A Review of the Vignette of Death: Screaming Nukealope | Kingdom Death: Monster

A squabbling, unlikely alliance rallies around Gnostin, determined to stop a destructive new quarry or die trying. Transfigured by radiation, the Screaming Nukealope’s existence is constant pain for itself and its would-be hunters alike. Embody the wits and teamwork of Gnostin’s close knit company to achieve his envisioned perfect ending.

Contents:

• 5x miniatures (1x Nukealope, 4x Vignette Survivors, 0x Shade)

• 1x Rulebook

• 1x Basic Action / Reference Card

• 2x Trap Cards

• 4x AI Cards

• 2x Armor Set Bonuses (Both new)

• 2x Fighting Cards

• 1x Shade Minion AI Card

• 4x Vignette Survivor cards

• 4x Vignette Survivor Gear Grids

• 1x Stone Circle Hot Zone crafting location expansions

• 5x Hot Zone Gear Cards (2 of these are paired duplicates)

• 2x Secret Fighting Arts (1 new, 1 reprint)

• 1x Terrain Card

• 4x Terrain Tiles

Note: This expansion has synergy with the Dragon King expansion and Wanderer – Goth. However, they are not required to play and enjoy this expansion.

The Miniatures

Across the board all of the miniatures that come in this boxed set are of superb quality and detail. I have only been able to paint the Nukealope to date, so that is the one painting example I have. However all of these miniatures are full of character and individuality.

We've seen Gnostin before as he was released as a photoresin beta and there has been no changes to his sculpt. There is still a lack of a sculpted base, which I found a bit frustrating when all the other miniatures have their own bases and the character who interacts with the ground didn't get one. He's easily put onto a stone face base, but this is the kind of corner I don't expect Adam Poots Games to cut.

Ashroot and Ashbloom are both superb depictions of their respective characters, they look like siblings and the crusader armor they both feature (sans pants for Ashbloom of course) is an intriguing peek into a future potential monster which may be called the Iron Succubus. If this teased monster gets a shop release rather than being bundled into some future crowdfunded campaign I urge you all to support it because that's how I want to see future expansions released.

Our final member of Gnostin's quartet is Monday, Monday is wearing an alternate set of Sunstalker armor called Shadowstalker Armor, at this stage we don't know exactly how this armor has been procured. It could be from a variant Sunstalker, but my bet is on this being a Slender Man/Sunstalker combo as it features a lot of aspects from those two monsters. It is a very interesting and unique armor set that I want to see in general release with Campaigns of Death. It retains the blind spot focus that the original Cycloid Scale Armor has, but it adds onto that the creation of a Shade.

This Shade addition is a wonderful expansion of play space, Shades are minions so they are hostile to the survivors. This creates an extra threat for the survivors to deal with, but it also offers an entire extra life for Monday should she perish. I love the design of Monday's armor set and her miniature is gorgeous.

A lack of a separate Shade miniature for Monday is a wasted opportunity in the same way that not having Shades in the Sunstalker box is. Yes you are asked to use survivor miniatures to represent these, but not everyone has the capacity to paint some of their minis black just for those situations. It's very similar to the low number of Spiderlings shortcoming in the Spidicules box. Little elements like this, where some additional care and attention to ensuring that all aspects are covered is something I wish Kingdom Death: Monster was lavished with. Alas it instead lands on the pile of misses and what could have been.

The real centrepiece of this selection of miniatures is of course the Nukealope, which is sculpted to reflect the artwork of the Antelope on the original showdown page, in fact one could even go as far as to retroactively say the artwork there is the Nukealope while the Crush & Devour story page features the original Screaming Antelope. This monster is at the right scale for the game's improved miniature size, it's expertly crafted and looks incredible on the board. I have no notes, only praise.

Backside of Destiny - The Vignette Story and Characters

Our story tells of a group of four survivors who are stuck in an endless time loop due to always dying when fighting the Nukealope. Even if they win they are all killed by the explosion that occurs afterwards. Gnostin as the wearer of the ring is the only one of the four who is completely aware of every single cycle. He's Phil Connors from Groundhog Day, except he's stuck with only Monday, Ashbloom, Ashroot and the Nukealope as his company.

Gnostin's role in this entire affair is our lead protagonist, but he's also the straight man that the other characters get to bounce off. Monday is a cynical, mocking person who can't take anything seriously, Ashroot is a big old dumb himbo (we love a good himbo) and Ashbloom is a serial nudist who takes things even less seriously than Monday. Ashbloom's inclusion in this story is something of a risk; fan service can be incredibly tasteless if it's not done right. Here Ashbloom's level of barefaced cheek is so over the top that it can only be read as a parody, without Ashroot's embarrassment and Gnostin's frustrated exasperation at her behaviour being identical not just every hunt but every time loop it could have been really cringeworthy. Their reactions though help ground things enough that it works. Especially when she starts trying to get her clearly more reserved and prudish brother to follow her suit despite his clear discomfort with the entire situation.

Monday's narration of the entire situation, which wears further on Gnostin's tolerance for what has become the worst day of his existence, is the icing on the cake. It's difficult to tell if Monday is being deliberately cruel to the clearly flabbergasted man or if she is compelled to narrate what's going on by her nature. In other words, she's probably some form of neurodivergent, which is always nice to see when it is handled well.

The artwork here is well done. Gnostin's expression of bliss and joy when he finally manages to destroy the Hours Ring that is trapping them in a loop is probably the funniest single panel in the entire comic. Though his reaction to Monday asking why Ashbloom can stick medals from her armor directly onto her hips is a close second and the final page which has the three clowns all express their confidence and trust in anything Gnostin does is a great little capstone. Gnostin having Beetle Strength suggests even more backstory as that is gained only via The Old Master (TOM)'s timeline events. Adding another layer of texture and tragedy to his character as that story is a wonderful and heartbreaking exploration of how awful age based illnesses like dementia and Alzheimers are.

This isn't quite on the level of the Killenium Butcher's tale, but it's not trying to be that, this story is instead an attempt at something new which I applaud. Embracing the comedy side of the game's aesthetic with such enthusiasm is nice to see and while this one doesn't speak to me in the way that the Killenium Butcher did I think it is still a success at depicting its characters. Gnostin in particular is key to this entire story and without his fourth wall embracing time loop knowledge and utter exhaustion at the entire debacle it would not work as well as it does. Gnostin has moved right up my best survivor ranks.,

The Vignette Gameplay

Our vignette has the four survivors go against a Level 2 Screaming Nukealope; before we get into it one thing I think that was a littled missed here in respect of thematic mechanics is that the entire AI deck should have been a set collection of cards known in advance. Gnostin's been through this fight countless times, he should know every move that this monster can perform by heart at this point (He does have Analyse though so that's a reasonable compromise). It's probably better for re-playability this way, but also I felt less encouraged to come back to this showdown multiple times because there are not the range of strain unlocks that the Killenium features. This one felt like a puzzle that when you've solved it there's no reason to return to it except as a teaching aid/demonstration for new players and the truth is I think that the Killenium Butcher is still the gold standard for that.

This showdown isn't like the normal kind of Screaming Antelope showdown and it is even unique when compared to the campaign Screaming Nukealope fight. I like the design of this showdown it has four acanthus adjacent to the monster's corners and the survivors one diagonal step further away from that. It also features stone columns and toppled pillars around the edges which creates this kind of arena feel to the entire design. I like a higher density of terrain in my showdowns, most KDM showdowns risk feeling vast, empty and lacking tactical crunch because of that low density of terrain. This is something more recent boss battlers have sought to address (Townsfolk Tussle, Kingdoms Forlorn, Dante's Inferno, Grimcoven and VagrantSong are all examples of games more tightly designed around their terrain features. Something they all benefit from).

Our four survivor gear grids all have new elements and some portions of thematic design. Gnostin and Ashbloom both feature a gap in their gear grid because they discarded/destroyed the particular gear during the opening story. I'll go through each of the gear grids and characters in turn here.

Gnostin

Gnostin's loadout helps tell a story of the kind of monsters this settlement deals with, we have gear from the Phoenix, the Sunstalker, the White Lion and the Sculptors (I think). His three new pieces of gear all appear to reference the Sculptors but they might also be constructed in combination with White Lion resources as the Stonescraper's design feels very White Lion coded. His main gimmicks are maintaining his Insanity so his Phoenix Plackart can keep functioning while tearing up the ground to create protective barriers that he can then tear down to knock the Nukealope over. My hope here is that all three of these Sculptor gear cards arrive soon, because it is a shame that the new terrain provided for this vignette cannot be used elsewhere. I hope that changes.

Gnostin also has a before the showdown 'betting' mechanic where you're looking to incorrectly predict certain events during the showdown, getting it wrong means that fate may be changing and Gnostin gains survival, otherwise his poor brain is harmed from the feeling of being in a time loop still.

Ashroot

Crusader Armor appears to be a set for a potential future monster called the Iron Succubus. This set is around a mid-campaign power level with a focus around tanking. It's designed to work in combination with the Warding Tower Shield which is a concern for a future release of this monster (unless multiple Iron Succubus gear cards use Diverting Ward). In addition we have the Warding Guidon Lance (our second Guidon Lance, the other one is with the Halloween Ashbloom) which works in tandem with Ashbloom's matching lance.

Ashroot's role is primarily a tank with some supporting elements, he's slow and easily hit, but he's able to ensure that damage is spread out evenly across all his armor pieces which means he's way more durable than most survivors with similar armor point levels. He also gradually powers up in strength by blocking hits, which means that his durability pays off with an inevitability of overwhelming strength causing 2+ wound rolls. He just has to get there.

Ashbloom

Ashbloom is the comic relief of this group and seems to be someone who has ADHD (described as Mercurial Impulses on her card), she's wearing most of the same set as Ashroot, but her gimmick is based around archiving gear cards for various benefits. Wardrobe Expert allows her to avoid the first severe injury to most locations while Unshackled gives her a boost in movement and speed when she archives gear. One of the fundamental issues with Wardrobe Expert (and Unshackled) is use of the Archive mechanic; archiving gear is not something you can really do except when you're in the final showdown of the campaign. Gear is expensive and slow to acquire, survivors unless they are on the precipice of an important unlock (Weapon Mastery for example) are not. The one off nature of this vignette allows us to experience what it is like to lean into this dramatic nudist mindset, no qualms in archiving gear here. It showcases just how interesting Wardrobe Expert would have been if it read “Return the gear to settlement storage” instead of archiving it. Even the Musk Bomb doesn't suck for once and that's incredible to see, even if it does take multiple supporting elements to manage that.

We also finally get an answer to the question which has existed since the very first Vignette came out, which is how do you archive gear cards that are printed on a sheet? You cover them with generic tokens. That's not the best solution, I would have preferred being offered some “archived” tokens in this box in order to do this, but ultimately it does work well enough.

While on the subject of tokens, I think Survival Action tokens being supplied for each of the characters in this vignette, covering Act, Dodge, Encourage and Dash. These tokens are really helpful when teaching the game to new players via a vignette and it also adds to the boutique experience a huge amount. The act tokens are already basically in the rulebook already and the rest of the tokens could have been constructed from the comic art, so this is a real missed opportunity.

Monday

I wish that Monday had been named Wednesday; because not only would that have been a perfect Addams Family reference, it also would have referenced the 19th English nursery rhyme line of “Wednesday's child is full of woe” and that would have perfectly summarized her personality and playstyle.

Like Ashbloom, Monday is another Damage Producing Survivor (DPS/Damage Dealer). But, while Ashbloom leans into a more risk orientated build that grows in strength, speed and movement over the showdown Monday instead is a more traditional blind spot attacker who has additional protections to try and mitigate the Antelope AI/HL cards that back kick. She's even got some Trap protection built into her weapon and can also tank in the shade of an Obstacle either on the board already or created by Gnostin. I think of the four characters she's the play style I enjoyed the most, she's similar to Forgot in that manner, but different enough to be unique.

Fen liking the Sunstalker related gear, what a surprise. Sharks, Squids and Crocodiles, that's my kind of wild animals.

The shade mechanic she has is really neat, you are forced to place the shade on the board, and while that offers a respawn for Monday it also provides an additional threat that you need the other survivors to not attack for as long as you have your once per showdown extra life active. Once you do get to respawn however that Shade is still coming back, except now it is purely an extra threat with no benefit left. This is an incredibly exciting, interesting and fresh piece of game design and that's not all she has. The Shadowstalker Geta footwear allows Monday to take advantage of the terrain in order to “teleport” by stepping into the shadows and emerging elsewhere before attacking. Set up correctly this gives Monday two attacks in a round as she can “shadow step” for the first attack and then attack normally for the second. All of this gives her synergy with Gnostin's terrain construction gimmick and I like that she can work so closely with Gnosin as she's the survivor who appears closest to him during the comic (he still detests her endless narration and sardonic wit though).

The Nukealope

So how has the Nukealope changed the Screaming Antelope? Vignettes tend to be varied in how much impact they have on the way that the monster is recontextualized. The White Gigalion for my tastes didn't do enough with its alterations, it's rather basic and crude in how it alters things and it simply feels like “White Lion, but bigger”. On the other end of the spectrum is the Killenium Butcher who completely revitalises the nemesis monster and does the impossible, it manages to make the best base game monster design even better.

The Nukealope lays somewhere between these two, trending a little bit more towards the Killenium Butcher, gaining some new cards while excluding others. Here are the changes to the monster:

Base Stats and Traits

Level 2

• -1 Basic AI Card → +2 Advanced AI Cards

• This increases its life by one from 16 to 17

• +1 Toughness

• +1 Movement

• -1 Damage → +1 Speed

• -Trample Trait, - Diabolical Trait → +Atomic Vigor Trait, +Prehensile Tail Trait +Critical Mass Trait

• +1 Accuracy Token

Level 3

• No Change to AI cards, Toughness or Life

• +1 Movement

• -1 Damage → +1 Speed

• -Trample Trait → +Atomic Vigor Trait, +Prehensile Tail Trait +Critical Mass Trait +Exponential Yield Trait (+2 [star])

• +1 accuracy token

• 2 evasion tokens instead of one

The Basic Action is also made more threatening and the Instinct has been completely re-written to be very dangerous as it uses the Gobbled Up status card instead of chewing on acanthus.

We can see this is a lot of tooling up of the monster's base stats, but there is also a lot of heavy lifting done by the three new body part trait cards. So we'll look at those in a bit of detail now.

Each of these cards is double sided with an inert (brown - depicted above) and active (green - not depicted) side. Atomic Vigor's inert side allows the monster to randomly make one of its traits become active when it consumes/gobbles up things (shame there is no Screaming Nukealope Active dice in the box). The active side works the same but has the monster draw an extra AI per turn.

Critical Mass has the Nukealope produce a zone 3 explosion that damages all survivors for 2 damage to [Star] hit locations. When Active it also gets a variant of diabolical where it runs through the furthest away survivor, triggering that critical mass explosion.

The Prehensile Tail has the largest change, on the Inert side it gains a variant of grab which dumps the survivor in the blind spot instead (still inflicts the damage) when active it instead inflicts Gobbled Up, which is a very dangerous situation for any survivor to be in. Not only are they off the board, but they are at risk of death until freed. This 'after damage' trigger tends to reward high evasion most of all.

HL Cards

Wailing Slide Trap Card → Fission Trap Card x2

The Wailing Slide is replaced with two new trap cards, meaning the Nukealope joins the prestigious club of multiple trap monsters. Fission is relatively soft when drawn without all traits active, it's also very soft if you're using reach/range to attack the monster (as you should be). However if you are adjacent when two traps are drawn then you're gaining the Irradiated impairment, which is the same nightmare that Wanderer Goth has to deal with.

With all three traits active, drawing a single version of this trap results in the Supercriticality story event, which is a big old blue burst of light, the monster full moving to the attacking survivor, inflicting [Star] damage to each hit location + Irradiated ([Star] + [Star] if you've been gobbled up) and then returning the monster back to Inert form on all traits and dealing it a wound. This is of course one very dangerous trap card.

The Campaign Gameplay

The Nukealope showdown plays in a somewhat similar fashion to the showdown, however as I alluded to before the actual showdown layout is a lot tamer and less interesting. We have all the normal Acanthus, but instead of the bug patch we have a debris terrain tile. There is also an interesting bonus reward when you beat the L3 Nukealope for the first time as long as you have Bloodletting innovated (which is a desirable Innovation anyway), one survivor gains the Nullifying Antibody, which is something they can pass down to their descendent and provides some protection from the otherwise brutal Irradiated impairment that this monster likes to inflict. This means it also has some crossplay with Wanderer Goth as her expansion uses the irradiated impairment as a core feature.

Once a Screaming Nukealope is defeated in campaign it will unlock the Hot Zone extension to the Stone Circle Crafting Location, in this we have four new pieces of gear for a total of five cards; a spear, two paired katars, a whip and the completion of the power core cycle. The Katars and the Spear are both direct upgrades from the base forms of the Beast Knuckle and Spear of Longinus, meaning that we finally have good reason to craft Beast Knuckles and the Spear.

Previously the Beast Knuckles tended to be ignored because they were at best a side grade to the Lion Beast Katar and because the base game has terrible (no) Katar progression at all they often languished in the box. The Lion Beast Katars received an upgradeable version in the White Gigalion and now the Nuclear Knuckles offer the same glow up for the Antelope gear. There is now good reason to craft both Beast Knuckles and train up Katar in campaigns that involve the Antelope, which is a good thing. I am not sure I'm correct, but the name of the Nuclear Knuckle's ability “Shining Finger” reminds me of the Star Finger and Shining Diamond; both from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (Stardust Crusaders and Diamond is Unbreakable respectively).

Also shout out to that ability making paired more desirable, that's always nice to see.

The Atomic Lance is pretty much something you can immediately craft as soon as you have the Lance of Longinus crafted as most of what you'll need can be gathered in the same showdown (the two Iron it requires can be grabbed on the way via pickaxes or procured earlier in the campaign).

These two are joined by the Nuclear Whip, another member of the previously snubbed Whip Family and it is in itself offering a new and unique set of mechanics along with Perfect hit synergy. This one feels kind of bad to use without other strength increasing tools though, I like its design, but its strength is around 2 points below what it needs as a baseline.

Our final gear card is that aforementioned Green Core, the previous two cores (Red, Blue) come in the Dragon King expansion and offer Sharp or Deadly. However, those cores always suffered both thematically and mechanically due to a lack of affinities, one would expect the “core” to be placed in the middle of a gear grid, but they were detrimental to put there.

The Green Core here does not fall into that trap, it has all four green affinities and as such represents a “core” gear card with perfect thematics and a lot of mechanical options. It's also very thematically on point with its ability being a tanking one (green is the tanking/defence affinity). My only complaint here is that I think new versions of the Red and Blue core affinity could have been included in this box with a note that they represent an upgrade to the Dragon King ones. I do expect to see updated Red and Blue cores to match the Green One in campaigns of death, but I think doing it here would have been a meaningful gesture to the customers and perhaps even convince some players to pick up the Dragon King in order to experience the other Nuclear Weapons and Cores.

It is a pity that none of the campaign gear cards nor the campaign Screaming Nukealope showdown uses the new terrain that Gnostin's Stone Wrecker creates during the vignette showdown. It was one of the interesting tactical elements and it is a shame that it is locked away from players.

However, all of these new gear cards are expanding into play space that was not there before and that is always the best kind of designs for these expansions. Like the monster they carve out a new experience with only a few extra cards, these kind of deft brushstrokes are what I want to see from vignettes. If APG and Team Death can just work on small touches like the aforementioned blue/red cores and continue the crossover of some mechanics like the ones this has with Goth then I look forward to the next vignette variant release monster; which I hope is one of the Gorm, Flower Knight or Spidicules and not the Phoenix or King's Man.

Final Thoughts

While this is not on the level of the Killenium Butcher, the Screaming Nukealope is a welcome replacement for the higher levels of the Screaming Antelope in a similar way to how White Gigalion provides a stronger challenge for experienced players. The main shortcomings here are in relation to the other Nuclear Weapons being a part of the Dragon King expansion and the lack of updated Blue and Red Cores in this box to match the design of the new Green Core. This is still a stand alone expansion that doesn't need the Dragon King, but the experience is certainly enhanced.

The vignette scenario is not as thematic, layered or textured as the Killenium Butcher's scenario is; however it is far more engaging that the old White Gigalion. The characters here in this situation are more deeply expressed and interesting than Gadrock and co; while the humour here didn't make me laugh out loud, Gnostin's weary response to each and every beat works very well. Good comedy often requires a excellent straight man to bounce off and Gnostin is perfect in that role.

Once integrated into the base game the Nukealope lifts up the Screaming Antelope and while the Hit Location deck remains the major issue in this monster's design the new traits and trap cards along with rewards offer meaningful progression and reasons to hunt the higher level Nukealopes. The carrot and stick are appropriately balanced here.

For players who want to keep the core quarries in their campaigns (perhaps because they're also playing with the Slender Man or Lion Knight who both need base game quarry monster resources) then this offers enough variation to make this a worthy expansion. In the overall Vignette ranking I currently place this one above the White Gigalion and below the Killenium Butcher.

I do recommend this one if you want to refresh your tired antelope and give it new life, but if you're after a vignette in particular for one offs or teaching games, I'd get the Killenium Butcher first. For myself, like the White Gigalion before it, this has now replaced al L2+ versions of the Screaming Antelope in all my campaigns as it offers a higher challenge with appropriate rewards.

Score: B+ (nearly got an A-, but there's too many little things missing here and there for me to feel comfortable giving it an A grade).

You can purchase this expansion here.