Kingdom Death

Stone faces

[playingkingdomdeath]

Well, he smashed us, everyone died!! The kings man is TOUGH... has anyone beat him first time?? Is he supposed to beat you?? Anyway above is some pics of my gear so maybe someone can give me advise for the kingsman, I tried to pack shields to block the trap and fast weapons to get rid of those horrid battle pressure cards... maybe more armour would have helped?? Also I found a really cool character sheet tracker for KD on the I phone. I did pay a small amount for it but I'm telling you because I think it works really well, I don't track gear in it mind because I can't be bothered but for quick references and character tracking it's speedy. I don't want to be accused of advertising though so you will have to find it your self if you like the look of it.

[playingkingdomdeath]

One advantage of fighting the DBK expansion is I now get to draw a tactics card. The one I drew gives me more defence if I make the shown formation, I thought I'd give it a go on my first move against the kingsman. PAYED OFF BIG TIME. Formation combined with a few good rolls meant that he completely missed his first couple of attacks.

[playingkingdomdeath]

One nightmare after the other here. I've lost my 3 best guys to the DBK only to have come limping back to find a kings man standing at the edge of my camp... Think o rushed into that DBK as he was shiny and new... Paying for it big time now.... My guess here is that these four survivors are also pretty much dead.... Onwards..

[playingkingdomdeath]

Ok so this was a big mistake!! Unless you think your doing particularly well I would suggest you avoid the dung beetle knight early on!!.. year 8/9 is far far too soon to fight the dung beetle knight.

He crushed me left right and centre, I have to admit I did start the fight again twice from the beginning. The third time around I had some lucky hits.

This guys attacks are devastating, the toughest part for me was that nearly all his hit locations seem to have a negative affect. (Super dense, invulnerable , re directed, toughness boost by +6, loose survival, get knocked back) so speedy weapons aren’t so great, I think slow and strong is a good place to start… Also he targets “stinky survivors” a lot so make sure your tank/s have something smelly on them.

I took the victory in the end but I came limping back with only one survivor… And lost 3 really good ones including my saviour!!

Another advantage I gave myself was having a tactician place a fallen pillar terrain, blocking that resin balls path saved a lot of grief. If you manage to get indestructible terrain in there some how make sure you fight close to it.

I won’t be hunting another dung beetle knight for a long time!!

[playingkingdomdeath]

3,2,1.. FIGHT Will I regret this hunt choice?! Time to see just how tough this bug actually is!

[playingkingdomdeath]

Well, I've reached year 8.... Think it's time to go hunt me a bug knight. Anyone know any good tips for this guy?? I think otherwise I'll just go in blind and see what happens.

[playingkingdomdeath]

Well, we got him. He's a bit of a pain in the arse with all the running about he does. The fight was a strange one for me because he seemed to be less threatening than the White lion on the whole but when he did do damage it was BIG damage. I think for my next encounter with this guy I will also be taking survivors with more insanity as that takes a bit of a bashing as well. For this showdown in particular my trouble card seemed to be one called line rampage, every time it came about I always seemed to have guys in range that were knocked down. Not a good combo as it does 1 damage to EVERY hit location... I was doing a lot of encouraging... Love how different the screaming antelope behaves in comparison to the White lion.

[playingkingdomdeath]

So, next up then will be this guy. The screaming antelope.... [fun fact, did you know that there is a species of antelope capable of jumping higher than the average house.... This is due to its powerful legs and the fact that the average house cannot jump].., I've only done the white lion up to this point as I feel that his resources are a little better. But now I've got most things I need from the Catarium I feel like it's time to progress the hunt. Or maybe I've gone to soon and will come back with no survivors and my tail between my legs, time will tell...

[playingkingdomdeath]

All ready to go!. This guy will be added to my timeline on year 8 apparently. He adds some really interesting elements and story to the game which I'm looking forward to exploring. Tactic cards for knights are new to me but look really fun. The fact you can draw the resin ball as terrain for other monsters is freaking awesome. One thing I have noted mind is how killer his basic move looks :/ potential 12 hits there if I'm reading it correct :|

[playingkingdomdeath]

Suddenly! A wild dung beetle knight appears…

[playingkingdomdeath]

This poor lv.1 lion didn't stand a chance against my elite. But we needed the resources.

[playingkingdomdeath]

A saviour was born! Dominus joins the party...

[playingkingdomdeath]

So, after ALL that…. Poor old Merlin [father of words] is murdered…….. Just like that….

[playingkingdomdeath]

So Galbatrox ended up getting the crap kicked out of him on the board edge. His damage was’t to bad at this point but he was bleeding badly, one more bleed token and he’s out. My plan was to swoop in with merlin and his provoking whip to try and get the butchers attention off Galbatrox. It all banked on one roll (which never ends well in KD). The roll was a SUCCESS!! The priority was moved and Galbatrox was out of harms way. HOWEVER…..The location that merlin hit, did have a reaction that caused the butcher to roar and do 1 brain damage to all non deaf survivors. Galbatrox had no insanity and swiftly went on to roll what I thought to be a good 11 on the brain trauma table…. APPARENTLY HE STARTS MANIACALLY LAUGHING??!! AND GETS PRIORITY BACK ON HIM!!! TIT!!! The butcher turns around and ends him before I even fully worked out what just happened….

After that little episode things started going downhill. And fast. The butcher seems to get very dangerous with fewer AI cards. I had him down to 2 AI and things went from bad to worse. I ended up with a ball ache of an AI card called kick that KEPT looping itself over and over again due to its “draw AI” final step. This wasn’t helped by the fact the butcher draws 2 AI cards every go.

I checked the rules and if I ended up with kick as his last card then there would be an infinite loop until he murdered us all… That is a rule that particularly SUCKS. Out of desperation I remembered the ability on the rawhide headband… “Reveal the top 2 AI and put them back in any order”… Finally I got rid of kick.

Because I took so long working that out things were looking more than bleak for me. 2 more of my survivors had been kicked into a pink mist and merlin was all alone.

Because of the dreaded trophies trait that the butcher has and my 3 dead “survivors” the butcher was looking far too OP for Merlin to handle alone. If the butcher got one more turn it would be game over for me.

One more thing that had been happening in all this though was another one of the butchers AI cards called infectious lunacy. This card was preventing me from using survival on all survivors towards late game (tip, against the butcher, don’t save your survival) BUT they were all pretty buffed up, Merlin had an additional +3 strength and +3 speed tokens (Doing too many convective hits on the butcher isn’t a massive bonus in my opinion anyway because most of his reactions will break the chain but it does give you some choice at least).

Merlin once again finishes the fight and comes home.

[playingkingdomdeath]

I’m expecting this guy to be a pain in the arse so I’ve spent a little more time with set up than normal, naturally I’ve had a look through his AI deck (before showdown set up) and noticed that most his target picking seems to be the closest survivor. For the first round this is good as it’s the survivors move first this time we can lure the butcher into a good starting position.

A - the pillar isn’t really doing much for start up but I’ve kept it close in case I need a survivor to scurry away and hide.

B - hoping my first AI is going to be target closest survivor I move my most tanky guy up 3 spaces away. My next guy I keep one space behind to try and avoid him being the target. The other two I move into a flanking position but make sure they are both further than 3 spaces away

C - as predicted, closest survivor is targeted.

D - the butcher has no other choice but to move straight into my trap as I made sure to set things up such that there was only one direct path to my tank, now my flankers can get in to his blind spots on their next turn.

This seems like a strong start… Time will tell.

[playingkingdomdeath]

Next showdown....

[playingkingdomdeath]

Year 5 at stone faces, gear looks good but I think it's about time I did some innovating and building... Have I left it too late?? Time will tell.... Also looks like we're gunna have a scrap coming up with rivalry drawn as the event.