The Black Friday Special

Fairly early on during the course of this year I had already made up my mind that I wanted to put together another filler-episode with a Vignette Showdown to bridge the wait for the sale in the Black Friday week, similar to what I did last year with KillyB.
And then the stars aligned and with the release of the Screaming Nukealope coming just in time I wasn’t stuck on trying to get the Brave statue.
And whilst I would like to unlock that strain, I did breathe a sigh of relief.

Little did I know at the time that I would get taken hostage for just over 3 1/2 hours by the new aberrant lope.
That’s 42 basic attacks in Braal-time.
This was my first time playing it, and I wouldn’t pin any fault on the fight’s design, but you are about to witness a *cough* wonderful combination of crits, heals and missed attack rolls.

Before we get to the showdown, you will probably have heard it already, but the tone in this Vignette’s story is VERY different to the ones before.
Filled with quite a few butt-jokes and centered around the “Anus Ring” you can build from Phoenix bits and its destruction, it is decently possible that you might not like the tone or the comedy portrayed if you are looking for the pure (grim-)dark experience KD:M can be.
Personally, I don’t mind the shift in tone too much for this singular story, as the game has a lot of silliness tucked away in the darkness, and whilst this sort of humor is generally more hidden, I would argue that it has always been present to a degree.
It is a lot easier to ignore though, if its not your cup of tea to begin with.

For this Vinette the survivors we get to be playing as are Team Gnostin, who apparently have fought and failed to survive the aftermath of this encounter thousands of times already.
Gnostin seems to be a powerful damage dealer, able to not only crit on 7+ (sometimes 5+), but also make terrain and “throw” it at the monster, possibly knocking it down.
Monday is wearing a potentially new variant of the Sunstalker set (CoD maybe?) that brings a hostile Shade into play, which can be used as a lifeline the first time she would get killed during combat. She is also adept at avoiding the trap.
Ashbloom, the silliest of beans, is the origin of all the butt-jokes and the only Vignette survivor to date that can archive her gear even gaining MOV & SPD bonuses for doing so. She is also not wearing pants, thus her set bonus is broken and she has 2 more pieces of gear that archive on use – see the comic for an “explanation”.
Ashroot, “Assboom“‘s brother, on the other hand, still has his set-bonus and is set up to be the group’s tank, able to knock down the monster if it charges at him from far enough away. He will also gain STR-tokens for blocking hits.
Both of the twins are able to pass on copies of all tokens they have to survivors without any if they manage to wound successfully.

The Screaming Nukealope changes the encounter quite a bit when compared to a regular lope Lvl2.
It not only has 1 more AI card, 9MOV and 11TGH, and +2SPD instead of the typical +1/+1 and a +1ACC-token, but also a completely new line up of traits.
All 3 of them can flip to become worse versions of them.
Prehensile Tail adds an After Damage effect that places the target knocked down into the monster’s blind spot.
Critical Mass will deal 2 damage to ☆ hit locations to all survivors within 3 spaces around the monster on collision with a survivor.
Atomic Vigor will flip a random one of these 3 traits to its other, active, side whenever the Nukealope eats something or a survivor gains the Gobbled Up status.

It also comes with a different instinct: Opposed to the mostly vegetarian lopes, this one is out to dine on fresh meat – it will gobble up survivors!
This might just be my personal hell.
Lastly, the Nukealope features a new trap, or, well.., 2 of them actually.

The color of the card backs is once again mismatched so I will be triggering them upon drawing the regular trap and/or the Furry Tail hit location, which would have been replaced.
The colors not matching is one of the worst aspects of KD:M and one of the things I really can’t defend.

As we enter the story, Gnostin has had enough of their futile fight for survival that resets them over and over again and he is quite literally raging to destroy his Hour’s Ring as the events we see in the comic have played out possibly thousands of times before. And as his temper reaches its boiling point, the ring finally cracks.
The plan – survive and reset – has thus changed. Kill the monster and finally be able to die is all Gnostin still wants as we get to take control.
Heading out with such grim resolve, we can begin the showdown with the monster’s turn.

After applying On Arrival effects all survivors are at 9 survival each.
Finally it is on Gnostin to make a couple of predictions:
Who of the group triggers the first trap (My pick: Monday)
Who is the first to be Gobbled Up (Ashroot)
And who suffers the first severe injury. (Ashbloom)
If any of these come true Gnostin suffers a random brain trauma. If he is wrong however, he gains 3 survival.

With 16 cards in the deck, the sickly, but lightning-fast Screaming Nukealope drew its first card: Ravenous.
Because Ashroot had Anxiety (D), as featured on his character card, he started the fight with the Priority Target token. As the jittery lope ran over to him looking for a quick snack it got rowdy and hit him 3 times! He spent 1 survival to not take the hit to his chest and because he was not his sister, Ashbloom, he was not forced to archive any of his gear. This was extra-great as it also meant that the monster did not get to flip one of its traits to its more dangerous side.
Just as I was feeling like luck was already smiling on me, the Prehensile Tail grabbed him and bashed Ashroot into the floor.

As our turn rolled around Monday spent a survival to encourage Ashroot, who slowly moved around the monster (3MOV) to block.
Gnostin was be the first to attempt an attack – he missed the 5+ to hit.
Monday then dashed into the spot besides Gnostin, hit the monster twice and wounded once showing the old dwarf how its done – first blood!
Ashbloom was the last to act and she crushed the Delicate Inverted Knee for a Persistent Injury!

14 cards remaining, the monster readied itself to Ram Ashbloom in retaliation. The knee barely held out, and Ashbloom was hit 3 times before she got flung into the blind spot by the tail.

Ashroot again slowly circled around the monster and blocked. He also encouraged his sister, who then tried to attack again. And, let me tell you, not much could have gone worse. She hit the Ferocious Spasm AND failed to wound twice! Yikes!
I had not turned over the monster’s basic attack before then and got quite the scare when I first saw the extra effect of it cycling though the Hit Location deck to find its traps. 5 cards ultimately got discarded and I had the grim certainty that one trap lay right on top of the deck.
The lope itself only dealt 1 damage per hit, so the twins were mostly fine from being attacked but still. A little dazed, Ashbloom moved out of the way a bit and tried to recover.
Monday did not mind too much and attacked hoping to hit cards beyond the trap. But, of course, she only hit once. I cancelled it this one time, unsure of how often one should delay it.
Gnostin, unable to attack with 1SPD, used the turn to make a Makeshift Stone Heap and moved around it.

14 cards still. This could be going better. The lope started to Stomp & Snort excitedly. Monday was chosen as the random survivor and thus it was her turn to be knocked down.

Monday was encouraged and she attacked. And she hit only once.. again…
This time she let the trap activate. My unga-bunga-brain considered the idea of going REALLY slow and was set to riot. So, the Prehensile Tail was flipped to its active side and from then on all attacks were set to .. gobble somebody up with an After Damage effect!? Oh no!? What have I done?
The collision with the lope dealt a bit of extra damage, but nothing that would stop us from continuing the attack just yet. Monday was encouraged again and she ran away before Gnostin, the big man himself came up to the lope.
He has had it at this point- it felt like we were dealing negative damage, and somewhere behind him Ashbloom made another butt-joke (“behind”?) so he moved up and struck the Nukealope hard, hitting and critting it with a lantern 10 on a 5+, putting another Persistent Injury into play.
Ashbloom tried to take the Shade out before it entered the fight proper, but failed her wound on a 1. It felt like I needed to get Ashbloom going on the token front, so she dashed to the monster’s side before the round ended.

12 cards remaining, the card coming from the top was Great Kick. The monster was not Dazed and it did not need to move either. Ashbloom was ready and waiting – 2 survival were spent and she threw the Musk Bomb at the monster. This would be almost as good a card as any to cancel. She just needed the tokens. On a 3+ the AI would be cancelled.. and she rolled a 2.
Gnostin got hammered by the kick: 4 hits and even with the Phoenix Plackart and a dodge he was pulled into the monster’s under-maw. With a hearty crunch the teeth ground away – he died instantly.
It was what he had longed for to be fair.
The monster healed for 1 and Atomic Vigor got flipped to its active side, meaning we would be seeing an extra AI draw each turn from now on.
What a sequence of events.
Rounding out the monster turn, the Shade moved over to Monday and hit her square in the face. She just about dodged it, but come on dude! Not right now!

Ashbloom tried to attack to buff Monday, but she was too insane to not flinch at the Restless Eye. Maybe she thought she saw a glimmer of Gnostin in it?
Growing desperate, Ashroot attacked the monster, wounding it once, spreading a STR-token to Monday, who came in and completely missed her attack yet again.
The group was clearly shaken by the sudden departure of their leader!

12 cards in the deck still, the first AI card played for the turn was Stomp. Ashbloom got chosen as the target and she was hit 3 times – the magic number. Up to a light wound, this damaged triggered yet another additional AI draw from the monster: Chow Down.
It needed some salad to go with Gnostin.
I was silently crying as it healed for 1 again and placed the card on top of its deck. And even worse, thanks to Critical Mass, the last trait was now active as well – this lope would run down the furthest survivor at the end of each turn.
Finally at the regular AI draw, Chow Down was drawn yet again. Through all of this – both the movement and AI draw – the monster never stumbled or got dazed.

Ashbloom dashed away to not trigger Critical Mass on collision with the monster (which would have hit all 3 of them), and the lope healed 1 more card as it devoured the Fresh Acanthus. Finally the monster charged straight through Ashbloom and dealt enough damage to her head for her to be forced to archive the armor.
The Shade followed Monday around the board.

We began our turn by having Ashroot yell at Ashbloom to get up, who understood the assignment and attacked right away. She hit the monster 4 times and even without drawing the trap! She got decently lucky on the sequencing there, wounding twice with 2 1’s interspersed for flavor.
Ashroot repositioned and blocked again, whilst Monday, with 2 extra MOV and SPD each was feeling the moment. We needed to deal some damage and get stuff done for once! This was a foolish thing to think and I got punished for it immediately. Of course she hit 4 times and of course we found 1 of the 2 traps.
This set the monster off.

The lope exploded.
Monday was knocked down by the scorching blast, taking heavy injuries to her body and arms as she was hopelessly irradiated.
The twins could do nothing but look on in horror.
At least the nukealope was also worse for wear after that, flipping all its traits back to the inert side and taking a wound.

Still, there were 11 cards left. Doubt was starting to set in. Doubt about us winning this at all.
And after all of this we had to find out the lope was Infested as well?! Monday almost threw up, disgusted by the swollen insects, thick with blood and radiation, and thus she was an easy target for the Bite that followed.
She took 3 severe injuries to her body and despite getting ready to use the Shade as a reset, she didn’t even die! She got all the -MOV in the universe though…The tail also only took out her waist armor to add insult to injury.
Meanwhile, the Shade took the time to hit Ashroot in the back.

I wanted to attack with Monday this round, but she couldn’t even wield her weapon anymore with her broken back! Still, she used her Shadowstalker Geta and her activation to attack with Fist&Tooth but, predictably, missed her swing.
Ashroot blocked and Ashbloom got herself a Fresh Acanthus, hoping to prevent another Chow Down incident should the second copy be in play.

10 (11) cards left, the monster drew Stomp and Snort. Again?!
Monday was the target this time as well and she suffered a brain trauma. The danger seizure – an arms severe – inflicted “just” a broken arm. She was not only still alive, but now also Quixotic (D). And she didn’t even run away.

Monday attacked again, trying to find a deadly reflex at this point, and unsurprisingly failed her wound attempt.
Feeling the chance slipping away, I figured we might as well get in there and get stuff moving. Ashroot and Ashbloom each attacked, and whilst Ashroot flat out missed all his hits, Ashbloom in turn hit the other extreme and found both traps at once.
The monster fell over but we couldn’t do anything else.

10 (11) cards in the deck, the Nukealope did something other than twitch and make strange sounds – it ran away! Ready and set to Run Down Ashroot it charged ahead full speed. He took a beating, and slowly even his armor was coming apart.
Meanwhile the Shade was left unchecked again, and it hit Ashbloom, dealing a body and head severe. She archived her body armor and the Dried Acanthus to prevent both, whilst staking more tokens for the counter attack.

Monday once more encouraged Ashbloom who was up to 10MOV and 6SPD at this point. And nothing could possibly go wrong now. She was able to attack from where she was standing.. 1 hit.. on 6 dice at 5+. Sure.
The wound failed as well to round out the moment.
Inspired by this display both Ashroot and Monday also missed all their attacks.

10 (11) cards in the deck, the monster rolled a 1 for Dazed for the first time. It charged ahead in a straight line and ran over a bunch of terrain before it was done. I miscounted and the Shade almost hit Ashbloom again.
This was the moment when I first felt like I was being held hostage by the lope. Unless it ran into us it didn’t really deal much damage and otherwise, besides the Gnosting-got-eaten-moment, it was just kinda messing around.

Ashbloom failed to get a Founding Stone from the Makeshift Stone Heap, Ashroot blocked and Monday… um, crawled towards the monster.

10 (11) cards, the lope got Dazed again! The Shade moved over to Ashroot and hit him once. He was able to block the hit and could gain a +1STR-token. Finally helping the team!

At this stage my unga-bunga-levels were critically low.
Ashbloom dashed after the monster with her 10MOV and attacked it. Naturally she hit the trap again. And even worse: it was only 1 of them. Critical Mass was flipped first this time and the Nukealope ran her over to show her who’s boss. Ashroot blocked yet again, and I started thinking about how to best get the Shade to attack Monday.

10 (11) cards in the deck, the lope drew Bite. Because it couldn’t see Ashbloom the Nukealope moved across half the board to get to Monday despite being unable to reach her.
It did run down the furthest enemy afterwards, so back over to Ashbloom it charged, dealing more damage on impact. Somehow Ashbloom was still alive though.

The Shade also was in a spot to finally attack Monday again, hitting her for a head severe – but it came up as a Lantern 10 for crying out loud! The one time you want for somebody to die in this game! And she didn’t even get knocked over!

Ashbloom stood up and attacked the monster – what else was there to do? 7SPD, 4 hits… and she drew the trap again! The Prehensile Tail was flipped once more and Ashbloom finally had to take 2 severes. She even lost a leg from that, not that it mattered much at 11MOV.

10 (11) cards remaining, the lope used a strong Back Kick, hitting Ashbloom 4 times, for 4 severes no less. All I could do was say to myself: “This might actually be it.”
And it was.
She took 5 bleed and an insta-kill throughout all of that. The monster then charged across the length of the board at Ashroot, and he knocked it down with his shield! Finally, I was able to make use of his set properly!
But that wasn’t even all! The Shade also finally managed to kill Monday!

At once, restored to her former power Monday was ready to fight again!
Ashroot took a step back and hit the monster for 2 wounds out of what felt like nowhere, giving his +4STR-tokens as copies to Monday. She then took her place in the blind spot and struck as well. 3 hits and no trap? What is this? At 9STR she wounded 3 more times!
Is this what the fight could have been?

5 (6) cards left, we were back around to Stomp and Snort. Ashroot was shaken by the monster’s intent and fell to the ground, waiting to be run over. The explosion from the lope jumping at him caused a severe arms injury as well, but he wasn’t going to be stopped by a measly 2 bleed at this stage!

We needed to push just a little further!
Ashroot was encouraged by Monday one more time and he, again, took a step away to attack. 2 hits and he avoided the traps again – he even managed to wound twice more! Monday also found 2 more trap-less hits and with them 2 more wounds, one even being a critical!
Finally, she made use of the Trick Attack Fighting Art, giving the Priority Target token to Ashroot as she dashed away into the shadow of close by terrain, ready to try and use her Geta to possibly kill the monster with a 1SPD-pseudo-surge.

1 (2) cards left, Stomp and Snort would be played on repeat now and I couldn’t say that I was thrilled by that prospect.
The monster drew its AI, it was actually played without it being Dazed, and during the flow Monday jumped in – this was pretty much a hail mary – and she was ready to take a suboptimal spot to not be run over by the lope should her attack fail. Which I later realized she would have gotten hit in anyway.
The Ambush Falchion hit the Restless Hoof.. and an 8 was all she needed for this final wound! (13STR against 11TGH)

Oh .. my .. Feline Entity!

This fight took me 3 1/2 hours!

So, good news/bad news/good news: We won. But the monster is still going to explode. However we still got the strain.
“I am at a loss for words.” – my exact notes. I could almost hear myself leave the table again, just happy that it was finally over.

Stuff probably took so long and went awry because the Feline Entity didn’t show up even once!
I felt left alone. Hopeless.
It did not feel like a win, let me tell you that much.

Considering what I had seen from the monster before I fought it myself it had seemed kinda easy on paper, and it probably would have been if Gnostin had remained alive for longer! He can crit the damned thing on 7+! Some Hit Locations get the bonus and its a 5+ instead!

Between the lope starting to heal, the Musk Bomb whiffing and Gnostin dying so early I had checked out for a bit and I missed the effect on the Crusader Cuisses completely. That surely didn’t make things any easier.. But who needs pants anyway?

STR-buffed Monday was the MVP for this fight.. is what I would have said had she not been useless for just about as long as Gnostin had been dead.
Overall it feels to me like Gnostin wants copies of Ashbloom’s tokens, and Monday of Ashroot’s.

Nevertheless, I will be looking forward to hunting this monster in my campaign now that I have that strain unlocked. With surge it shouldn’t take quite as long. At least that’s what I am hoping.

***

If you have not picked up the Screaming Nukealope, besides the Vignette, an 18-page comic and 5 beautiful minis (some of which were a pain to build, admittedly) you also get the Stone Circle Hot Zone Settlement Location, which will add 4 new crafting options to your regular Stone Circle you get after defeating your first Screaming Antelope, including an upgrade to the Lance of Longinus and a Green Power Core!
What’s that? A new Power Core?! Dragon King synergy content!?

Of course it should be mentioned again that it is highly unlikely that this Vignette will see a discount during this month’s sale. So you will very likely have to wait until next year to get it at a discounted price.

As for complexity, the characters featured with the Screaming Nukealope are decently more complex than the 4 Wishseekers and you will typically find yourself with several options of what to do in most turns because of it.
A lot of the gear they are wearing is also a lot more wordy than that of previous Vignette survivors. And whilst the team meshes well together in an organic sense, I wouldn’t necessarily use this Vignette to show the game to new players. They might also misjudge the overall tone of the game when looking at the comic.

***

One last thing before I wrap things up, as it feels thematically adjacent enough: I got my Ashbloom of Dedheim recently and have slowly built the awesome mini!

Building her was hard compared to a lot of the other kits but well worth it if you are into the hobby-side of KD:M, as she is not a gameplay mini at all.
I chose the head variante with the face-mask for Ashbloom as well as the horse-head over the more humanoid one.
I also did not attach the lantern to the spear/lance, but instead found a spot on the other side of the horse for it (see picture below).

I do have a couple of tips for the build that I wanted to share:
1. Build the spear/lance somewhat early and let if cure properly. It is very front-heavy and will likely not hold properly overwise or may even break.
2. The back part of the spear/lance can rest against her back, making attaching her arm a lot easier due to the extra surface area.
3. Build the horse first and then assemble Ashbloom on the horse, not separately. Her body won’t fit onto the horse’s back if glued together.
4. She might not be sitting down properly either, especially if your horse is not perfectly even. And try to keep front and back gaps in mind when gluing her legs down. Whenever I managed to hold a spot perfectly the other side looked awful.
5. Do the reigns last-ish, they will get in the way when holding the rest otherwise and they are pretty flimsy.

She is a very dynamic miniature and I’ve seem some nice conversions as well already, like fitting her on a small base to make her a survivor stand-in or changing her posture.

Sadly, whilst I am happy that I finally got my order from the US, I got unlucky with my recipe cards and am still on solely the Flower Knight recipe, so no new pictures to add for the new Cooking options.
I did, on the other hand, cook the Flower Knight recipe in a campaign on Saturday though.
So there’s that at least.

But that will be all from me for today, I will be back on Black Friday and the week after I will be continuing with Season 3, pushing towards Pariah and Red Witches finally.
As always, thank you very much for your time, now go and .. EAT .. THAT .. LOPE!
Amathul