Five years of Maurala

There's Warmachine tournament entries coming up at one point or another, but I'll write this one up first because I believe it's less of a hassle.

I had a friend visit me during weekend, and we started a two-player campaign of Kingdom Death.

Prologue was quite brutal and dragged on for quite a while. One survivor died and we resorted to use two Founding Stones. One survivor received Broken Hip and another one received Shattered Jaw. And the long tradition continues with settlement receiving minimum amount of survivors.

Settlement takes Cannibalize as death principle.

For fun and giggles first words are uttered by the survivor who got shattered jaw. Moldovial is his name.

Settlement hunts two White Lions and one Screaming Antelope without much of an issue. Antelope was toughest

On lantern year 4 before encountering Butcher settlement is visited by Dark Dentist, who builds Metal Jaw for Moldovial. Väinö, one of the starting four survivors, perishes when dentist tries to install Monster Tooth Dentures for him. Dentist apologizes and gives Väinö's skull for settlement. That skull is used right away to fix Moldovial's shattered jaw, so I suppose a trace of Väinö will remain part of the settlement for as long as Moldovial does.

I had been trying to scare the new player about the lethality of boss fights. And on second round of the fight Butcher has one survivor's head explode, and I was certain it was the end now - dreaded trophies gave Butcher extra bleed far too early in the showdown.

Fortunately we had to encounter zero of those terrifying cards that have been ruining my own Butcher fights in the past. Forbidden Light and Embrace the Pain were the only moods that ever turned up, and Infinite Kick was removed with first wound done to Butcher.

After the fight I checked AI pile, and there was the dreaded Lantern Frenzy, but it had been wounded off before triggering. Two last AI cards Butcher had were both Hew cards, and Moldovial had +2 evasion from gear and grease.

Fight had an epic end when Butcher was killed at Death Blow location. All three remaining survivors picked +1 evasion. I was a little disappointed how easily Butcher went down. I was afraid this would give wrong impression from the deadliness of this game.

But we were using Manhunter expansion. Oh boy, a completely new nemesis that I knew nothing about. This was bound to teach fear to the new player.

Wrong.

Manhunter also died way too easily.

Murderous Gaze nearly killed one of the survivors, and Moldovial received bleeding kidneys at one point, but other than that we were doing fine with one survivor yelling +2 strength for non-deaf survivors and a second survivor checking hit locations.

But this easy victory had it's price. We used three founding stones to achieve critical wounds, so I suppose it was fair that we lost zero survivors. Sven did take Enfeebled disorder, but that was it. Moldovial, the speaker of first words and now with metal jaw also had deranged visage from now on.

Later that settlement phase Sven was nominated for intimacy and received Weak Spot disorder as a consequence. That much our life principle, Protect the Young, helped us. Pfft.

Anyway, it was here where we decided to stop playing. Next session to be within two years, I hope.

Settlement has a steady population of ten, and there are some promising rising stars among the weaklings Protect the Young regularly gives.