I just about got my Screaming God and here we are – another update already! And its filled to the brim with sexy dudes – buy stuff if you want more dudes .., I guess?

If you are looking for gameplay content, this sale is definitely on the lighter end, featuring only the character Stone Wrecker as a full-on release.
There are beta-content options with Male Survivor – Guy (an inspired name) and Male Survivor – Lionel to consider as well as the returning Reapokratis – bother to Grimmory.

Should none of these float your boat, you might consider some eye-candy instead, like the First Hero bust or the Mirrorstone Male Painter’s Scale.
If none of these are all that interesting, maybe you’d like a bite of the strange lil’ man-turnip the Chef is carrying around.

Finally, if nothing else catches your fancy you could pick up one of the classic T-shirts, the Lantern 10! Should there be another GenCon bonus for wearing a KD:M shirt when visiting the venue, this might be a good opportunity to pick one up!

If quickly took my pick from this month’s line-up and moved on to the update. (I got Stone Wrecker and a t-shirt! We still need a bunch of character cards – especially just regular abilities to build a deck without the GCE!)

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As for this month’s update we have been treated to a bunch of Screaming God unboxing videos, and, more importantly, insight on the Dying Sun mini-campaign set to be releasing with Campaigns of Death.

The most important thing mentioned in this part of the update was, by far, that you are not going to be required to reset these 5 Lantern Year long campaigns on the death of a relevant character anymore. It is set to feature chances to “fail forward” and continue the story even when 1 or more of your characters die – a lesson undoubtedly learned from the rather arduous Squire Campaign! Overall a good thing to hear, I would say.

At the same time we also learned that the Infant Sunstalker fight unlocked by this campaign – as per the CoD pitches – has developed into its own bouncy little monster to hunt whilst still meant as a way to add more Sunstalker resources to your campaign.

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With all the update things out of the way .. back to Screaming God!

I spent some time building the armor set minis, based mainly around what I think I would want to use and/or will be able to build with some regularity.
And I do have to say .. I am a little grumpy.
There is not a single mini of the 4 armor set options that I did not have to alter in some way. It is part of the “hobby” so I should not be too upset about modifying my little plastic dudes and dudettes, but there are some things about these sprues that just flat-out confuse me to no end – which did happen with the Bullfrogdog Armor as well.
And whilst I am aware that I romanticize the older armor sets to a degree – at least when it comes to weapon options I don’t think I would have as many gripes with the old style as I have now.

Male 1 – Grand Weapon

This is one of the figures I altered the least.
I knew I wanted the grand weapon in my arsenal and it was a toss up between this sculpt of the female mid-swing. I built this figure first and it quickly left me with my first couple of questions:
Why is there only 1 cigar on the sprue .. and why is it limited to the right hand?
I would have cut it up and added it to the open left hand .. but then the cigar fell of my table, hit the anti-matter-cigar and vanished from this realm of existence .. and then I noticed that the open hand is ALSO a right hand?! What?
In the end I used a bow-wielding hand, cut off the bow + cut & posed it so you can only see the remaining fist.
I also glued one of the lanterns over the spot where you’d attach the quiver after removing all traces of a hand from its ring.

Female 1 – Two-handed Club

Credit where credit is due: I LOVE this pose!!!

Still, with the open hair I was left with the matter of the right arm’s shoulder-guard/pauldron. It looked a little weird without any cover at all, and there isn’t any small Screaming God option, so I returned to the ever trusty Sunstalker sprue for parts and picked one of shoulder-bits to round out this model.
Once the figure gets painted I’m sure it’ll fit right in!

Female 2 – Sword + Shield

So.., this isn’t a combo you can actually build if you go solely with the options given to you.
The shield is locked to be used exclusively by the speedy boy (who I called Male 2 below) for some reason .. as well as to the right hand. Now, I just glued it onto her left arm after trimming off a finger and it works well enough if you do not go investigating too closely.
I will say that I REALLY like the pose this female armor survivor has for the spear .. but with SoD2 we got a shield+spear survivor already and I did not want to double up too much (originally I had her carrying 2 swords, but the way she held them was just a bit off).
The bow was also an option I considered for a bit, but because it is an Indom weapon for a Node 4 monster and not that compatible with the armor set and its bonus to begin with, I chose the more melee-centric load-out in the end.

Male 2 – dual axes

I just had to build axes.
You know why.., I just had to.
With the shield already given to another survivor, I had to figure out what to do for the right hand and I chose to build a 2nd axe by trimming off another bow.., because you know .. there’s 2 axes on the sprue that are both limited to the left hand only?
.. Why? ..
Why not at least give us one for each hand?

…

All in all, whilst the armor set minis for the Alpha Armor do indeed feature some cool poses and some decent variety for the weapons if you aren’t too picky I can’t help but be left stumped by some of the set options.
The whole sprue is packed with 1-handed swords (at least 7) but there’s only 2 axes? And both of those are for the left hand? Again, why?
The singular shield makes a little more sense considering the item has unique but why is it limited to a single sculpt? Why only the single cigar? And no loose lanterns at all?

On the other hand, the 2-handed club and the spear are 2 weapons I’d point to as positives: most sculpts can use them and they feature interesting (or at least sensible) poses for each variant.

I will also say that all different head options are great (I just prefer the closed helmets a lot of the time) but, I’m sorry, I just can’t get over the left-handed axes. It’s been the same with the Bullfrogdog Armor: for some reason all clubs are right handed and all Scimitars are left handed on that sprue!?
Speaking of my favorite brown armor, the Alpha Armor miniatures are quite LORGE by comparison. I figured it might be a part of the higher level monster – but it feels a little like we are moving towards another size increase at this point.
Zaniyah and Ingama also look bigger than their contemporaries, in my opinion.

Have you built your Screaming God armor set models yet? Or are there any set ups you really want to build? Or did you get anything from the sale? Feel free to share!

But that will be all for right now. It is incredibly late for me (or early depending on your point of view) and I need to get some sleep in!
As always, thank you very much for your time, I dream the simple dream of having weapon options be available for either hand equally!
Amathul