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An In-Depth Dive into the Campaigns, Nodes and Pillar System | Kingdom Death: Gambler's Chest
🕑 Added 2025-02-28 10:00:14 +0000 UTCLast week, while recovering from an illness that robbed me of my ability to string sentences together without coughing (hence why I haven't finished a video since the Frogdog, but I'm working on that this week; hopefully I'll finish recording today and be able to get the Screaming Antelope Dark Bestiary video out for next week) I spent an exceedingly long amount of time sitting with the Gambler's Chest Pillar campaign creation system with the goal of trying to understand all of the various nuances and wrinkles that using this system presents. This article is the result of all of that, I'm going to go over the Pillar system and then also provide a few thoughts, strengths and weaknesses each individual element there brings to the table when building a campaign.
Considering that the Pillar system is scant more than two pages in the Gambler's Chest, of which in truth only one page really matters, it is one of, if not the most important piece of work in the box. This is because setting up a campaign is in essence curating the entire experience you're going to have over the coming days, weeks and months. It's a kind of poetry how this mirrors the actual experience of playing the game itself, the starting period of years for a settlement has a huge impact on how everything moves going forward. Good foundations matter, and with the Pillar system you're setting up the foundation for the foundation of your settlement.
For those of you who are not familiar with the Campaign, Nodes and Pillars system here's the relevant page from the book, there's a bit more on the second page, but it is simply clarifying the rules about what Core/Final nemesis monsters are in each campaign and also giving guidelines as to how one can share the duties of managing playing the game between multiple different players.
There are advantages and disadvantages to this system being printed in brief, it means that there's less to internalise so you don't have to reference multiple pages and passages each time you set up. While I don't write about it too much, one of Kingdom Death's strengths is its rulebooks. There are some portions that would be really useful if they were separated out; such as the severe injury tables or the various story and showdown pages, but the overall structure and elements provided in each book are fantastic. In particular Kingdom Death has one of the best tutorials and new player on-boarding designs in any board game, it's evocative and easy to grasp. This game is complicated, even after I'm approaching a decade of playing this game it's still easy to forget unusual rules or gear triggers, but the rulebook and glossary/living glossary cover so many things really well.
This page benefits from that, it's clear that the campaign set up guidelines presented here have been chiselled from a giant block of marble into a clean and presentable format and that makes it easily digestible. But this streamlining also leaves a lot unsaid, which is fine for players with a lot of game time under their belt, but for players who have less experience there are implications in this that you might not realise when choosing from the options.
Lets walk through the document so I can highlight a little of this.
This section starts with a look at the monster nodes, ordering them roughly in timeline order, which makes sense, but it doesn't really follow the structure that one needs to consider when building the campaign. That's because the very first step for any campaign is actually deciding which campaign framework you're playing, the core monsters should have been placed before anything else. While you can construct a campaign 'bottom up' by selecting the node monsters and then picking the core/finale afterwards that's a lot more complicated than choosing which People of the ______ you'll be playing this time.
Secondly, one entire subset of monsters is buried away from sight and classed as a 'Campaign Pillar' instead of a node, that's the Encounter Monsters, which were pitched as an alternative nemesis monster, but here are instead given the same weighting as adding wanderers plus characters to a campaign. I suspect this is to allow for multiple Encounters to be included in a campaign rather than having just one encounter monster per campaign, but we can't be sure at this time because we only have the Bone Eaters to consider, and they're very much a supplement to the Arc Survivor system due to how closely they tie with the Marrowism Philosophy. We'll come back to Pillars a bit later.
The largest part of this page is devoted to the Quarry and Nemesis monsters, the Node system here formalises a lot of what the community has been exploring in respect to the expansions. Here we have an official list of which monsters are equivalent and where they fit in the “power tier list” (as demonstrated by the fun illustration on this page, “There's always a bigger fish.”)
However, the system doesn't really get into some of the oddities in respect to these various monsters and nodes. There are some individual wrinkles which I'll write about when I break this down and consider each monster in turn as they stand at time of writing, but before that here's a few key elements to consider.
Quarry Node (NQ1) 1 and Quarry Node 2 (NQ2) have in essence no power level difference between them, and in fact with the exception of Spidicules NQ2 is almost entirely a weaker node than Node 1. I'd go as far as to say you can pretty much have any NQ1 monster turning up in lantern year 2 as your NQ2 option and the only reason you can't have a NQ2 monster as your NQ1 monster is a lack of a prologue option for them, which is something the Gorm currently lacks as well. That's not a big deal either, you could easily use the White Lion, Frogdog or Crimson Crocodile as a campaign starter and then never have them appear for the rest of the campaign if you wanted to explore what it was like to run just the Screaming Antelope plus Spidicules.
This means that NQ1 and NQ2 suffer from a lack of identity between the two steps, that brings the advantages I mentioned above, but it also means that more experienced players may flounder a little when trying to choose a suitable second monster for their campaign.
Quarry Node 3 is a really tight selection with absolutely no inherent issues, though all three of these monsters shine at their best when paired with another NQ3 monster. That is something which is solved fairly smoothly by simply having two of them in the campaign, but running duplicate monsters of the same node has an impact on Arc Survivor Collective Cognition gains which isn't covered in these rules because that's not something supported by this official framework.
When we get to Quarry Node 4 there's a noticeable breaking down of this Quarry Node framework NQ3 because the disparity between the Dung Beetle Knight and Lion God verses The King is absolutely massive. Even before this system was introduced, the player base noticed that the Dung Beetle Knight (DBK) and Lion God were on a different power level to the NQ3 selection, so pulling those two away from the others makes some sense. However, the difference in power and campaign impact that The King has on a campaign when selected over either of the other two is a gigantic, soundless gulf. This is one of the only points where I firmly believe that the Quarry portion of the node system needs additional work. Either the DBK and Lion God need a rework to make them suitable End Game (LY20+) monsters or The King should be moved to Quarry Node 5.
In respect to the Nemesis Node (NN0) monsters we have less of an issue in respect to the power levels, but it is still present to a certain extent. While the Butcher and Manhunter are absolutely interchangeable in difficulty, there current system for the Manhunter has them being entirely special showdowns, which if you follow that, results in a campaign that takes a lot longer (due to having +4 showdowns) and also gets a bit easier because players get more quarry hunts to generate resources for gear. But if you put the Manhunter in as normal nemesis showdowns then it eats up a quarry showdown due to turning up four times. At the moment it seems players have to make their own decision on how to handle this, which is fine, but some guidelines will be helpful in Campaigns of Death (which is where I expect we'll get a full version of this system).
NN2 is a tight tier with monsters that don't have the same timeline issues, but there is a clear difference in difficulty between each, with Atnas being the weakest opponent and Slender Man/King's Man being the hardest. That's actually not a massive issue, because having different options for this slot means players can greatly tune how challenging their campaign is. There's other wrinkles, but we'll come to those later.
NN3 has just two options at this time, and that is welcome, because The Hand is in essence a “scripted” scene where a powerful dude turns up and toys with the survivors. It's thematically excellent and really adds so, so much to the world, but the cost that is paid is once you're experienced with this one the showdown plays out very similar each time. The Black Knight, with its greater depth of showdown and multiple levels has become the de-facto choice now, with The Hand at risk of mostly being relegated to turning up in People of the Dream Keeper campaigns only.
The Core and Finale Monsters sit together despite being separated apart in the list, the “Customise a Campaign” section makes this very clear as it states that People of the Lantern must always be Watcher + Gold Smoke Knight, People of the Dream Keeper must be Gambler + Godhand (and also cannot have the King's Man, and must include The Hand fight), People of the Stars and Sun don't get any explicit explanations at this time, though narratively each campaign excludes the concept of a Finale Monster at this time (Technically People of the Stars has a Core monster of The Tyrant and a Finale Monster of Dragon King, but only 25 Lantern Years length).
Last of all we have the Special Nemesis Monsters (aka Sp) and right now there's only The Lonely Tree, which is fine because I've included that in every single campaign since I opened that box and it has worked absolutely fine, sometimes the tree never turns up, sometimes you get to face it 3 times. At the moment the only real commentary can be speculating about what'll happen when we get a second and third Special Nemesis Monster.
On the Pillar front we get very little information about each pillar, but that is because the rest of the book goes into full details about each one, so it makes sense here. I do however expect Campaigns of Death to also include all the details about each pillar in order to ensure its is as complete as possible. I will briefly note that I'm surprised that Seed Patterns are ranked as being 1 Pillar instead of 2, that system is more complicated than it looks at first pass because of how much additional tracking and planning Seed Patterns can require, do you remember to keep a track of survivors who fought against Atnas/Smog Singers/Crimson Crocodile, dealt the killing blow to a Phoenix or wounded a labyrinth hit location?
Overall though the framework presented here is clean, tight and easily digested, which is a pretty great place for it to be. However, I do think that when it is printed in Campaigns of Death we should have additional pages following this cover one in order to properly cover as many questions, unusual circumstances and edge cases as possible.
The Individual Details
Now I'm going to briefly go through each of the current options for the nodes and highlight a few key things to consider for each one. Hopefully this works as a supplementary article to help inform your decisions further, it's not a gospel however, I certainly do not have any definitive opinion in respect to this system and even my opinion changes over time.
I will provide a brief paragraph about each monster here along with the following pieces of information: Who I think this monster is best for, how complex the monster is to operate, how difficult it is (compared to others of its node) and what weapon types it supports (including any Indomitable or Pattern weapons).
Node 1
Node 1 is our introductory monster, providing us with the first handhold onto which we start building power for the settlement, as such the monsters all tend to be amongst the easier to fight. Also Node 1 is the primary place where monster deck scouting gear turns up, every single Node 1 monster to date has a deck scouter in some form (Cat Eye Circlet, Wisdom Potion, Blood Lantern Compass and Frogdoggles). This gear category is of immense help to players of all skill categories.
White Lion // White Gigalion
Baby's first monster is on the showdown front an absolute triumph of design, the White Lion teaches you so many things about the game; including how to control monster targets via positioning, the importance of ranged weapons, respecting reactions, survival opportunities (especially the way non-attacking survivors can do stuff during the trap's basic action) and more. It also provides a safe space where Frail weapons can be used and generates more hide than other monsters; all of which supports newer players. In fact the only criticism I have about the White Lion is the under baked nature of its armor set, it's a beautiful set dripping with thematics, but in practice it doesn't work properly despite having multiple other options trying to fix it (White Gigalion, Lion God and White Sunlion Armor for example). It's also thematically odd that the White Lion doesn't have a whip in its options, the tail is prime real estate for supporting the concept of a “lion tamer”.
Best for: New players
Complexity Rating: Very Low
Difficulty Rating: Low
Weapons: Spear, Bow, Dagger, Katar
Gorm
The Gorm steps up both the complexity and difficulty a bit when compared to the White Lion, it has two crafting locations, a settlement event that punishes storing of resources, a new way of considering positioning and also some very deadly Advanced AI cards. It's always been one of my favourite monsters, especially due to its versatile resources and sweet offensive gear cards, but it again doesn't provide a great armor set, suffering in a similar way to White Lion in that its armor points and affinities do not well support either itself or the playstyle it's asking for. It's somewhat ironic that the best performance I've had from the “Shield Armor Set” has actually been with bows.
Finally, a quick note on my preferred house rule if I play the Gorm with newer players, I tend to leave Gorm Climate in the Settlement Event deck rather than triggering it straight away. This does make the game a lot easier early on, but I do this in order to make the game more accessible. However if they're experienced board gamers then I'm not going to make that alteration.
Best for: Experienced Players
Complexity Rating: High
Difficulty Rating: Medium-High
Weapons: Shield, Grand, Axe, Sword, Dagger, Club
Frogdog
Our newest addition to Node 1 is the Frogdog and it's an easier monster than the Gorm for sure, however it is more complex to operate due to its Fart Deck, and there are a couple of other spots where I think the monster has holes. In specific showdown terrain and gathering resources for its “Node 4” variant. However, this is one of the only Node 1 monsters that can support a settlement looking for late game armor without using The King or Dung Beetle Knight options. That's an important space for it to fit into a campaign, especially if you want to have the Lion God as your Node 4.
Best for: Moderate Experience Players
Complexity Rating:
Difficulty Rating: Medium
Weapons: Whip, Scythe, Axe, Thrown, Club, Grand, Dagger, Spear, Scimitar, Shield and Armor supports bows
Crimson Crocodile
The Crimson Crocodile is my current front runner for favourite monster in the game, this is easily the most challenging of the Node 1 monsters, including “insta-death” mechanics which are balanced and delightful to navigate. It also is one of the few places where a late game Scythe is located. This monster requires you to redefine your understanding of positioning and demands you lean into insanity generation/protection.
I'd also like to note that the Blood Compass Lantern is my favourite “scouting” design because it requires an element of “gambling” due to how it allows you to replace the drawn hit locations, something that rewards knowledge of what else is in the hit location deck and understanding of odds. Also the Crimson Crocodile's lower toughness helps players make the step from Level 1 to Level 2 more easily, while also encouraging aggressive playstyles a lot.
I never get tired fighting this thing, it's a delight.
Best for: Experienced Players
Complexity Rating: Medium-High
Difficulty Rating: High
Weapons: Scythe, Thrown, Club, Whip, Spear, Bow, Saw, Sword, Katar, Dagger, Axe, Grand
Node 2
I've made most of my comments on Node 2 above, so I won't repeat them here and we'll get straight into the specifics for each option.
Screaming Antelope
The Screaming Antelope is a bit of an odd one, it is a monster that drops more bones than normal, but has very few weapon options, with most of what it brings to the table being various items. It is absolutely the best option for players who are struggling with the Butcher, because it offers a lot of Acanthus during its showdown and Dried Acanthus is one of the few defensive tools we have to mitigate the Butcher's deadly “Bite” AI card (it can have two of these in its deck). It's also a source of vermin for cooking and one of the three monsters used in the current cooking recipes (the other two being the White Lion and Phoenix, I do expect this to get addressed in Campaigns of Death).
It's also a thematic slam dunk, but due to being shut down easily by shields and very vulnerable to crit farming strategies it is clear that this monster was designed well before the main play styles were understood by Team Death.
Best for: Newer Players
Complexity Rating: Moderate (Diabolical is easy to misunderstand)
Difficulty Rating: Low
Weapons: Spear, Katar, Twin Weapon Fighting (Blood Paint)
Spidicules
The Spider-Mom is very close to being a top tier monster, it has the most challenging and engaging showdown out of all Node 2 monsters and it is really only the gear and story event side of things that hold things back a tad. When you play with this monster you tend to get locked into having to hunt it multiple times because of its “revenge” mechanic and there are also some balance issues with its gear cards. Most notable is the armor set, which can only be completed at the time where you are starting to want to replace the armor set for something tougher. Also its weapons heavily overlap with the White Lion options, so it plays better with any of the other Node 1 monsters
This is however absolutely the best “Minion” boss in the game right now, and I really cannot overstate how good it showdown is.
Best for: Experienced Players
Complexity Rating: High, you're dealing with multiple minions, cycling moods and an entire leg removal system
Difficulty Rating: High
Weapons: Axe, Spear, Katar, Scimitar, Thrown, Sword, Shield
Flower Knight
The single largest issue with the Flower Knight is not around its difficulty (which is low) but it is how it impacts Arc Survivors, because Arc Survivors have their development tied to fighting novel monsters, you're asked to not repeat facing the same monster at the same level too much, but because the Flower Knight doesn't turn up until Lantern Year 5 you're stuck with a single Node 1 monster for 4 lantern years. That means if you want to keep progression of collective cognition you're going to need to fight L1, L2, L2 – which is something newer players may not be comfortable with.
All of this makes things a bit complicated, it's nothing insurmountable, but I noticed the impact when setting up a Flower Knight run recently. It made the campaign a bit tougher and a bit less varied early on, but it was all managable.
Best for: Newer Players
Complexity Rating: Low
Difficulty Rating: Low
Weapons: Sword, Bow, Supports Instruments
Smog Singers
Our newest Node 2 monsters continue the overall trend of being easier than Node 1; the Smog Singers are survivors deformed into prawn shaped punching bags. The conceit of the showdown is that you're punished for attacking them, so the Singers have a large pool of wounds (at L2+) in order to leverage this. However this mechanic, while an exceptional thematic design doesn't quite work right mechanically and in addition to how vibration damage works it ends up making the showdown a lot easier than you'd expect.
The monster does absolutely have a place in the game however, it's got the best designed Node 2 armor set design by a long distance, having appropriate protection levels (unlike Screaming Armor) and appropriate timing for completing it (unlike Silk Armor), so there's a lot to like on that front. The main issue on the weapons side is the same problem that affects all gear cards inflicted with the noisy keyword. There's a 1% chance per basic hunt event that you'll simply be deleted with no counter play options outside of 'don't use noisy gear'. That means the sweet Ballad mechanic and the interesting instrument gear cards get less play than I'd like without good old house rules.
Best for: New players
Complexity Rating: Low
Difficulty Rating: Low
Weapons: Instrument, Spear, Club, Sword, Dagger, Katar, Axe
Node 3
This node has a very coherent power level and is the most consistent across its options. However, it is worth noting that while the Phoenix and Sunstalker both have solid weapon options for a bunch of categories the Dragon King isn't as fortunate.
Phoenix
When introducing the game to new players, I actually remove the Phoenix from the options and run one of the other two instead. This is because the Phoenix doesn't play fair, it's got a bunch of hidden “rules” that will create awful experiences for players who don't know how to navigate them. It's never fun for a player to die during the hunt phase, but that can happen here. Also there's a non-zero chance that the Phoenix erases all the survivors from the showdown board on the first turn, at level 1. Which sucks. Though I do need to acknowledge that this is a rare event, but the key thing is it shouldn't be able to happen at all. It's not a game if sometimes you can randomise into a situation where there is nothing to do other than get erased from the timeline.
Apart from some of the over tuned time elements of the phoenix, it is an excellent monster, challenging players to handle a disruptive basic action and putting even more emphasis on positioning correctly at all times (not just before the monster's turn). This, combined with the updates that the crafted gear got in the 1.6 update and the Indomitable Resources in the Gambler's Chest has done a lot to help make the juice worth the squeeze.
Best for: Honestly? Experienced players. The Phoenix is not a good introductory Node 3 monster, unfortunately it is also the one that comes in the base game box.
Complexity Rating: High, you're juggling bleed, positional disruption and ageing mechanics providing pressure constantly.
Difficulty Rating: High, because it's attacking you on multiple fronts.
Weapons: Axe, Bow, Sword, Armor supports using reach weapons
Sunstalker
Before the Crimson Crocodile came along the Sunstalker was my favourite quarry monster by a long, long distance and because it is Node 3, not Node 1, it hasn't been crowded out by Crunk one bit. The Sunstalker's biggest draw is how modern it still feels, with multiple higher level crafting options and resource demands asking players to be smart about their future gear plans. The only real sticking point left now is that that for arc survivors you have a difficult choice about whether you are OK with the strange resource from your single level 1 hunt being enough. You can repeat hunting L1 monsters with arc survivors, but you are lightly punished for doing so.
Regardless, this is a quality monster and one that tends to get into my campaigns more often than the other two.
Best for: Everyone
Complexity Rating:
Difficulty Rating: The level 1 is very soft, but don't let that fool you, this monster steps up hard at L2 and L3. Which is perfect monster design, learn how things go against the easiest version and then get challenged properly by the older versions.
Weapons: Bow, Axe, Grand, Spear. The armor set also supports any non-sharp weapons with interesting abilities by giving them sharp
Dragon King
If you asked me which Node 3 monster I think makes for the best experience when considering the showdown only, the Dragon King would win outright. It's a showdown that sells the feeling of people fighting against a giant monster; there's a huge amount of weight behind how the Dragon King fights and it's delightful. The only real issue with this as a quarry monster is the gear, which has a lot of duds and as such I tend to use it alongside a second Node 3 monster. Doing that isn't an official way of playing, but I really value cross expansion synergies, especially when considering a monster like this which has a shorter shopping list. It's especially good when paired with the Sunstalker.
Best for: Players with some experience, especially being able to handle murder.
Complexity Rating: Medium
Difficulty Rating: Medium-High
Weapons: Dagger, Scythe, Shield, Sword, Katar, but only the Dagger and Scythe are worth considering at the moment. This armor set also supports reach weapons. It also has great support for arrows.
Node 4
Node 4 is back to another node with inconsistent power levels for its monsters (what is it with KDM and even numbered Quarry Nodes?) I've written about that in more detail further up in this article, so I won't go into it here any further. This is another node that's kind of split waiting for a further update in Campaigns of Death, but it does have two very good monsters and the other one is certainly one of the Kingdom Death Expansions of all time.
Dung Beetle Knight
One thing I'd highly recommend if you're playing with the Dung Beetle Knight as your Node 4 option is to also have the Frogdog at Node 1, this is because the Dung Beetle Knight weapons don't scale as well into the end game, but you can grab some Tuskworks weapons and an armor set from the Bullfrogdog to paper over those cracks (if you don't mind how awkward copper resource gathering is).
It's a very good monster, but it plays more like a Node 3 monster at level 1 and 2. Even at Level 3 it's not on par with the L3 King. However, I've gone into those reasons in the top of this article.
Best for: Anyone who wants node 4 but can't currently afford The King.
Complexity Rating: High
Difficulty Rating: High
Weapons: Grand, Katar
Lion God
The Lion God is first and foremost a mood, both because it is a moody little sphinx and also because this isn't really a monster you casually hunt. It's got an incredibly hard to avoid 'auto-death' card and a lot of brutal moves. All of this effort also has low pay off; there's some interesting insights into the wider world and its history hidden away in the necropolis below the showdown, but ultimately I don't often have a fun time against this one. I'm still hoping that the Silver City expansion does something to make this monster more engaging, but the direction we've seen for that expansion so far doesn't seem to be doing that?
Best for: Players who want a showdown with lots of stick and very little carrot.
Complexity Rating: Medium
Difficulty Rating: High
Weapons: None really. Has some “support” for White Lion Armor that doesn't work well.
The King
The King is only true Node 4 monster at the moment, and what an absolute doozy it is. The King benefits from all the experience that the designers have had, this monster is incredibly engaging to fight and is one of the most 'puzzle-like' monsters in the entire game. In fact, the only issue I have with this monster is how small and outdated the miniature looks, I wish it had got a revision before being put into the Gambler's Chest. This is my default choice for Node 4, especially because it covers so many weapon types.
Finally one other key note, if you add The King to People of the Lantern, you'll have to either delay waking the Watcher for a few years in order to get games against the L1 and L2, or you'll have to go straight in against the L3.
Best for: Anyone who can reach the point in the timeline where it is introduced
Complexity Rating: High
Difficulty Rating: High
Weapons: Grand, Whip, Sword, Dagger, Shield, Axe, Katar, Spear, Katana, Club, Scythe (with Lordsruin).
Nemesis Monsters
Node 1
Nemesis Node 1 is an incredible spot for high quality, both the Butcher and the Manhunter are ridiculously engaging monsters. They're also highly interchangeable, which is not something we see often and is therefore a really sweet thing to see. I love it when there's not a clear choice and instead you can choose based on individual merits rather than choose X because Y is meh.
Butcher
The first Nemesis monster players encounter is still one of the all stars. Even without considering how incredible the Killenium Butcher vignette monster is the Butcher remains a high water mark for nemesis monster design. It's always challenging and capable of some really scary things but it never feels 'unfair'. Also I love that this monster just turns up out of nowhere and starts slashing, it's a wonderful piece of “show don't tell” narrative.
Best for: Everyone
Complexity Rating: Low
Difficulty Rating: Medium
Weapons: Axe, Cleaver
Manhunter
The Manhunter is a fantastic alternative to the Butcher, it's another high quality expansion, dripping with theme, this monster slinks in and then show boats all the way through its 'wrestling match'. I really love how well balanced this monster is, with the initial showdown being really on par with The Butcher for difficulty, but offering it in a very different way.
You could coin flip your choice between the Manhunter and Butcher at each campaign set up and you'd never be disappointed with the outcome.
Best for: Everyone
Complexity Rating: Medium
Difficulty Rating: Medium
Weapons: Support for tools.
Node 2
Node 2 is a little bit rougher in power level, it's got my all time least favourite monster in the game (mechanically) and outside of that there's a large range in how difficult the monsters are. Atnas is a softer target than either of the Node 1 options, while both the King's Man and Slender Man are right up there at the bleeding edge of challenge.
King's Man
The core game's Node 2 nemesis monster is my least favourite showdown fight in the entire game. I'm pretty fine with the level 1 showdown, it's tough, brutal if you've been struggling with hide resources, but it is thematic and engaging. It's the L2 and L3 versions that I really dislike playing as they have a massive amount of bookkeeping, so much so that The King's Accountant or The Bookkeeper is the usual name we refer to this monster by. Suffice to say, unless I'm specifically testing King's Man related content, I tend to avoid this one.
Best for: Not me.
Complexity Rating: High
Difficulty Rating: High
Weapons: Some sword synergy, but its weak to shields and daggers.
Slender Man
Despite being an internet creepy pasta, the Slender Man is absolutely better than it has any right to be. This monster is a tough opponent, and initially at least feels weird in the world (though it ties into the Frogdog expansion really neatly). However this is the Node 2 monster that fits best into People of the Lantern because the King's Men are really ancillary to the plot of that campaign after it pivoted away from The King faction storyline and leant into the Gold Smoke Knight instead. Both they and The Hand feel like an abandoned storyline if you don't pick The King for your Node 4.
Slender Man doesn't have that issue, in fact it is at its best when played with the base game options. In fact the closeness is so tight that I feel I should warn you to be aware that at the moment the Slender Man works alongside the base game quarries as it has gear using their resources, it does still have generic crafting options but it's not as good if you do not use any of the White Lion, Screaming Antelope or Phoenix in your campaign. However, it still works, I am currently this week running a campaign with Slender Man and none of the base quarry monsters and it's felt great.
Best for: Everyone, this is actually the best base game Node 2 nemesis monster due to how much extra depth and options it provides for the trio.
Complexity Rating: Medium
Difficulty Rating: Very High
Weapons: Katana, Bow
Lion Knight
Sometimes an expansion is just a couple of steps away from greatness, the Lion Knight is one of those. It is another exceptional option to support the base three monsters with its incredible settlement phase related content, but the showdown is not as well polished, as it is complex in a crude fashion, has an exploitable AI and can leave a bitter taste in the mouth of the players. I've never forgotten how upset one of my friends was when he delivered the final blow to the Lion Knight and got his survivor decapitated as a 'reward'. I get the thematics of this, but the play experience suffers so much because of that.
This monster is so much like Spidicules, nearly a top tier design but held back by a few key issues in the experience. Though if you go in aware that the Lion Knight is a narcissitic, petulant child who will punish you for not going along with its narrative, and don't make its AI bug out this expansion can be a delightful experience.
Best for: Theatre Kids and those who do not mind how this monster semi-flips the showdown victory conditions.
Complexity Rating: With all those role changes? High.
Difficulty Rating: Medium
Weapons: Katars
Atnas
Bad Santa is absolutely an acquired taste as it is absolutely jarring when compared to the aesthetic we see everywhere else. Underneath the jolly exterior is a very Kingdom Death story of a legendary swords man infected by a jellyfish-like parasite, but first impressions do matter and Atnas's first impression might not be for you.
The showdown is also a deliberately uneven experience, with Atnas clowning around like he's in a drunken stupor most of the time until the Sword Art cards are triggered and then the showdown becomes deadly in an instant. In many ways it feels very similar to the Smog Singers, most of the time a cake walk, but occasionally out of the blue it becomes nightmarish. Thematically that's great, mechanically not so much as it manages to feel unfair.
Overall though this monster is the easiest opponent you could pick for Node 2 and it also helps with population as Atnas's poor abductees are occasionally freed up during the showdown.
Best for: Players who are struggling with maintaining population numbers. Lovers of Memetic content.
Complexity Rating: Medium
Difficulty Rating: Low with rare spikes of High
Weapons: Sword (again yay).
Node 3
Honestly Nemesis Node 3 was for a long time the least interesting of all the nodes because it provided a showdown that's a puzzle with only one real solution. Recently we were given a second option in the Black Knight, but all that's done is change the node from having one option, to having one good option and one option that helps with Fist & Tooth progression.
The Hand
I love The Hand's character and place in the world's lore, but this showdown is pretty much an extended quick time event cut scene. It is an amazing piece for newer players to experience because it really highlights how powerful the monsters that count as Entities can be, but there's not a lot of depth to this one because we're not well rewarded for choosing to try and beat the Hand rather than weather its shenanigans.
Dripping with theme, but coming up a little short when considering repeated play. I've relegated this one to Dream Keeper campaigns only now.
Best for: New players
Complexity Rating: Moderate
Difficulty Rating: Low
Weapons: Fist & Tooth progression
The Black Knight
We were so spoiled with the release of The Black Knight. Anything was going to give us options instead of The Hand was going to be good, but The Black Knight goes hard in every aspect. This is a monster of exceptional quality in all aspects. Story, Showdown, Gear. Everything here is peak Kingdom Death and without a doubt I consider this monster to be one of the best nemesis monsters released to date (alongside the Butcher/Killenium Butcher).
This has become a staple in my campaigns for Node 3.
Best for: Everyone who's ready to move on from The Hand.
Complexity Rating: High
Difficulty Rating: High
Weapons: Sword, Shield, Katar
Campaigns
Finally a few notes on the three campaigns, I'm going to keep these broad because I don't want to spoil the narrative of each one, instead I'm going to try and highlight what kind of experience each one provides.
People of the Lantern
The default campaign is an odd beast, it's definitely the best introductory campaign right now, but it's also far, far too long. 30 lantern years is an insane length of time and if there was any core weakness I could point at in Kingdom Death it would be the lack of a 10 year campaign for first time players.
However, outside of that issue, this is a great little mood setting piece, it provides a lot of world building and questions, some of which are answered through play and others via expansion content. I don't think it's a perfect campaign, but it is the best introductory one we have at the moment.
People of the Sun
Sun's biggest draw is how it impacts on both gear crafting and also the nemesis monster structure of the game. This one is almost the front runner for being the best campaign to introduce newer players to the game because it has a lot less pressure early on, instead you're left to build power sufficiently to handle the end game 'boss rush'. Every time I introduce new players to the game I'm tempted to use Sun because it really does feel like such a good fit with its heavy sandbox nature. However, the limitations around heavy gear have made me shy away from that, but with the release of the Sunlion armor set I'll probably go with Sun for my next game with newbies because it smooths out one of the few rougher areas (gear) enough for my tastes.
People of the Stars
Narratively Stars remains my absolute favourite piece, with foreshadowing, exposition and pay-off that is only rivalled by the Dream Keeper campaign. The story here is as much about The Tyrant as it is the survivors; in fact I'd go as far as to call that entity the primary protagonist of the tale because it's structured around his plans and goals.
This is however a campaign where players need to really focus on the goal of gaining constellations and while the campaign narrative works hard to try and tell players that this is important, it isn't direct about it, that can result in an unsatisfying “surprise” moment if the message hasn't gotten through. So I generally consider this one great with new players as long as you're heavy handed about guiding players towards the constellations until they start to think about them ahead of anything else.
People of the Dream Keeper
This one is absolutely too much for new players and should really only be started once you're very comfortable with complex rules, high stakes and a lot of bookkeeping. I really love many of the individual elements that came with the Gambler's Chest, but this campaign as written in the book isn't one of them, mostly because of the Scout system which is straight up misguided in its focus and mechanics.
I do however think that everyone who is ready for Arc Survivors and has picked up this box should make an honest attempt to try and complete it once exactly as written in the book. Sure, I'm personally not going to play with scouts unless they get a serious overhaul, but you may feel differently.
Specific High Synergy Expansions
Before I get to the wrap up, I'm just going to mention a few of the synergistic expansion combinations and why they are that way. This might help you decide on what avenues you might want to explore, or even what expansions you're most interested in picking up or it might even spark ideas for your own selections.
Slender Man/Lion Knight & White Lion, Phoenix and Screaming Antelope
Given that these two Node 2 monsters specifically use resources/gear from the base quarry trio they are very synergistic and this is a great way to enhance your game without adding too much in the way of additional expansions.
Crimson Crocodile & Frogdog
There is such a breathtaking amount of synergies between these two monsters, while they are both Node 1, there's nothing wrong in having two Node 1 monsters in a campaign, you can exclude the Node 2 option entirely if you want to maintain balance. The Crimson Crocodile's armor supports the Frogdog's 'Stay Insane' requirements, plus it loves the Long Club and the Frogdog Armor meshes exceptionally well with the crocodile's bow.
Gorm & Spidicules
These two monsters offer a delightful alternative to the Lion and Antelope, not just by complimenting each other with a diverse selection of weapon types you can start training in, but also by creating a tight, vicious environment where you're being squeezed by the impact that both these monsters have on the settlement phase and population.
Crimson Crocodile, Frogdog, Dragon King & King (with Lordsruin Indomitable Survivor)
If you want to explore Scythes and Whips, two weapon types which are very hard to achieve good progression in a campaign this selection covers every step through the campaign. These two weapon types do some unique things that can't be found elsewhere and this campaign set up of quarry monsters has been amazing fun to explore.
Dragon King & Sunstalker
The original gangster duo of quarry monsters remains one of the best pairings out there, while these two are both Node 3, they are such a great fit that they almost feel like they were designed to work together. The Dragon King's armor and quiver support the Sunstalker weapons while the Sunstalker armor helps the Dragon King weapons get to the strength numbers they should have had from the start.
Spidicules & Slender Man
This pairing is all about getting a Spidicules Ball rolled back into the settlement and crafting a Gloom Hammer to pair with the various Rings. The three Rings all benefit when you are the Monster Controller and the Gloom Hammer is excellent at keeping that in the hands of the survivor directly after them in the monster controller turn order.
Flower Knight & Gorm or Sunstalker or King
If you really want to dig into swords in a major way, these three expansions offer some of the most exciting tools. You really only need one of the Gorm or Sunstalker to give access to an end game sword and there are also great swords in the King, but there's nothing as unique and powerful as the Flower Knight's True Blade secret fighting art when it comes to bolstering swords beyond their own strengths, even Regalism doesn't come close to what True Blade brings to the table.
Frogdog, Manhunter, Sunstalker
If you're looking to explore Tool Synergies this trio has some interesting options in their gear, but unfortunately without any kind of Tool Weapon Mastery card it's a little weaker than it could be otherwise. Fortunately tool wielding survivors can always lean on Shield or Fist & Tooth Mastery in order to have some form of decent progression.
Final Thoughts
Well, I wrote a lot more here than I intended to, but the truth is when you start digging into all the various implications that surround this system there's so much to consider, I've certainly not been able to cover everything and as time passes that's going to become more and more the case, there's just so, much, stuff now and that's not slowing down in the near future because we haven't finished getting the vast majority of the Kickstarter expansions from the 2016 campaign.
I'd like to see more attention given to the Pillars system when we revisit it in Campaigns of Death, and I'd really like to see them future proof it by covering all the known releases in their list of Node monsters, but what we have here is still simple enough on a first glance as to not be overwhelming while also containing a deep pit filled with subtle complexity. I really like what we've been given here, it's always great to get an official version of things like campaign set ups because it gives us as the community a common base to discuss, follow and deviate from. Like most things in the Gambler's Chest, it's great.
Comments
chucho marin
Frogdog and Sunstalker are missing their Complexity Rating
Fen
Thank you, I try the best I can, don't always get it all right, but that's part of being human!
Phil McDowell
First time commenter but I just wanted to finally say how impressed I am with the thoughtfulness, quality and commitment you put into all of your content Fen. I really hang out for all of it…..except of course the huge chunks of it I can’t read or watch yet because I don’t want any spoilers, but I am steadily working on getting to them too :)
Fen
It is simply that Frogdog Armor is one of the premium bow armor sets in the game due to how strong the boots are in helping you to reposition and stay safe. For all bows I now run Frogdog -> Beast Hunter if I have the right monsters in the game to do that.
Helge Thiel
To me the Gorm checks many Boxes of a Node2, especially because the Gear challenges Node3 monsters (Riot Mace, GGaxe, Rib Blade) and while the fight is of comparable difficulty on lvl1 it is much harder at lvl2 than any of the other Node1s, ignoring armor attacks, high survival costs and accuracy issues and also the Grotto which can punish Survivors hard demand good preparation and often patience as you can challenge it later than the others. Just the armor set is clearly weaker than the Crimson. Due to the mentioned risks, Gorm lvl2 was always a very undesirable fight as the good stuff can come from the lvl1 as well. Great incentive via the pillar system now that we have to move on quickly for those sweet CC points. Gorm lvl 2 will wipe some parties :D
Helge Thiel
Great article, fully agree on the difficult spot the Node2 Quarries are in at the moment. Really a shame that obtaining the Spidicules Armor set is not really an option. I actually like the Antelope Armor set a lot as the affinity layout presents so many options for interesting builds but I have to admit I use the 1.5 armor cards so the set only suffers the minus 1 armor on all locations and unfortunately the showdown against the Antelope is boring... I'm very intrigued by your comment about the synergy of the crimson crocodile bow with the frogdog armor set, would you share the build you are using? I'm struggling to find a good left red affinity for the bow (and where are the arrows in GCE?!) Thank you :) And also fully agree on Slendi, there are quite nasty AI combinations in his deck, always afraid of him, the only monster I choose for every campaign.
Krupps4
This is a fantastic analysis and overview. I love all of your content, but this one is really geared for me. I have all of the expansions, etc. It’s a full time job just assembling, trying to paint and playing, so for me it’s hard to figure out the different paths and synergies like you did in this article. It makes the game more enjoyable for me when there is an article like this I can reference. Thank you!
