'll need to take multiple movements to get back in position. The main thing that holds this attack in check is its low speed. But it gets to also perform a basic attack after this attack happens – and that means it can be devastating because of that erratic two attacks in one move + odd targetting.

This means that once again, you really want to inflict the matching persistent injury in order to cancel this card if it turns up, but it's also something that rewards AI pruning, which we'll discuss next week.

Finally we have Rhinoceros Charge, this attack tends to be a fair bit weaker than other attacks as long as you're keeping your survivors in close range. This card can be handled simply by ensuring that all survivors stay at the same distance from the monster (and if they're not, they should be outside of movement range or used a Fecal Salve to not be a threat). If you're adjacent to the monster then this attack deals very low damage and the main scare is the Bleed 2.

Legendary AI Cards

There are just three of these, and they are all traits. So when they are drawn they're going to  (almost) permanently alter the texture of the fight and with one exception they can't be removed once they're down. We'll start with one that can be triggered during the hunt phase, meaning that it'll get seen more often than the other Legendary cards.

That is Rainbow Scarab and it is not too bad as far as the traits go, it does drain survival and insanity, but it's only on perfect hits which are (unless you've taken stuff like Timeless Eye into the showdown) are a flat 10% per dice rolled to attack. It is not ideal, but it could be worse.

Scarab of Life can be a disaster if it turns up late in a showdown because of that healing, the increase in (Star) (Monster Level) is also pretty scary, but overall the main thing this does is force the survivors to tear down the monster even faster, and lets be honest, the DBK is a monster you should be trying to kill as quickly as is reasonable anyway. It's not a monster for resource farming via critical wounds (Though as we'll see, you absolutely DO want to score critical wounds against it, you just don't want to slow the showdown too much the way that one can vs. the weaklings like White Lion, Gorm, Screaming Antelope or Flower Knight).

Finally we have the big one in Sword Master. This changes the DBK's basic action into a sword attack and that means it's more accurate and more damaging to an incredible degree. It also increases the monster's speed. It is removable though, which is unusual for a trait, but if you break the blade it cannot perform Sword Master moves. This 'critical wounding' the monster is just such a core part of the game's loop already, but the Dung Beetle Knight really leans into it hard.

Unfortunately that's all we have time for this week, so next week we'll continue digging into this complicated and well realised monster with the hit location deck and the survivor status effects before hopefully putting together some concepts for what kind of survivors you typically want to take into showdowns with this beast. 

Catch you all then!