Madflies, madflies everywhere!

 Lantern Year 12 special showdown: Lion Knight level 2

Ragtag team of survivors defended the village with a costume play. 

Prominent roles: Auge (villain/fool), Eedge (fool/villain), Roficien (damsel), Porfic (ruler)

I was fully committed to losing this thing, but when White Mask gave those precious +1 Strength tokens made me question if I might actually be able to pull a win out of this.

Ruler and damsel switched their roles right off the bat so that damsel would be able to both utilize the -1 speed for the Lion Knight, but also shoot with catgut bow.

I thought it would be a good idea to lure Lion Knight closer to damsel, because he just would need to get back to the stage on the next move. With any chance, the fool with her amber poleaxe might poke a wound in to the knight.

It... sort of worked. But the thing is... Lion Knight dismembered the leg of the villain. She'd not get anywhere near the stage anymore. 

At least the volley from Gloom Arrows was beautiful. All five attacks hit, and each of them wounded. There were a total of three Stage Fights in the top three cards though, so damsel was disrobed of armor they had.

However, survivors did fairly well with punching through that toughness 12. Fool had to use the honk horn to save the villain from all but certain demise. She got nearly killed herself as a thanks, so the one-legged ex-villain had to switch the roles back almost right away. She was already at three bleed tokens.

This was especially annoying, because the Lion Knight had been whittled down to, like, two cards remaining, which were finally blasted, too. 

Villain was at four bleed tokens, and about to take two speed 3, dmg 3 attacks to the face, while no longer having any armor points and multiple heavy injury levels. Also not on stage, so unable to dodge. 

Only way to score victory seemed to be the amber poleaxe. The fool walked and dashed in front of Lion Knight, and let the beast loose. Rolls was a four, so the villain used her once-per-lifetime re-roll on that. An eight! 

What a close call. As a reward the villain also had her arm severed. 

What an exciting play!

Lantern Year 12 hunt & showdown: White Lion level 2

Golimato, Goliheen, Leihovia and Pidicule begin hunt.

Settlement is running out of time to explore the new armor sets, so White Lion it is.

Sea of Golden Grass and White Lion Cub gave incredible start to the hunt already, but then Leihovia rolled up Finale, losing her ear in the process. Stone Noses were turned into Steel Sword and Steel Shield.

And  then the hunting party met the Surgeon, who fixed Leihovia's pelvis. Is the game rewarding me for finally hunting level twos? Must be, because the final AI card was Prowling Lion, and the lion itself had been lured on top of Overwhelming Darkness.

Showdown went fine even if a couple of survivors got to zero survival points remaining.

Lantern Year 13: Plague

Oh, okay.

Porfic, Talwar, Eedge and Ofici survive the plague with a single re-roll wasted on this duplicate event. Leihovia went Stark-Raving Mad from the Lion God encounter, and Hands of Heat gave a point of speed for Leihovia.

Hands of Heat carved a massive hole to the settlement storage.

Endeavors:

1: Settlement innovates Momento Mori over Partnership...
2-3: Face Painting for intimacy, only one success
4: Matchmaker for Ofici and Auge. Auge dies. 
5: Face Painting for departing
6-7: Talici Nella was trained with shared experience, she got Orator of Death from Age 1.

Lantern Year 13 showdown - Hand level 1

Leihovia, Pidicule, Porfic and Ficiar talk to The Hand, and that's about it. Zero threat. A couple of survivors went to light brain injury, however. 

However, rewards were not exciting. Pidicule took the best, getting +1 accuracy, strength and evasion, but he had worst stats in the first place. Ficiar took a point of strength, which was splendid. Porfic took a random +1 luck from age, though, so there's that.

Rewards was the best, -1 population, plus Leather, Skull and five basic resources. Eedge uNimportanT "donated" the leather. And the skull.

Lantern Year 14: Lights in the Sky

Gorm Climate gave a point of courage to Ofar

1: FINALLY settlement innovates Symposium!
2: Face Painting for depart bonuses
3: Shared experience triggers Age for Ficiar. He gets Abyssal Sadist.
4: Trepanning for Golimato, who gets rid of Ghostly Beauty
5: Trepanning for Leihovia, who gets rid of Stage Fright
6-7: Auguries for Talici, who manages to get two understanding from the endeavors, and rolled one more endeavor for this settlement phase via Insight.
8: One more Augury, which finally prompted an Intimacy. Eemac and Golimato formed Phouros family, and got a kid named Eelimato. 

Lantern Year 14 hunt & showdown: Screaming Antelope level 2

Leihovia, Pidicule, Golimato and Ficiar start to track the beast.

Dead Antelope gives resources, but then... then... Madflies! Madflies all over again! Half of the team frenzied! This can't be happening! Argh. Well, at least it isn't important or anything to dash out of diabolical trample zone, or anything.

Antelope migrates, and then Golimato trades Rawhide Whip for White Lion Mask and loses all survival. Like he needed it anyway, since he frenzied.

Ficior gets heavy injury levels to head and arms from a frozen lightning. 

At least Overwhelming Darkness wasn't too bad, and fresh grazing fields even gave Ficior one hit location back to full. Leihovia was able to successfully mine a piece of iron as well. 

Pidicule investigates broken lanterns, and finds a broken lantern. What are the chances? 

Next survivors got to skip the next space, and showdown started. Random terrain was Nightmare Tree and Copperfish Den. Tactics was absolutely worst for Screaming Antelope: Trip Formation. Yeah, no thanks, not going to cause a total of four points of damage to two survivors to knock down the antelope.

Screaming Antelope began with Lonely Rampage, which was a blessing of sorts. I was remembering that survivors with 25+ insanity run away in the aftermath, but it was 20+ instead. Golimato had twenty-six. 

Once again Chow Down made the showdown infuriating. Well, that was my mistake to some extent, not obsessively spamming Rawhide Headband without Surge available. But the thing healed a total of five with two Chow Downs. 

Other than that the showdown went sort of fine, only Pidicule was disemboweled and suffered a gaping chest injury. There were far too many severe rolls to feel secure, but that's what bring excitement into the showdowns after all. 

Pidicule had spent most of his time trying to get trampled over by the Screaming Antelope, but at least four or five first tries failed to make a wound with Amber Poleaxe. Only two such attempt succeeded in total, but at least the last one of them was Screaming Antelope impaling its last wound to the stake.

Lantern Year 15: Dark Trader

Only five endeavors, since Ficiar got post-traumatic stress disorder from Overwhelming Darkness. 

... and, oh no. I hunted White Lion and Screaming Antelope just for the sole reason of wanting to try out the new hybrid armor sets from Lion Knight... but I really should have read those beforehand. I didn't realize even Dancer and Brawler armor required pieces from Phoenix set. Funny fun. Whee. Yay. Well... I guess I should use the resources elsewhere instead.

Like buying a useless pink stone from the trader. Yeah, I just did that.

1: Settlement innovates Nightmare Training... still no surge.
2-3: Since Pidicule had frenzied and was at max survival, he trained twice with the new innovation, gaining +1 strength and weapon proficiency level.
4: Settlement builds Weapon Crafter
5: Settlement turns all Pelts and White Furs into leather, just out of spite.

Next? I want to try out other new content I have, so Dragon King it is. I hope it goes better than against Phoenix.

Lantern Year 15 hunt & showdown - Dragon King level 1

Although unsure if I'll wreck this settlement another time around, Leihovia, Talici, Golimato and Goliheen start the hunt against a never-faced before quarry. I did have a hunch not to bring any flammable gear with me.

Talici met a thespian troupe, but dared not encounter them. I wonder if those were Lion Knight's entourage. Instead, Talici had a dream where to go. Leihovia and Goliheen had the exactly same dream, which was weird enough until next year.

Leihovia went down the sinkhole, or would have had not Goliheen sacrificed his re-roll.

Golimato gazes upwards to see the majestic shadow of, well, nothing. 

Goliheen finds the charred remains of a settlement, and then the showdown starts.

It wasn't... too bad. But how it looked to me is that that's going to be the case, until survivors get caught in the meltdown zone. I did quickly learn to respect irradiate as well. 

Golimato certainly had a theme going on, since during hunt he was brave enough to gaze up... and during showdown the Dragon King was impressed by his courage, archiving Lordly Roar. 

Goliheen did pick up a few too many disorders, though. One of them being Sworn Enemy against Dragon King. So I guess I go hunt the beast more in the future. 

Lantern Year 16: Weird Dream

Well, it appears the hunters brought weird dreams with them back to settlement.

Eelimato had to spend his re-roll on Gorm Climate.

1: Settlement innovates Scrap Smelting. 
2: Leihovia tried Nightmare Training, but it was more nightmare than training. 
3-5: Face Paintings for intimacy, one fail.
6-7: I had the expectation that murder might be on the menu at the theatre tonight, so settlement used both matchmakers and Love Juice to make three babies for Phouros family. Welcome, Emacita, Phobaro and Ihcisias. This whole ordeal took a total of one re-roll.

Lantern Year 16 special showdown - Lion Knight level 3

Oh my. That Toughness 15 sure looks rough to deal with, but I'll try nonetheless with a semi-proper team.

Ficiar, Golimato, Ofar, and already a veteran of Lion Knight, Porfic Nimportan defend the settlement right before Butcher appears.

... and what a pathetic play it was. 

It was a wipe. Survivors managed to inflict six wounds, although plenty of attempts were made that fell one short. When villain died the first time around, I decided to ditch the play and tried to run away. Except that Golimato was villain by then, so Ofar had to swap with him. However, all the runaways just stumbled on the stage miserably, dying to their injuries even without the help of Lion Knight.

Settlement lost the Steel Sword as well. Not a big loss, but still. 

I guess level 3 Lion Knight is, by design, so hard that it can be realistically be won after one failure such as this. Provided, of course, that lantern year 20 still has good enough survivors.

Well, let's continue with the settlement phase, then.

8-11: Age for Emacita and Ihcisias
12: White Mask offers strength tokens for departees.
13-14: Auguries until intimacy, Roficien and Goliheen receive twins, Rofiheen and Golicien.
15: Broken Lantern scavenge at Weapon Crafter. Success.

Lantern Year 16 Nemesis Showdown: Butcher level 2

And... I see.

So that's how it is.

Butcher drew SEVEN cards on his first turn, and killed the bow user. Fortunately after he had at least used the gloom arrows for two wounds. Of course one of the seven was the mood that made Butcher attack after taking two wounds.

I had taken the fully linked Monster Grease for one of the newborn I took to the showdown, meaning Butcher was hitting her only with 8+. But the way Butcher was rolling would have required 10+. There was even a 9,9,9 roll. Fortunately I had taken the steel shield to this showdown, so it was easy to dodge Butcher attacks for as long as there was survival... And when survival ended, Butcher was hitting just as happily. 

Now, all this might have been manageable, but survivors were rolling the exact inverse of what Butcher was rolling, especially when wounding. The amount of ones and twos was beyond frustrating. This was bulls diarrhea!

Survivors did get Butcher down to like four AI cards remaining, which wasn't good news either because one of them was the Bite, which always targeted head location for severe rolls.

Yeah. Another four survivors down the drain... as well as all the resources.

I think think this settlement is done, and I'll just mess around with the last few survivors.

Lantern Year 17: Nickname

Real funny, event deck. Real funny.

At least Gorm Climate rolled poorly, and I let it take all resources from settlement storage... where there were none! Bwahahaha! Yes, I'm crying as I'm laughing.

Well. At least a ton of endeavors.

1-2: Auguries for intimacy.
3-4: Another two auguries for intimacy.
5-8: Goliheen scavenges in the Weapon Crafter, triggering See the Truth and finally getting the one Broken Lantern.
9: White Mask to get +1 strength tokens, but didn't even with three re-rolls.
10: Last Augury for augury. Looks like this settlement is going to drag on in life support...

Ofici and Roficien choose the family name of Panik, and receive the kids named Lostit, Defeatred and Vanqusha.

Leihovia, Phobaro, Vanqusha and Rofiheen begin the hunt for Frogdog level 2. But I think that sorry epilogue will be another update later on.