Sunlantern Armor Aya White Box Review | Kingdom Death: Monster

Aya donned the mask, motes of energy hidden in the extinguished lanterns of her armor vibrated with new life. Constraining and directing her range of motion, the armor put an impossible parabolic dimension to her aim, sending her weapons sailing back to her.

Aya sojourned with the people of the sun. The cold light illuminated the devastating techniques of these strangers. Ever the improviser, she set off into the darkness once more, armed with some new ideas and prismatic lanterns that won't be missed.

Sunlantern Aya represents the third of the People of the Sun specific armor sets that have been graduated from Beta to full status at this point, if this trend is to continue then this gives an in universe PotSun releases a higher chance of making the cut in white box plastic form than anything else. Which also means if you want to be a savvy consumer you've got even more reason to ignore the beta release line, which I think is the correct way to be if you're not a filthy rich collector or writing about the game content.

The Miniature

I absolutely love this miniature's design and those feelings haven't changed. The pose is dynamic, the clothing is appropriate for People of the Sun's intense heat and Aya remains one of my top five favourite survivor characters in the setting. However, things have changed a little bit because the key thing this version has over the original is that transition from photoresin to plastic means that this rendition of Aya can be used on the table. Previously the lantern rope on the Hotokubiya was too think and fragile to risk using on the board, even a knock down has the potential to cause breakage, accidental collision between player and miniature even more so. Plastic doesn't have this same level of fragility and even if a breakage does happen, plastic cement glue can re-bond it with a high amount of strength. That matters a lot and adds to the value of the miniature because it can now be used as a game piece to represent a survivor in the armor set.

The Gameplay

When we see a Beta content piece make the transition across to White Box there is always some tightening of the mechanics, especially where gaining the content is concerned. Instead of having a couple of resource based crafting options instead the content is tied normally to either a resource or a terrain card of some kind. In the case of the Sunlantern Armor this is via a new People of the Sun exclusive Basic Resource card which is shuffled into the deck at the start of the campaign.

That means this resource can be gained from as early as the prologue showdown aftermath, but if you do gain it that early you can't get access to the two patterns immediately, instead you'll need to gain Heat via the Lantern Oven innovation (something that doesn't happen automatically via a story event in People of the Sun). So there is a bit of a gatekeeper here, though it is not the only one as we'll see. You also have to archive the Broken Prism Lantern when you unlock these two patterns, which does matter quite a bit due to one of the two gear cards requiring an additional 2 Broken Prism Lanterns to craft it, so we'll look at that one first.

Horokubiya Dagger

Crafting Costs: 2x Broken Prism Lantern, 1x Perfect Hide, 3x Bone

Crafting Requirements: Pottery Innovation

First up we have a small typo on this card, Devastating on its own without a number has no function because Devastating X where X is a number is how the mechanic works. I can't even really speculate on what that Devastating number is, because while it is like 1, that's a very common Devastating number in People of the Sun due to how their survival actions work.

That means it could be Devastating 2 (but probably isn't). If someone has an answer to what the number is, please let me know in the comments, I've worked on the assumption that it is Devastating 1 because that's the worst it could be, if that number is higher then this weapon gets significantly better.

This weapon is a fragile metal dagger, meaning that it can self archive during the hunt due to fragile things breaking. It also lacks the finesse keyword, which is a bit of a shame due to how thematic it would be for a lantern to have interactions with this weapon.

The statline is weak when this weapon is used in isolation from the full armor set because that (2/7+/4) profile doesn't have enough speed to compensate for the accuracy nor does it have enough strength to justify the expense and delay in crafting this, it's decent if you get Heat and those additional two Broken Prism Lanterns quickly enough, but 4 strength isn't impressive enough to make it stand out from other options we'd be considering around this time in the campaign's timeline and as written earlier, if this is a Devastating 1 weapon we're not super impressed in People of the Sun because the Hands of the Sun innovation gives us access to a Devastating 1 survival action at the cost of expending 1 survival and any +Strength tokens. Yes a flat Devastating 1 is still an improvement over having to expend survival actions, but both the survival action and the weapon are a bit lessened by the existence of each other. To briefly explain, in a non-Sun campaign, Devastating weapons are super exciting because it is an ability that is hard to get your hands on. In People of the Sun, due to it being part of your suite of survival actions, it matters less to get it on the weapons directly due to being able to spend survival to get there. (Of course if it turns out to be Devastating 2 then the weapon is nuts).

That Red Affinity is almost a non factor, if you are running a mixed set earlier in the campaign you might make use of it (though Up facing Reds are notoriously awkward to connect), but with the full Sunlantern Armor set it may as well not exist because of the position it is forced into taking (slot 1 on the grid).

The main goal design with this weapon is to pair it with the Sunlantern Mask and Sunlantern Armor set, these will give it the thrown keyword, range 4 via the Mask and with the armor set it'll also gain sharp. I'll explore those two additional elements in the entries below, but at the moment it is important to note that using this weapon without having access to the Sunlantern Mask in your gear grid is pretty much a non-starter. That is because of this “Explosive” ability, if you're attacking the monster with this weapon you absolutely do not want any survivors, yourself included, adjacent to the monster. Having ALL adjacent survivors suffer a random severe injury when this weapon wounds the monster means you could attack the monster and theoretically kill not just yourself, but every other survivor in the showdown.

The threat to other survivors can be lessened by them moving away from being adjacent before the attack is made or running reach/range weapons, but the threat to the weapon user is frankly too high to consider using this weapon without the Mask bonus at a minimum. That means we need to use this weapon with either a mixed set (therefore only having the Clothed & Satiated bonus if playing with Arc Survivors, nothing if without them) or with the full Sunlantern Armor set and that set may take a long while to put together because it is mostly Lantern Armor.

I'll come back around to this by looking at the entire package in one near the end of this review, but for now the conclusion I've come to is that this weapon is only going to be crafted when you have the Mask already to hand and the goal here is always going to be pushing to build the entire Sunlantern Armor Set in order to utilise this weapon effectively.

Sunlantern Mask

Crafting Costs: 2x Iron, 1x Perfect Bone, 5x Bone

Crafting this is relatively reasonable and a Sun Settlement could achieve it pretty much the lantern year after they start running Pickaxes. It is clear that this is intended to work with the Horokubiya in specific, but we'll look at that when we consider the entire selection of cards when placed together. Instead I want to look at the Sunlantern Mask here in isolation, it has a design that can be paired with all of the generic armor sets fairly simply, and in essence it swaps one set bonus for another one focused around mobility and thrown weapons. I do quite like this one in combination with both Rawhide and Leather armor, Leather in particular is tough enough that the set bonus isn't essential (and with Arc Survivors you get the armor points), so I have found that there's spots where this Mask can be used without the Dagger or the full set, though the cap of 4 weapon strength does hold it back a little.

The movement bonus was good enough all by itself though, because People of the Sun survivors can still Dash, having a 7 movement tanking survivor meant that I could often use a Dash to cancel monster attacks in the early and mid game, though that did start to drop off as monster movement climbed upwards.

That brings us to the entire armor set. We'll look at the set bonus first and then tie everything together with an examination of the gear grid “as intended”.

Sunlantern Armor

Set Requirements: Sunlantern Mask, Lantern Gauntlets, Lantern Cuirass, Lantern Mail, Lantern Greaves.

This set is a very solid armor set, the affinity design allows for an easy activation of the Lantern Cuirass +3 armor points to all metal hit locations, meaning this armor set is at a base of 7 armor points when you depart (nothing to sneeze at). You also get to actually wear lantern armor due to the Mask ignoring the standard Extreme Heat limitation, which is something we've seen before for Sunlion Armor. It's a nice way of ensuring that playing People of the Sun isn't forcing you to ignore a heap of cards because they (almost) can't be used by normal Survivors (Hellfire Secret Fighting Art survivors are an exception, but they have their own limitations).

We also have Thrown Weapons gaining Sharp, which it is important to note includes ALL strength 4 or lower weapons. That means we don't have to use the Horokubiya Dagger exclusively, we can instead put on the table all weapons with interesting abilities that don't have more than 4 strength. There are some super interesting candidates here, including the old Lantern Armor partners in crime Skullcap Hammer and Whistling Mace (Welcome to the new Lantern Armor, same as the old) and here they're even stronger than they were when combined with normal Lantern Armor due to getting that Range and Kiting trigger on the set bonus on top of the standard +2 accuracy for clubs, they're SUPER impressive with this armor set. However it's a bit of a shame to use them here because PotSun has its own unique club and I'd rather use that on a different survivor (it can't be used on this kit because it has 10 base strength).

We also have some other interesting candidates that are not 'clubs lol' again; I'll list some of them here with the abilities that makes them so good in concert with this set.

• Lion Beast Katar – Deadly, Katar Spec/Mastery, Paired

• Beast Knuckle – Katar Spec/Mastery, Toughness Reduction, Paired

• Counterweighted Axe – Auto Wound on Perfect Hit, Axe Spec/Mastery

• Hunter's Whip and Silk Whip – Mood Control, Whip Spec/Mastery

• Rawhide Whip – Provoke, Whip Spec/Mastery

• Grappleclaw – Scythe/Whip Spec/Mastery, Deadly, Survivor Repositioning

• Acid Bombs – Mood removal (Utility weapon rather than main weapon)

• Nuclear Dagger/Nuclear Scythe – Massive Deadly, Dagger or Scythe Spec/Mastery

• Acid-Tooth Daggers – Auto Wounds, Paired, Dagger Spec/Mastery

• Greater Gaxe – Barbed, Axe Spec/Mastery, Deadly

There's bound to be more and this list will only continue to grow as the weapon options at 4 or less strength increase. It's a really impressive selection of gear cards and in particular I like the Whips both because they're an underutilised weapon time and also because it's darn hilarious to consider what a Thrown Whip would look like. I guess it's tossed out and then the rope held by the survivor is used to crack it for damage? Brilliant.

Also, memes aside, a Rawhide whip welding Whip Master (or beefcake with lots of +strength) with Sunlantern Armor, a Monster-Tooth Necklace, a shield and anything that finishes activating the Greaves gives us a survivor who is going to absolutely make a mockery of most monsters by Provoking them and then having 9 movement plus Range 4 Plus that 2 movement after the attack. They're able to control the monster's focus solely on them and then easily outpacing them with the Dash-Cancel. Rawhide Whip has always been an insanely good weapon with a bad statline. Add a load of extra strength, maybe some accuracy and suddenly we're talking about one of the best forms of tank control I've seen in a long while. Who needs accuracy if the monster can't get close enough to hit you?

However, before we get to the final thoughts on this boxed set, we need to take a look at the intended build and its layout, so here it is.

We can have any viable weapon in that slot where the Dagger is, but if you are going to match the miniature exactly, this is our baseline.

The +2 movement on the Mask is designed to cancel out the -2 movement on the Cuirass, however we can activate the greaves and instead turn ourselves back into a 7 movement survivor and with range that can be very significant.

This armor set has all of the challenges that Lantern Armor have, except we're even more tied into this layout, meaning that gaining anything other than two extra Red Affinities is not that viable though Warriors of the Sun alter the situation greatly.

This means we can put Sunlantern Armor onto our Warriors of the Sun (either type) and benefit even further with a massive amount of affinities, easy connections and even additional power from either survival regains if you are going do "Dash-Cancel" attacks as a mobile tank or you can instead leverage the sharp bonus in combination with Reflection in order to have a massive Str + Sharp + 1d10 added to your wounding rolls.

On average I preferred using a Refraction Warrior of the Sun in this armor set, because you're limited to just one copy of the armor and this is a really durable set of armor and it was really strong to have that almost unlimited pool of survival to dash around while setting up a block and attack. It was a lot of fun, but also some monsters simply couldn't stand up to the power of a Sunlantern clad Warrior of the Sun. That meant I could push against really dangerous monsters in a more comfortable fashion.

Final Thoughts & Summary

If you are picking up the Sunstalker, or you already have it, and you intend to play People of the Sun I think this is an essential purchase. It is opening up an entirely new way to play the game and the playstyle option we're getting here is fresh and unique, it is such a delight to play through the campaign and watch the way that the Sunlantern Mask gradually evolves as you use it initially with whatever armor set pieces that work and then eventually with the full Sunlantern set. This is a fresh and new experience and one that I both enjoyed and value greatly, I think my Sunlantern Rawhide Whip survivor “Red Lasso” will be one I look back on fondly for a long time. I already miss that settlement now their story has concluded.

In respect to the Dagger, if it has Devastating 1 then it's fine, but I think you can always find better options. If it has Devastating 2 then it's going to be an incredible weapon that competes with the best of the other options. However, I seriously doubt even with such a large negative that it's going to get to deal 3 wounds per successful wounding roll.

Additional Note on Priestess Percival Beta Release

I did not manage to order a copy of this beta release, as a policy if I cannot order a copy of the content via the store I won't cover it with a full review. Short review here though, it's fine, don't much care for the miniature which has practically zero in game usability, but if you play People of the Sun then the gear card is a solid enough addition.

Sorry about that, I do like to explore the neat little designs that come out in the beta range, but without a physical copy in the post I don't feel motivated to look at it in full because as a strict policy I do not buy from resellers and that means I have to play with a proxy copy forever.