Wow it broke

Finally the last few lantern years of Enerva settlement of Kingdom Death.

 Lantern Year 28 - King's Man level 3

Menoloromias, Laifuseuskaja, Syllogi and Voxanius all go through a cycle of brain traumas. Without that particular mechanic King's Man would not have offered any real challenge, but now there was at least a sense of urgency - only available re-roll was on Laifuseuskaja and he would have to save it for himself in any case. 

Laifuseuskaja took a permanent evasion from a hit location.

Menoloromias tossed a Founding Stone when the King's Man was at last remaining wound, thus getting afflicted with the King's Curse. But he is close to retirement anyway.

Lantern Year 29 - Open Maw

Settlement event was Open Maw. Lepuri, thinking he was immortal, went to check the opening. Soon enough the mouth chomped on him not once but twice - on the five dice I rolled, there were two pairs of double.

1: Lepuri jumps into the Open Maw in search of the lamplighter.
2-3: Voxanius investigates two cocoon membranes and two broken lanterns beneath Exhausted Lantern Hoard.
4-6: Scrap smelting for five iron.
7-8: Face painting for battle. 
9: Nightmare training x3, ends in 1.
10: Petal Spiral for Naoran, fails.
11: War Room plan is made.
12: Shrine Ritual is success. 

So, I needed a bunch of bones for finishing my first ever lantern armor set. Gigalion is likely the best bet because of various guaranteed teeth and claws.

Lantern Year 29 hunt & showdown - Gigalion level 3:

Laifuseuskaja, Hovelina, Chanial and Tranaree start the hunt. 

First Laifuseuskaja encounters aromatic breeze, which actually was a Gregalope. Next the showdown begins with Ground Fighting in play. And then... a time lapse.

Showdown begins!

Because of Ground Fighting in play, the smart cat was on top of the deck but never drawn... did I just encounter a glitch? 

And to make matters worse, there was testicles coming up in hit location deck, so Laifuseuskaja was able to get a non-stop priority token. Sheesh. At least random terrain offered only debris and toppled pillars. 

The cat got nine wounds and two persistent injuries in before it sprinted to table edge. I felt sorry for it. But I really need those bones...

The showdown was a sad joke with the only damage being brain damage from Golden Eyes and once from Size Up. But the lion had its way of punishing me still.

The resource haul was gravely less than ideal. I received only five organs from random decks and a whopping nine hides. Bones, on the other hand... I got only four of those when I sorely needed them. Fortunately the total bone count is seven, but I'm anxious if they'll be enough.

Lantern Year 30 - Rivalry

The blame game began whose fault it was that settlement received so few bones. 

Hovelina and Tranaree come to blows. Hovelina gets the gaping chest wound, which feels wrong since she has the Manhunter's secret fighting art... oh well. This settlement has been a power trip anyway.

But it turned out I had been screwed over by the resource decks. I did not have enough resources for oxidizing lantern glaive and to complete lantern armor set. I was missing one bone.

Rarely if ever I have used harvest ritual. This time I did, from five resources. And my eyes must have been bulging from their sockets when I drew two monster organs, love juice and two monster hides. 

So, another desperate harvest ritual from four remaining non-bone lion resources. What a weird curse this must be because I still didn't draw even a single monster bone - although I did get two ???'s.

1: Harvest ritual from five monster resources.
2: Another harvest ritual from four monster resources.
3-5: A total of two successful battle paints.
6: Oxidized lantern glaive.
7: Bloodletting to relieve Hovelina from emotionlessness.
8: Hovelina drums for some survival.
9-10: Hovelina gets +1 strength from Nightmare Training.
11: Bloodletting for Laifuseuskaja to remove Motion Sickness.
12: Voxanius gets +1 strength from Nightmare Training.
13: Shrine ritual is a success.

Lantern Year 30 showdown: Gold Smoke Knight

Laifuseuskaja, Hovelina, Menoloromias and Tranaree are the chosen champions to save Enerva. 

Random terrain picks were Acanthus Plants, Resin Dung Ball and Ore Vein. 

Fight starts with Gold Smoke Knight charging at Laifuseuskaja, whom he hits only on 10's. Survivor turn starts nicely with the trap coming up in first four cards. Lucky me I didn't go in blind. Only two wounds were scored, and both came from a single founding stone. Critical location gave Tranaree option to pay eight survival to deal an additional wound.

As is usual, careful management of where survivors stand was key. I was able to make Gold Smoke Knight always target Laifuseuskaja, who was able to surge two deflect tokens and dodge twice thanks to hyper-sensitivity disorder. Nearly every attack Gold Smoke Knight made there were annoyingly one or two lanterns, so it took a heavy toll on Laifuseuskaja's survival. At least he had the manhunter pistol slowly trickling in more of those. 

As long as Laifuseuskaja was able to get behind Gold Smoke Knight, he was wounding on 7+ with two dice. Remaining survivors had it a little harder, Hovelina was scoring wounds with 7+ with only a single die and Voxanius on 16+ with two dice. Yeah, he didn't attack that often at least without the extra dice from horripilation. But once he did - when hit location deck had been emptied and there was only the trap left. 

Since he had oxidized lantern glaive, a spear and an axe,  he tried to negate the trap.

Nope.

That one resulted in first actual damage level in the match - light injury. Woah.

And that was the only injury level throughout the showdown.

Laifuseuskaja took two hits from Blacken once as Gold Smoke Knight had been lucky with lantern 10's, draining all deflect tokens and dodge actions. But that's it. 

It was over.

The aim of this campaign was to break the game and abuse rules and see if game can actually be beaten with its own rules. That Gold Smoke Knight really looked like a tough one. But min/max approach trivialized even the final boss.

The main culprit seemed to be the combination of life-time re-rolls and the Sleeping Virus Flower from Flower Knight. Once you go past a certain threshold of stats, stats seem to start accumulating on that particular survivor since they are able to get into situations where you might get them and pass whatever test they have to make. And then when that survivor finally has to die, well, reset with the already accumulated stats! And get a new re-roll too if you had to use yours already.

First level Manhunter reward is also a major game changer. Such a guaranteed source of a lot of insanity is... insane. That and Crimson Candy innovation give you at least four or five points of survival at start of showdown even if you roll that dreaded "1" in Overwhelming Darkness. 

I think I'll make a comparison campaign next with Survival of the Fittest, Graves and Collective Toil and retaining that horribly overpowered "shared re-roll for all in same phase" ruling, but leaving out Flower Knight and Manhunter.

Hilariously enough, this "speed run" settlement took over two years to finish.

Oh well. Here is a re-cap of showdowns for lantern years:

1: White Lion level 1
2: White Lion level 1
3: White Lion level 1
4: Butcher level 1
5: Manhunter level 1
5: Flower Knight level 1
6: Spidicules level 1
7: Spidicules level 1
8: Spidicules level 1
9: King's Man level 1
10: Manhunter level 2
10: Screaming Antelope level 2
11: The Hand level 1
11: Screaming Antelope level 2
12: Sunstalker level 1
13: The Hand level 1
14: Sunstalker level 1
15: Gigalion level 2
16: Manhunter level 3
16: Butcher level 2
17: Sunstalker level 2
18: Lion God level 1
19: King's Man level 2
20: Sunstalker level 2
21: Sunstalker level 2
22: Manhunter level 4
22: Flower Knight level 3
23: Butcher level 3
24: Gigalion level 3
25: The Watcher
26: Sunstalker level 3
27: Great Golden Cat
28: King's Man level 3
29: Gigalion level 3
30: Gold Smoke Knight