What's Coming in 2026

The holiday season is approaching and in order to avoid burn out I will be taking the next two Fridays off, given how my writing pipeline works out, what that means is I'm actually only really taking a week and a couple of days off because my backlog tends to dry up if I don't keep the three week cycle I work on going. However, I really do need to just take some time because this autumnal into winter period has been very challenging. The arrival of content from four different boss battlers; Kingdom Death: Monster, VagrantSong, Kingdoms Forlorn and Grimcoven along with three more lurking somewhere around delivery (Dante's Inferno, Ashes Reborn and Aeons End) has left me somewhat scattered. On top of that, the Gamblers Chest landed during the start portion of my second Lantern Run with Justin, so we decided to scrap and restart in order for Justin to experience Arc Survivors while I could also get a few more fights in against the Pariah + Red Witches.

The other wrinkles in the entire thing have been our smol dog Pam requiring surgery after being attacked by a Cane Corso/Lab mix (she was defending my partner and mother in law), our dishwasher, fridge and freezer all broke in the back half of this year and my father had a cancer diagnosis (he is responding well to treatment at the moment). It's been very expensive and wearing; with, a big part of this being because my medical treatment costly and only shows slow progress. We also have to go back and push the hospital to keep treating each time, there's no plan from their end.

Another smaller thing which has thrown off my rhythm has been that my regular once a week roleplaying group moved from Mondays to Tuesdays. Previously I'd use Monday for research and game playing, saving my voice for recording video on Tuesdays ready to edit the video on Friday for a release the following Wednesday. That left Wednesday + Thursday to turn my notes into full form and add that to the scheduled queue of articles on the Patreon. I'm having trouble adjusting to that change on top of everything else, the extra pressure is that I'm the group's GM/DM and despite my asking, no-one else wants to step up and take over for a campaign. I'd love the chance to just focus on playing one character for a while instead of stepping in and out of multiple ones per session, but I also do not want to force anyone to GM when they don't want to because it is a huge deal. However, there's no getting around the fact that I'm the GM and organiser for the entire group, everyone else are to quote them from yesterday “We're all serial non-decision makers.” I enjoy it a lot, they're a great group to hang out with, but I also have to put in more work than everyone else.

So yeah, I need the break to not just unwind for a week but also to spend a second week to organise and rally. This little update post is the first part of that organisation, the plan for next year.

As mentioned above, I have the Monster expansions, the huge KDS Update (Gambler's Chest), Kingdoms Forlorn, VagrantSong's expansions, Townsfolk Tussle and Grimcoven already here (Grimcoven is sat on the floor in my office right next to me, it arrived with a broken insert so it took ages to check everything was there). Also we have the other arrivals at some point in 2026; but I can't plan for those right now.

So here's everything I am going to try and get to covering, across both written and video form, written is always going to take priority, unless I could at least quadruple my YouTube related earnings so I can afford an editor there's no way it's worth focusing on. I'd like to, because I'm not an editor and as such screw ups happen (especially on the audio front which is a nightmare). I want a paid professional to handle this as someone who used to do miniature commission painting I value paying experts the wage they deserve for the work they put in, until I can do that I'll just keep muddling through. But the truth is, KDM and Boss Battlers are a niche area, I'll likely never even reach something like 10K subscribers, I'm lucky to be approaching 2.5K considering I can't do as good a job on the videos as they deserve, I've got what is a now ancient PC and it struggles to even run KDS without suffering massive frame drops when playing/recording!

However, I do have a plan of what I am going to release thanks to the Gambler's Chest landing on the KDS. I'm going to certainly record a video on Kingdoms Forlorn in Q1; the YT channel was called Boss Battling with Fen rather than something specifically KDM related for this very reason. It's more tricky to cover other boss battlers because I want to work only with officially released/approved digital versions, but Kingdoms Forlorn is the single best game I played in 2025, it has the potential to become a massive 'lifestyle game' in the way KDM is and it has only one area where I felt it should be improved (gear). Into the Unknown Studio do so many things right in their game designs and figuring out how to play and cover their stuff as much as possible is something I'm constantly working on.

After that it is going to be time for these videos; Crimson Crockery & You, followed by the Dark Bestiary: Crimson Crocodile. Then the same for the Smog Singers. Then I'll move onto alternating the Dark Bestiary (Node 3 Quarry Monsters, Node 2 Nemesis Monsters), a deep dive series into Arc Survivors, covering whatever small releases reach the KDS with reviews and also the occasional review of other boss battlers as long as there is some official form released on Tabletop Simulator.

To put that in video in a list form in some approximate order:

• Dark Bestiary – Crimson Crocodile

• Crimson Crockery & You

• A Review of Kingdoms Forlorn

• Chorusseum & You

• Dark Bestiary – Smog Singers

• Untitled Philosophy Series Overview

• Dark Bestiary – The Phoenix

That's probably the first quarter of 2026 on the video front covered, it also sets the pattern going ahead. The important thing is that it spaces apart the Dark Bestiary videos because they take so much time and work to put together, there's playing the showdowns over and over, breaking the monsters apart on spreadsheets for analysis etc etc. Also due to now recording on my KDS table with Justin I have to carefully ensure that whenever I reset to record a video that all the backups for our second campaign are in place and restored after I've finished fully recording (including any extra 'pick up' recordings I feel are needed).

On the written front I have less of a fixed order, but here are all the topics I'm going to cover in addition to any extra things that need to be reviewed due to shop releases from APG or ITUS.

Kingdom Death

Full Reviews for; the Nukealope Vignette, the Pariah and the Red Witches. A review of Woe Grimmory Beta. A review of Wanderer – Luck (part of the Gambler's Chest) to complete the current set of covered wanderers.

A deep dive into Atnas, I wanted to do this over the holiday season, but unless I wrote it now and scheduled it for December 2026 that timing just won't work out. Sad. I also intend to do deep written articles into the lore + mechanics of The King, The Pariah, The Red Witches, The Black Knight, The Bone Eaters, The Gambler, The Godhand and The Frogdog. But they may not all fit within 2026. KDM is an absolutely massive game and it's a slog to get through it all. I might even have to finally put together a project management document for this patreon in order to keep track of where I am, in fact I just did that.

Finishing the Arc Survivor Philosophy series; I have Verminism, Ambitionism and Champion left to write up followed by a deep dive into each Wanderer's book + knowledge (the Wanderer versions will always be just one article, not a two parter). This is an important step in getting towards writing about arc survivor builds, they're not just gear based any more, many of them take advantage of various knowledges interacting with each other and gear, not just those gear interactions. As a part of this I'd like to point out this Patreon has a shared public chat option where I'd love people to post builds they've been using along with a short explanation for me to look at and write about. I'll be crediting those of you who do that directly in the articles I write, KDM's become a really complex game that's creaking under the weight of everything it has in it, it's a struggle to try and manage, so this kind of community build overview/review structure could be great for all of us.

Kingdoms Forlorn

I'm still figuring out the structure and what I want to cover for this; but the main thing I have been working on is a full extensive review for putting on BGG with an early release here. I'll also absolutely be covering each of the monsters in the game with deep dive analysis, breakdown and strategies and I'll also cover the knight mechanics in their own series also. I'm not sure where I am with the lore because it's split across so many different books with a lot of dense writing. Putting together lore from the short, fragmented “FromSoftware” style that KDM follows tends to be easier than the dense, rich text that ITUS employ. I can't just lore dump all of the individual lines for a given monster/topic/region into a document and rearrange the links together because there's so much text to dig through. Also because the exploring the kingdoms and the knights is such a huge part of what makes the game engaging I'm also not sure I want to directly spoil that part of the game. I'm seriously considering sticking to a more mechanical exploration of everything in order to keep the mystique of the world and the knights adventures through them fresh.

Regardless, Kingdoms Forlorn is the first game franchise from ITUS that I think can really rise to the level of 'lifestyle game' due to its highly modular nature. ATO had a specific story to tell and adding extra elements into that story is tricky, everything in a cycle ties together and all the cycles work in tandem also with one cycle setting up elements for a later cycle to explore/reveal. KF instead has modular knights that do have specific kingdoms they are most closely linked to, but they can be played anywhere, likewise the games design allows for plugging in new kingdoms smoothly and even adding more monsters/elements to existing kingdoms, it's not even difficult to expand maps because individual tiles can be replaced with new links.

I can see a world where ITUS release a new kingdom every year for the next decade and it is a massive success. There's also similar potential with Enormity and the new Sins of Herakles further down the line, though I still haven't been able to back either of those for more than just the core game of Enormity.

Other Games

Other games I want to fully write reviews and crosspost onto BGG include VagrantSong's expansions, I've already written a review of the core game, but I'm excited to jump back into that world with the new content.

Townsfolk Tussle has had two new expansions, one of which is simply 'more content' and the second adds a quest based rogue-lite experience that gradually unlocks more and more equipment.

Grimcoven as mentioned above is going to get an extensive review, I'm not sure if I'll go into it more than that simply because there's so much going on and my main focus for this year is mostly going to be split between KDM and KF. Grimcoven looks like a really fantastic game with incredible mechanics, but it's more stand alone than the other members of this genre and as such I'm not sure how much value there is in deep dives.

Dante's Inferno has spend ages in EU shipping hell, but apparently the games are in G'Dansk so that should get shipped out at some point in 2026 and there is also Blood from Ludus Magnus Studio lurking in the wings. Both Black Rose Wars and Nova Aetus: Renaissance are great games in other genres, so I am excited to see what they bring to the genre. They've also got Blasphemous lined up behind that, I don't know how much of a Boss Battler that will be, but I love the Blasphemous world so I'm giving it a shot.

Other games that I've just had to let slide by for now include the new Primal expansions and BattleForge: Berseker. I just don't have the budget for them because this Patreon is very small (it doesn't bring in a living wage once you take into account the business expenses) and living expenses keep climbing upwards. It is entirely budget reasons why I've not done this, if I could afford it I'd cover Primal because it's amazing and Berserker because of the Norse mythology connections.

I also want to cover the following other boss battlers, but they'll be occasional single reviews peppered in here and there when I can fit them in. Unstoppable, Aeon's End, Marvel Champions (once we see what the new structure FFG are using is really like), Ashes Reborn and I'd also like to do a retrospective on Sentinels of the Multiverse's covering its latest (final?) releases as SotM is the oldest dedicated boss battling game. Mostly with these it's a matter of working out a schedule to play them to the level of detail I need before I can review and time to do that.

One final thing I'm going to mention that may never go anywhere; I've actually been spending time in 2025 working on my own vision for what a campaign boss battler would be if everything was exactly as I want it. A lot of it is in the world building process, writing up the setting, major players and locations, but I also have extensive notes and ideas on what I'd do with my own spin on the genre. It's exceedingly unlikely it'll go anywhere because I struggle with organisation and project management of such a thing, but maybe perhaps one day I might put together something similar to the Crimson Scales Gloomhaven fan release, except with my own IP. Otherwise I'll probably put together a roleplaying game framework for it in order to let my weekly group explore the setting and see if its engaging enough for others.

I'll be returning on the week commencing 5th of January with that Kingdoms Forlorn video and my 2025 gaming retrospective where I cover the most interesting board games, video games and other media I experienced over the year. Until then I hope you all have an excellent holiday season, a fantastic new year surrounded by the people you love and most of all I want to thank each of you for supporting my continued endeavours, I hope in 2026 a combination of less bad news and improved health allows me to give you the level of quality in my content that you deserve.

Thank you all, I'll see you next year!