Kingdom Death: Monster - Basara Review (Patreon)

Starving, Basara approached the pit. A rich, toothsome aroma lingered but nothing remained. Disappointed she plucked the red weed pushing up between the crystals at her feet. She nibbled experimentally as she hurried to catch up to the others. Numbing and invigorating spice burned her mouth, glittering smoke sizzled from her lips. When she stepped into the lanterns light, the others were blinded by kaleidoscopic refractions of rainbow-hued sweat pouring down her face. From that moment, her instrument had a new sound.

Basara is a direct promotional white box expansion content for a Gambler's Chest (GCE) monster; which means that without the GCE this content has rules for the new character card only. This likely marks a point where new players really start to struggle to catch up with content and have a good purchasing progression path through what has honestly become something of a labyrinthian process to navigate. I guess we got our KDM: Labyrinth after all.

The Models

Basara Painter's Scale

Basara comes with two miniatures in the box, both of which depict the titular character. There is a 75mm “Painter's Scale” model where Basara is on top of a stone face plinth strumming her Curse Hammer like a guitar and a second “45mm” (or whatever the new scale is for KDM in game miniatures now) version of her holding a Saxe.

Basara game piece

This is the second Singer Armor sculpt we've had released in addition to the ones which come in the core game. The first was an Echoes of Death version of the Novice. I quite like having these models come out because this provides a Saxe wielding Singer Survivor for use.

However, the main issue here is this is yet another box of game content with a price that has to be increases due to the large plastic miniature so the value here is very dependant on how much you engage with Painter's scale pieces. I don't have the time to paint them myself but I do think that the sculpt and character displayed in these miniatures is excellent.

The Character Card

Character cards are a new addition to the game and also this is the only part of this box which can be used without the GCE. Having played with the Character system now I can state that I think it's a pretty fun and straightforward addition to the game. What we have here is a bonus for a survivor using instruments if they are the only survivor departing with them.

Character cards are abilities and therefore the cost of getting them in game is negligible as long as they're not one of the negative ones (Impairments) it's just a bonus you can use if you meet its conditions. Unfortunately this particular ability is of very little value outside of Nemesis showdowns because of the classic “noisy issue”. With the exceptions to that being if you own the Grim Muffler Pattern card from the Winter Solstice Lucy white box or if you happen to achieve the exact set of circumstances that occur on the Settlement Event card that comes in this box. More on that later.

Ultimately this Soloist card is just whatever, it's an addition to a good system and sometimes it'll provide an OK bonus that has synergy with the Drum of Hope, most of the time though you'll relegate the survivor with this character to nemesis showdown duties.

The Settlement Event & Pattern Card

Concert is a Smog Singers only Settlement Event card that interacts with the monster's mechanics. Expanding on them with two different results depending on if the survivors have reached a Concord with the Smog Singers or not. The Concord option in the Smog Singers is an interesting thing, but given the importance and value of the Smog Singer gear, achieving the Concord is not usually a goal for players, it's more of a 'this showdown has gone horribly wrong, lets get out of here' option.

With the Song of Concord in the settlement, two survivors will gain the ability to remove all noisy keywords from their gear, along with also ignoring monster accuracy at the cost of having evasion always being 0. At this point Team Death just need to bite the bullet and admit that the Harvester was a mistake that needs to be adjusted. They keep releasing more and more ways of getting around noisy, but if you have to issue multiple band-aids then its time to axe the direct problem. At this point we have the Grim Muffler, Basara, Encounter hunt card, Arc Survivor hunt card, Scout hunt card and additional basic hunt event cards like Dead Warrior/Baby & the Sword/Object of Desire all of which exist to either hard counter the Harvester's “noisy and you die” or a soft counter by reducing the odds of running into it.

Honestly it is mindboggling that Team Death lean so hard into the Harvester and keep sinking more and more resources into something that simply could instead be errata'd. The Harvester is awful for the game's design space and we as a community need to push back against it harder and harder.

Without the Song of Concord innovation the settlement instead rolls on a table with bonuses being given equal to the number of instruments and music innovations in the settlement. The main goal here is to hit the 13-17 result, but also you need to avoid the 1-7 result because of how it strips away all endeavours and drops Coprolalia (noisy keyword) onto all survivors in the settlement. This is another 'you might lose the campaign if you draw this early' settlement event card, except instead of outright killing survivors it instead forces the entire settlement to live with the knowledge that 1% of the time when rolling on the basic hunt event table, the entire hunt party will be sucked into the ground, can you imagine this for a settlement with scouts? It's just give up and start a new campaign time. It's also making innovating music, already the strongest overall technology tree, even more important. Sheesh.

The Upstage Scarf is gained with the 13 to 17 roll and it's, shrug, alright I guess? It's another tool for that lone Grim Muffler survivor, but without that piece of gear (I am so tired of having to lean on the Grim Muffler when playing without house rules) well it's basically +1 armor to the head and a couple of decent affinities. It's alright, but the crafting cost of 1x cloth, 1x pink flesh, 1x vocal chords is pretty high. Cloth is an extremely limited resource and Pink Flesh needs to be used for the Singer Armor first. (Vocal Chords are used to make the Energy Drum which does have some uses, but is less generically powerful than the Singer Armor).

I think that the scarf is certainly something you'll employ if you are going to be using Ballads in showdowns, but outside of that I can't see a lot of uses for it because you'll rarely get this early enough for the affinities to really matter. The result on the Concert “Sound of Music” table that generates the pattern is really only feasible in the middle part of your settlement's timeline. At that time gear slots are at a premium and the Upstage Scarf has to compete with some all time greats.

Summary

I think that Basara is in the lower portion of additional content white boxes, however hobbyists do get an excellent painter's scale miniature. I am not as enamoured with the game content as a lot of what we get ranges from situationally useful to actively harming your settlement to the degree that it might end young campaigns with a scout. I wish it was otherwise because instruments and music is my jam in this game