This month’s update/sale saw 2 major announcements to kick off the year.

#1: The Screaming God is finally on the boats and on its way to the warehouses! Whilst this means that it is still a bit longer until it gets full-on “released”, we now have a better idea of when we might get our hands on it. Adam added that it looked like it would arrive in march in the kickstarter update, which sounds like a fair estimate if they are on the way right now.
The box they showed off in the update is chonky!
Whilst the Screaming Goat and its Vignette (the characters look awesome – more Count Armor goodness! – Edit: I just saw that the 4 vignette survivors sadly do not come with minis) will offer the bulk of what the box has to offer, I do have to say, I remain the most intrigued by the Parasite Queen. I can’t wait so see what she is capable of and how she will measure up to the Gold Smoke Knight (or Godhand).
For a brief moment I also was feeling brazen and wanted to squint at the Screaming God stat-card which can be seen in one of the pictures but damn.., those are not nearly enough pixels for me to really see anything. That it doesn’t get both SPD and DMG for Lvl2 is about all that I can really tell at this point.
It also comes with at least 1 Indomitable Resource, though I both expect it to be at leas 2 and that this doesn’t really come as a surprise at this point.

#2: Preacher release!
Yes! The next Wanderer has been officially released with this sale! Unfortunately stuff always seems to go at least a little awry and you can only order her from the HQ warehouse at the moment.
Dark Tastemaker (a Team Death member) has commented on this over on the discord and they said that stock would eventually arrive at the local warehouses. So, if shipping her from the US is inconvenient for you, you might want to just wait until she is available in your region. Naturally any pre-order made in the Dark Treasury could also just be held until then as well.
She seems to arrive in the settlement bearing gifts, but will spread her dogma throughout the community if she is given the chance. The cards on the shop-page and the open page of her booklet do give a good indication of her spreading “unwavering devotion” in the settlement and what we can expect from it, I would say.
As I do still have to play a proper campaign with Aeneas, I will wait for the regional warehouses to get the boxes before I order her.
All in all, still great news! I had expected her in February at the earliest.

Besides these 2 highlights, we did get the final survivor missing for the full group of 4 frozen survivors: Cyclamen. The other three – Camellia, Hellebore and Galanthus – will be available for the time being as well. So far these are all photo-resin survivors, so collection-pieces.

Speaking of special pieces for your collection: this year’s New Lunar Year figure is none other than Seer!
To nobody’s surprise: she is already sold out. That took maybe half an hour? 45 minutes? Edit: they added some more stock later on, but those didn’t last long either.
The fox ears give me strong kitsune vibes, which might not be wholly off the mark, but I will say, I prefer the artwork to the model in this case. It’s something about that third eye, I can’t put my finger on it. Or maybe its her jovial expression? That is so distinctly un-Seer!
Luckily, together with Lunar Aya (which is also a great model/artwork) you can get this version of Seer as an Artprint this month.

The final release without gameplay is the Deathking Armor Bust.
Deathking Armor looks incredible, so it will make for great bust. Not much else to add to that.

And finally, there is Ingama – a Seed Pattern Survivor with a new type of Zanbato.
Zanbato-gaming is alive and well, and it is trying to reach new heights by getting into modern KD:M.
I also just spent a good 10 minutes trying to figure out where her “armor” could be from and, as far as I can tell, I found the most similarities in the og White Lion Armor, with the hands and the pelt. With the shop blurb also talking about Frenzy Drinks .. yup, checks out, I’d say. Just not very .. white .. lion.
I will say, it does feel weird at this point that boxes like this, especially when they are named characters, do not have a Character card included. (*complains in non-GCE*)

Of course, this is also the time of the year to get your Lunar Aya or Lunar Twilight Knight added to your collection should you desire some lucky fish.
If you are looking for new Sim stuff, this update/sale was light on that front, but Lunar Aya has been added to the digital catalog.

***

Before I head to bed for the night (it’s like almost 2 a.m. for me as of writing this), quickly a few rapid-fire thoughts on the line of images we got in the kickstarter update as teasers:

• A frenzied (?) Crimson Crocodile – looks intense, might either be a new trait or an indom with the spine next to it. Not sure if this would fit into Campaigns of Death or not. Edit: as mentioned by other people, this could also be a Legendary Croc featured in CoD.
• Bunny-ear Lucy – looks distinctly similar to Erza in the reverse bunny suit released last Easter as part of the “bloodbank”
• A terrified Little Red Riding Hood – probably one of the starting survivors from Abyssal Woods; either the least currently relevant picture of the bunch or we might be getting “promo content” for those survivors now that we have seen the overview during Black Friday.
• 6-armed-lion .. dude – either connected to the Silver City expansion in some way or the Golden Entity; whilst I doubt it, this could be the famed 3rd Lion Knight. There is also the outlier option of it being the Leo constellation knight.
• Sleepy Golden Hair girl – I got nothing.
• Multi-limbed wolf/wood-spirit-looking-thing – this looks amazing; it could be a narrative illustration for Abyssal Woods (the eyes on the side would fit the Sparrowgoblin aesthetic nicely), it could also be a more modern take on the Centi-wolves mentioned with Aeneas, or if I wanted to get really far out there: something connected to the Ringtailfox and its swamp.
• 2 Boiling Water Bugs – those come with Nightmare Ram and have their home in the associated dungeon.

Some of these ideas are a little out there, I get that, but I might blame it on the time.

***

As for myself, I am still a bit unsure of what, if anything, I should get for myself this month. Preacher would be the obvious one, but I am just going to double down and just wait for the regional “release” instead.
The seed pattern does look interesting though, and a second Lunar Aya would also be on the table after having given away my first one last year.
I might be an outlier at this point, but I would have liked an Indomitable Survivor for a monster with no prior IR’s .. like Flower Knight or DBK.
I also think there is some great design space for Lion God here. Nobody wants to fight a Lvl3 Lion God .. so let’s give them something truly outrageous if they do!

As far as the update goes, we are looking at a great year for the game and the hobby attached to it. The Screaming Goat box will be filled to the brim with cards and sprues (even without the 4 vignette survivors) and as long as we are getting Honeycomb Weaver and Titan Bee by the end of the year, the average KD:M enjoyer should have gotten a new campaign or 4 out of that.
In February we will likely see a new updated-updated-updated-timeline and we’ll have a better idea how stuff shakes out release-wise (at least for this year) and where CoD lands in all of that. Right now I am thinking 2027, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Either way, as with any sale, I hope you got what you wanted from it – the news of the Screaming God being on the boat surely did it for me!
As always, thank you very much for your time! *bleat*
Amathul