Male Estate Hero – Beta Release | Kingdom Death: Monster

Mercenaries lurk on the approach to the labyrinths. As the relic-bearing survivors are inexorably drawn to enter the impossible passageways, estate heroes generously join their journey. They fight to clear the monster-infested path, guiding survivors to the labyrinth's maw before extracting their steep payments.

Contents

• 1 x Male Estate Hero photoresin miniature with Death 30mm round base and insert

• 1x Beta gear card

• 2 x Living glossary cards

• 1x Large Matte Art Print

• 1x Character Art Card
  

It is not often that we see direct references to the original concept of Kingdom Death: Labyrinth in any of the game's releases, so to see it here is nice, but I could not really call it a surprise given that the original Estate Hero also featured text mentioning “cloud labyrinths”. Here is that text for the sake of completeness, and also because it provides context for the Male Estate Hero's long eared companion.

Teeming subterranean caves, dizzying cloud labyrinths, doom, and conquest await inside the dungeon. But, outside the dungeon, mind the property line. Landlords lucky enough to discover a dungeon entrance on their property employ Estate Heroes to tend the grounds, keeping the thoroughfare clear of pests, wandering menaces, and shaking down newly flush heroes for land use taxes.

Accompanied by a long-eared harehound that listens for the jangling pockets of successful adventures, she uses her minor magical abilities for encouraging the growth of elaborate inviting grounds to keep heroes coming through the door.

The Miniature

The Male Estate Hero is close to the original Female Estate Hero and one could be forgiven for mistaking them for each other, or at a minimum fraternal twins. Both of these miniatures certainly share almost exactly the same equipment and outfits, along with the same issues that keep them from being suitable game pieces. Apart from them having no practical representation in the game's world, they're also both crafted from brittle material and have thin elements that will not stand up to repeated handling.

As a piece of art that is to be displayed as part of a collection however, this is an exceptional sculpt, from the patterned floor (something that is often excluded from KDM miniatures), the harehound/lagomorph companion and all the way to the clothing. This is a gorgeous sculpt filled with whimsical details and a decidedly playful composition. The sculpt captures movement in a way that isn't often seen throughout the Kingdom Death line, normally characters are posed in a statuesque or portrait style, and even those which have some form of dynamism do not reach the level that this piece is at. This Estate Hero looks like they have leapt over their bunny companion, or descended from higher ground and are engaged in the beginning of blowing their powder at a target. Given that the powder included in the box is called “Hysteria Powder” and it has a supporting role, one can assume that either it is being deployed to buff a fellow hero, or the Estate Hero alternatively employs in addition to his short sword, a range of different powders for combat effectiveness.

Regardless of what the actual answer is, this sculpt transcends the norm and is not only gorgeous, but it also conveys a sense of scene and wider world beyond just that which we see confined on and above the base.

It is art and I like it.

The Gameplay Content

Crafting Cost: 2x Endeavour, 1x Bone, 1x Perfect Organ

Requirements: Saviour with Caratosis in the Settlement

Just one single card, and it represents the incense/powder holder that is clipped to the Estate Hero's belt. This gear card is yet another Perfect Resource demanding piece of gear, but on top of that it is Ethereal, meaning that it only exists as long as you have a savior in the settlement (they don't have to come on hunts) and at the point of crafting the savior(s) needed to include one with the red savior starting ability Caratosis.

Red saviors are mechanically the weakest of all four savior types we have seen due to it being effectively a less potent damage dealer when compared to the Blue Savior in most situations. While it is possible to get multiple saviors with the Collectivism Philosophy, that is tied to Arc Survivors and otherwise gaining saviors tends to require either People of the Lantern, Echoes of Death I or the Lonely Tree. This does mean that if you are playing with the GCE, PotLantern or have the Lonely Tree it is more likely that you will get to play with this card. Anything tied to saviors directly has less value as extra content because of those limitations.

Ethereal: A gear special ability. This gear is inextricably linked to saviors. When the settlement has no savior, archive this gear.

Still, Ethereal is not as bad as it was in its original design, which required the savior to come out on hunts with the ethereal gear card, but it is still a very limiting keyword, stashing a savior in the settlement doesn't always guarantee their safety and it also means you're not able to utilise the savior for their intrinsic value (though there is little value in the Red Saviors anyway).

The item itself is a buffed version of Frenzy Drink, with a second activation, the ability to deploy the Frenzy onto an adjacent survivor and adding an automatic wound to the monster when the Hysteria Fuelled survivor hits 3+ time (Known as Rush in the mechanics). This is here to support higher speed play styles, and one should never look down on automatic wounds, especially repeatable ones that can potentially trigger on every single attack for the entire showdown.

Rush: A special rule. When a survivor hits 3+ times in a single attack, they Rush for that attack.

However, we are required to pay a very high cost to get access to this, not only do we need to craft the card and maintain a savior in settlement, but we also need two red plus one blue affinities in the gear grid for a gear card that that provides zero affinities. Even if placed into a corner of the grid, we are still losing 2 of our 12 potential affinity connectors, so we need to squeeze a lot of value out of the remaining eight gear cards. Items with limited uses that do not also provide some passive benefit such as affinities and are always a step behind ones that have either permanent buffs, provide affinities to support themselves/other cards (or do all of that).

I cannot see this one forming a permanent home in my playthroughs, while I might break it out if I have some additional Frenzy synergies built into my survivors, I think most of the time now this is going to languish with the promotional divider and gradually fade from memory.

Final Summary

While I think the miniature is of exceptional style and quality on a level above most KDM already high modern standards, there's really not a high amount of value in this one from a purely game standpoint due to it being intrinsically linked to one survivor type that is only common in People of the Lantern.

The Automatic wound ability is strong, especially given that it can be deployed on two survivors, but it does come with Frenzy, a status that is mixed rather than purely positive due to how it disables certain survivor benefits such as Weapon Proficiencies.

I do appreciate that Team Death are valuing automatic wounds highly in their designs, but I feel here they've leaned a little too far towards caution, this is an item that requires a lot of hoops to jump through and as such it's definitely a luxury purchase on top of the normal luxury purchases that KDM already represents. As such, If you didn't get this one, I don't think you've missed out too much unless the miniature was the main thing you are after (and getting this one for the miniature is a very, very reasonable choice).