Just one more year until the finale.

To quickly check in with what I’ve been up to before I get to Bogstop: I fought a hand full of lions since, got raided by a spider army, took part in a resist-Hand encounter that was ended by an axe hit to the (monster’s) dick (it even missed its sword swing afterwards) and I got some painting done as well.
I also added a painting drop down directory (?) to the site. It doesn’t do anything for now, but I am hoping to fill it with pages where I showcase what I have painted from my collection soon. It’s all amateur, but some of them I am at least a little proud of. Surely putting those pics on the internet won’t change that.., like.., you know, at all.

Finally, before I head on over to Bogstop I need to do this real quick as it has always worked for me before: I’ve been waiting on the new indom survivor Rubi and was hoping to get it before the Easter holidays hit, but at this rate it looks like that is not going to happen. So, if this is actually a new EU warehouse, they aren’t much quicker than the last one.
But, complaining to the aether has always helped before and I feel better already. Let’s get this done! (Edit: well, look at that, it did help.. it’s funny really.)

With the last(?) mandatory (???) threat dealt with for the time being, the 2 victorious survivors stumbled back home not too sure what had happened or why they were feeling like they had lost something precious.

The settlement event for this Lantern Year was Lights in the Sky – a great, even positive event for this auspicious year!

Furthermore we could now engage with yet another – Bogstop’s third in fact – Metamorphosis Festival!
Sir Hermes, Calys and Ghurt were the chosen elders .. again.
Möff (0xp), Thalas (2xp) and Emerald (2xp) were chosen as the young ones.
Last time turned out a little disappointing but surely that wouldn’t happen again? And it didn’t! The elders were indeed coming back! All of them rolled between 7 and 8! Sadly the event itself wasn’t that kind – none of them rolled the correct hit locations .. thus they had to suffer 2 severe injuries each. All eyes were on the hero of the settlement. And in the end, tragedy struck as Sir Hermes died to a severe waist injury as his body turned and twisted into an unnatural spiral.

A sad death indeed for such a prolific figure of the settlement as his life was boiled down into a ??? resource. *sighs*
Calys suffered intracranial hemorrhage (no survival gain or expenditure) and Ghurt a warped pelvis (-1LCK). The other injuries luckily didn’t stick.
As for the young’uns: Möff already had Pubescent Vestment.
Thalas aged all the way up to age 3 (+1STR, Giant’s Blood FA – which he already had).
And Emerald gained +1 MOV/SPD.

All in all the festival both worked out and was strangely disappointing.
We had 3 Club Masters in Bogstop’s history and all of them died before seeing the end.

We were left with 3 endeavors for the year.
To make Calys serviceable we needed to heal Intracranial Hemorrhage. Inspired by the Lights in the Sky, we sent her to have some light brain surgery done at the Barber Surgeon, and just like that we got it done. We didn’t even need the flashlights in the sky.
With that both Weed and Calys were prime candidates for our final team next year.

For the remaining 2 endeavors, I would have liked to build a Beacon Shield but we needed 1 of them to even activate the encounter with the Mad Steed, so we made a single Survivor Lantern instead, you know, just in case, before we went ahead and “unlocked” the hunt.

The legendary hunters:
Weed (Wrath, Marchioness Set)
Emerald (Oxidized Lantern Glaive, Dragon Armor)
Calystea (Killennium Cleaver, Frogdog Armor)
Thalas (Bullfrog Mace, Bullfrogdog Armor)

The Huntphase:
Even the Feline Entity was curious how this would play out. This was, after all, my first non-White Lion legendary monster.

Weed started leading the group into the darkness and we found countless rotting teeth of the ancient antelope. We collected a singular molar of exceptional quality and moved on.

Close by we discovered a littering of Monster Droppings (basic HE11 – gave me a good fright). Calystea (reroll) gained an understanding and triggered insight, before rolling on the table. With the +2 to the table the survivors surged 1 field forward, but the monster was still much too far to ambush.
Pressing onwards the temperature dropped and before long everyone and everything was Grim and Frostbitten (basic HE95). We were well equipped to counter this at this point, luckily, so we remained unaffected.
The next thing catching our eyes was a grouping of Banquet Trees (basic HE47) lush with fruit. Emerald was the only one able to outright resist the luscious fruit, but it seemed they were fairly natural trees after all. Weed and Calystea both finished eating quite quickly, and it was only Thalas who had to roll an additional time.
Satiated we had managed to make it half-way already!

Overwhelming Darkness – and it turned out to be one of “those” rolls! Emerald took 1 damage to the arms, whilst everyone else turned into a Leader (FA).
Even despite its legendary status, we found out that the monster was still normal lope at heart, as it was Skittish and suddenly backed off. Little could it know there would be the Living Stone (basic HE97) behemoth we stumbled upon next. His insanity set to 0, Weed watched in silence as we were delivered right to our quarry.

The Mad Steed is one of the four legendary monsters in the core rulebook. It is Level4, has 9MOV and 18(22)TGH. It also has +2SPD and +5DMG(!) in addition to +1ACC and +1LCK-tokens. It sports a curated deck of AI cards centered around running you down to get a nibble in, and the Life trait set to 20. Aside from the typical Lvl3 lope traits it also has the Berserker trait from the Butcher – letting it draw an additional AI card each turn and .. oh.. .. .. .. .. King’s Aura… the Kingsman trait which adds 3 Battle Pressure to the top of the HL deck each turn. I hadn’t picked up on that earlier.
Well that’s annoying – should have read that one better before hand.
It also can’t be killed due to a very lucky crit as the insta-kill hit location is removed during set-up.
Finally we get to draw 4 random terrain from setup. We get 2 sets of Tall Grass, a Mammoth Leaf to remind us of home and a classic Toppled Pillar. With that we were ready to start the fight.

20 HP remaining, the Mad Steed began the fight by drawing Bite. It targeted Emerald and didn’t care for range, running as far as it could without reaching her.
The 2nd card was Stomp & Snort, also going after Emerald. She suffered a brain trauma immediately. She rolled a 1, which got upped to 3 – Memory Loss, but she had no weapon proficiency to lose.
With no survivor in Diabolical’s targeting, the Mad Steed took a single step forward, booping its nose on the board edge.

We began the round by helping Emerald back to her feet.
First we needed to get through the Battle Pressure. Emerald dashed towards the Mammoth Leaf so she could jump back into the monster’s blind spot with her set’S ability and additional +2ACC to hit 3 times, taking out all 3 cards in a flurry of blows.

Weed stepped up to the monster next, ready to dish out the hurt.
He managed to hit once regularly and added the Horripilation dice for a second hit. The first hit was only a singular wound, so he struck the Giant Mouth, dealing the first of 20 wounds, Wrath safe from the salivating orifice.
The second hit also only wounded the monster.
Not satisfied with the results of his attacks, he surged for a third hit, starting to grow a little desperate. which also only wounded. The monster, in turn, ran from Weed.

Thalas was just about able to dash out of the way before the monster ran him over, and as soon as it stopped right next to him, he charged back at it, triggering its trap. He suffered 10 brain damage (erroneously – it should have been “just” 8) from the trap, also rolling a 1 for trauma, getting Memory Loss as well, already forgetting what little he knew of the club, before the monster ran back towards the rest of the group barreling into Weed. Him gaining Immortal (D) from the collision didn’t do anything at the time as he wasn’t insane enough.
Calystea spent her turn being alive pumping up her armor and keeping out of harm’s way.

17 HP remaining, after all 3 Battle Pressure cards had been put back onto the deck, it drew its first AI – Bite again. It targeted Calystea. 4 attacks hitting her on 7+, she took 3 hits. Naturally.
She was forced to dodge one of the hits to her body to not suffer to dire consequences already. Those +5DMG were quite noticeable.
The second card was Crush and Devour. It picked Emerald as its target as my own PTSD set in and panic flared up. Luckily she was far enough away to dash out of range whilst she could. The monster then trampled over her as it charged again via Diabolical.

Weed and Thalas got up at the start of our turn.
Thalas encouraged Emerald, who struck the monster ferociously enough to remove the Battle Pressure. 3 hits again – that was good enough for me!

Weed moved in again next. We were going for the repeat of the first turn, hopefully with a crit in the mix this time! Just to mix things up of course. No ill intentions whatsoever on my part.
He hit the Restless Spine and he finally crit it on an 8! 7 tokens were removed from the monster with the heavy blow as we suddenly piled on the hurt!
That’s a lot of damage! 8 wounds at once!
With the monster’s TGH lowered now as well he surged and wounded again with utmost ease.

Thalas came charging in as well without delay, the monster softened up considerably for the hammer! He hit both his attacks and critical-ed the first hit location, tearing off a bit of Pelt. Weed used the survival opportunity to dash away before we got to the monster’s retaliatory rampage.
The second hit also wounded, but the monster was ready to take its immediate revenge.
The basic hit at.. 2+, really? 4 hits were taken, 3 of which hit the arms. For 6 damage each – ouch! Needless to say he went down like a sack of bricks and rolled for a severe as well. His arm was broken as a result of this: -1STR/ACC each.
Truly, the way of the club.

6 HP remaining. Great Kick was the first card for the turn. The Mad Steed targeted Emerald again. Hitting at 6+, she suffered 3 hits. At 7 damage for each hit, even taking one hit to the arms caused a severe. A 2. Just like that she was dead, bleeding out as she watched her arms got flung away into the distance.

But the lope wasn’t done just yet. It hungered for a little more. Ravenous was the second card, with Calystea too far away to be considered. The Screaming Antelope attacked Weed because of this. He surged a deflect before the monster moved in to attack. Surging clearly had been the right call. He was subsequently hit 3 times, which he could deflect and dodge twice (due to Hyper Sensitivity D).
He was then ran over by Diabolical and stomped in the dick.

As our turn started Calystea got up and dashed towards the Antelope to get rid of the Battle Pressure. With the Horripilation dice she managed to take off all 3. Before the next person could activate, she surged an attack for 2 more hits as well.
She failed the first wound.., but she hit the crit on the second, carving off another piece of Pelt for us to keep!

Weed was then encouraged and he activated with 2 moves and 2 acts because he had deflected that hit last monster turn, so he could potentially get a lot done here. He moved in with gusto and missed the first swing on a 1. Reality check failed.
And the second hit failed to wound on a 1 as well – a terrible turn of events for him!
Luckily Thalas was able to dash into range and charge the monster to pick up the slack. Same old, same old. He hit twice and found 2 wounds, one adding a -1MOV-token to the monster.

3 HP remain. The first card drawn was the second Ravenous. It wanted to target Calystea. She surged. I figured I would go for the kill if I could. She was able to remove 2 Battle Pressure from the monster. Thalas also surged, adding Horripilation for 2 hits! And he dealt a wound on the second swing!

I considered for a moment if Weed really should go in as well, but this was our pivotal moment in the fight. Carrying all our hopes his attack struck true and he did fell the mighty beast as the crit removed the tokens we were able to stack back onto the monster, before the group of survivors could all get knocked over and die to lope shenanigans!

Proud, yet hurting, we scavenged our rewards.

We carved a ??? from Emerald’s corpse before gaining Hunt xp and proficiency. Calystea (Champion’s Rite FA) aged and Weed made it to 1 point to mastery. So close and yet so far.

As we gathered the resources from the fight, Weed’s shield arm exploded to reveal a strange sword as he Sees the Truth. His death tasted sour.
And finally – most importantly – he learned Red Fist (SFA)!
Had Sir Hermes survived the Frogdog-based hormone therapy we could have had 2 of them in the final fight and that would have certainly been nice.

Not going to lie, despite the high damage and the mean, lean deck it has, I did not pick up on King’s Aura in the set up before today. Having to deal with Battle Pressure each turn could have led to a technical K.O of sorts with our fairly low ACC low SPD damage dealers. At least if you ignore King’s Step.
I also felt like I did not really have a chance to consider the trap at any point, really. We got lucky that we were able to burn down the monster before it got us in return. A more trap heavy lope surely would have snowballed us. Of course that is a sentiment that holds true for all monsters to some degree.
I’m just glad right now I did not try the legendary phoenix instead – we did have the mask for it as well after all.

Still, for what its worth, I’m quite happy that we managed to both fight the Mad Steed and even win the encounter. Without Wrath it would have taken considerably longer, but should still have been manageable, I think.

For now that will be all from Bogstop. Only 1 more Lantern Year to go. The Gold Smoke Knight awaits its challengers!

As always, thank you very much for your time, and always give the forest what it wants,
Amathul