A Review of Beta Frozen Survivor - Cyclamen | Kingdom Death: Monster
Recycling the mangled, extinguished lanterns of the settlement, they fill the vessels with the stinking thermal sludge harvested from fissures reaching deep beneath the frozen stone faced ground. The heatless glow is replaced with a dimmer but warming light.
Contents:
1x Cyclamen Survivor and Base
1x Art Print
1x Character Art Card
1x Rules Card
1x Furnace Lantern Gear Card
I'm always a little surprised when another member of the Frozen Survivor tribe appears in the shop, they represent an fascinating window at another part of the game's world but also they're not exactly something that seems to generate much interest as I often see them sit in the shop longer than others. However, the past three Frozen Survivor releases of Hellebore, Galanthus and Camellia all provided interesting pieces of gear that work together. Hellebore brought us the Cold Face Dagger, Galanthus came with the Warming Pelt, Camellia bore the Thermal Wrappings and now we have Cyclamen with the Furnace Lantern. There's potential room for the arm wrappings and maybe a variant loincloth, but perhaps Cyclamen represents the completion of a four “starting” survivor set for the Frozen Seas?
The Miniature
Like all of his frozen colleagues, Cyclamen has a wrapped up and hunched physique that really manages to sell the the trepidation of his exploring the frigid environment that he is in. I don't know about all of you, but we've been in our own frozen landscape here for over a month now and maybe it is that cold which is helping me see Cyclamen's own struggles to remain warm. I really like this miniature a great deal, in fact I think it's better than the art at depicting how frosty and hostile the world he lives in can be. I do think all four of these survivors should have been depicted with their toes covered up though, frostbite is no joke.
I especially love the design of their Furnace Lanterns, the lanterns in Kingdom Death are a wildly varied bunch, some designs are hits for me, others are misses. These Furnace Lanterns (as we've just learned they are called) are certified hits. I like the phial shape to them and the tops look so much like miner's helmets, also the entire shape taken as a whole reminds me of the Daleks in some ways.
Overall it is a great sculpt, one which I like as much as Hellebore back when she debuted this line of survivors and for my tastes it's the second best of the bunch.
The Gameplay
Crafting Cost: 1x endeavor, 1x broken lantern
The Furnace Lantern continues the trend set by its other frozen gear ilk by being a low cost, very early game gear card that requires endeavours as a part of its crafting cost. Having endeavours as a part of this cost is always an interesting element, endeavours are functionally resources but their value changes a great deal throughout the years of a campaign. At the start of a campaign, where one would want to make these frozen gear cards because of how they are structured
A neat part of the storytelling that having endeavours be a part of the cost is; I always liked how the Stone Noses gear card cost an endeavour because that paints the picture of not only a survivor going out and collecting them from the ground but also the effort they spend in chipping/breaking the noses from the faces. The same applies here, it helps sell the hardship and effort involved in crafting things in sub zero temperatures. We don't know much about the place they all come from, but it does seem that development and construction takes a lot of effort and time.
The gear card itself is also using one of the mechanics that work to KDM's strengths which is the puzzle of the gear grid. The gear grid with its positional elements like affinities and these pointing arrows are a large part of what keeps KDM distinct from the other Boss Battlers. I've written before about how engaging and unique this system is and I'm really happy whenever I see the arrow turn up because it represents a space the game hasn't fully explored yet.
In the case of the Furnace Lantern if you have a heavy armor gear located underneath the Furnace Lantern then you gain an impressive +2 strength tokens on arrival. You also need to combine this with a full red affinity and while the lantern offers half of one, it's also pointing in the most challenging direction (up). This means in order to take advantage of both synergies you need to put this card in the middle row, but because the ability is not puzzle-red you could instead get the affinity elsewhere.
Insulated
A survivor is insulated if they have 6 or more gear cards that grant them armor points.
Without this, the Furnace Lantern still has another ability, which gives you +1 survivor when you move the survivor on the hunt board as long as you are insulated. This is a unique element that uses a mechanic in the Hunt Phase that hasn't been explored too much with gear, while one needs to be insulated which means either wearing 5 pieces of armor and an accessory/shield to activate it or alternatively the Warming Pelt from Galanthus reduces the requirement to 3 gear cards instead.
All of this means we're again being guided to put all of these gear cards together as the Cold Face Dagger gains speed if you are insulated and the Thermal Wrappings gives extra armor points to heavy armor hit locations (and +1 movement if you are insulated and have a blue affinity). For reference here's all four pieces of gear together.
Looking at this, we're missing a fifth heavy armor gear card that would go on the arms to complete the "set" and activate the Warming Pelt. Even without that it's an interesting collection. Perhaps the Thermal Arm Wrappings will have some other spatial element to build further on this layout, or perhaps now we have four survivors we're done with the Frozen Survivors and we'll see the beta focus move onto another small pocket of the game's world.
Final Thoughts
Like most beta releases you don't need this, of course if you've picked up the previous three then there's more value here because of the way each release has been designed to work with the others. If you haven't picked any others up, this is probably the best stand alone gear card because it is an item (these always have the longest lifespan in a campaign) and it needs just 1 red affinity plus a heavy armor gear card to point at in order to give the best bonus (the +2 strength tokens) and it's also another lantern for post Watcher campaigns.
I think it's very interesting and unsurprisingly the most powerful due to its nature as an item.
Frozen Survivor – Cyclamen is at time of writing available here: https://shop.kingdomdeath.com/products/frozen-survivor-cyclamen