I think the negatives to this game are really part of the reason I want to play it so badly. Especially the idea of cascading failure and playing repeatedly to truly figure the game out. It reminds me of FromSoft games, my favorite set of games in existence. There's some subconscious draw for me when a game beats me down that badly. I can't help but go back and try to do better, and the satisfaction of seeing something new has always been worth the frustration such a game throws at you. Sadly I haven't had the stability to pick it up yet, but it is a goal of mine and I look forward to the day I find this behemoth of gaming sitting on my doorstep.
I really like KD: M, it's the crown of my gaming collection, but man, watching /months/ of game play vanish because of a single bad roll or unfortunate card draw is awful. There is a difference because in FromSoft stuff, the point is that you fail, learn, get better and then prevail. In KD:M, you can do /everything/ right and still randomly fail.
At least with KD:M, there is a theoretical cap to how much you can spend until you have everything...assuming Poots is able to put everything up on the store to begin with.
There are a lot of us crazy persons, GW made a $375 million business based on those crazy people. Imho enough room for more crazy people playing KDM. ;-) Also, ever went all in on a CMoN KS project, that can easily set you back $700+. KDM to date is about three of those projects for those of us who backed the intitial KS projects (or late pledge blackfriday deals). If you want it now, you're going to spend a lot more...
I gotta say, you mention nightmare accounting like it’s a bad thing. As a career accountant and avid enthusiast of the macabre, this sounds right up my alley.
Only 6 minutes in the video, but I can already say that this is an absolutely brilliant idea and fills an important hole within the boardgame youtubers. Personally, when I try to decide if I want to get a boardgame or not, I can quickly identify the elements that appeal to me. It is usually much more complicated to figure out why said game would be a bad fit. (Actually that's true for anything, not just boardgames). I think analyzing flaws in a product and deciding if you can live with them is a very mature and intelligent way of shopping. Knowing that you love KDM makes your Confirmation Bias video much more weight too, and it also gives you more credibility as a whole. I will be using these videos in the future when I'm on the fence about a game. Keep it up.
Knowing how much you like KDM and seeing how much of the content you still have in shrink wrap is a visceral feeling. I am trying to not glance at my hobby shelf with un-assembled sprues and half painted quarries....
I like the concept of this video series. I'd love to see Tainted Grail (I see it behind you all the time), and 7th Continent. I also wouldn't mind recent thoughts on Oathsworn, as I'm on the fence about late pledging it.
Glad your digging the idea :) - Tainted Grail and 7th con require some more play! However, I would love to cover them this way! Oath - I need to play a lot before I could criticize it fairly.
The point about hunting White Lions over and over again is a fair point - base game has two many nemesis and not much quarry monsters to stop it from feeling repeatable (saying as a person who plays KDM at least once a week during last 2.5 years), without expansions like Gorm it's ok for 1-2 first successfull campaigns. As for growing older and delays - same thing, cant agree more. Perfect requires time, not all however will make this far. Thank you for this honest review, it's what many gamers experience if they own at least the core box. Nevertheless I dont own other big board games so it is probably a per-life hobby game ;)
Watching this video makes me want to play my base copy of KDM. The only reason I can't is that I am working on moving so I have been packing. Also I'm almost 50 and I still enjoy playing my games.
Im suprised someone your age plays this game I wont get it because the theme is a bit too much and if my 50 year old dad saw the content of the game he you flip out saying its demonic probably. And the price is just so much I might as well get a bunch of huge games for 100 dollars a piece like gloomhaven.
51 here and I have all of it. It’s amazing and Adam Poots always overdelivers, so I went big on his latest Kickstarter too. I also have lots and lots of resins. 😂😂
I appreciate you making a video that gives some tougher critiques to a game that you love. Many of the things you talked about were reasons why I won't consider getting into this game, but I still love seeing content you make about it!
Thanks so much :) I think if you really know and love something - you should be able to know its flaws and why it might not fit others! I don't want you to play and lord forbid by this game - if it is not for you! Or any game in that sense!
Gloomhaven, Middara, Oathsworn, Eitherfeilds... really anything that you may need to commit a year or two to play would be ripe choices to pick. I love the content! Keep it up!
I think I’m realizing some ‘bad’ choices when all the huge campaigns you mentioned I’ve backed or preordered. I really hope my son grows up to like boardgames so I can play with him.
@@gulnaga4386 my gaming group is joking that I'm set well into retirement age with all of the "big campaign" games I've backed. But with games like Monopoly, Life, Sorry... they just don't hold interest the way Kingdom Death does. This video inspired me to go prime my Dragon king so I can paint it and start my first People of the Stars campaign and take up my Fall gaming schedule.
This is hands down one of the best formats on board games i've ever seen. I started watching board game related videos about 10 years ago, but just after I watched this I realized how much I want more diverse oppinions on board games and in general. And I think it helped a lot that you know the game so well and that you do love it, because thats why your critique is very in depth and on point. I strongly believe that more diverse oppinions help our hobby to be more inclusive and mature. Changing perspectives even playing devil's advocate can help understanding oppinions that are not your own. And that is the dawn of empathy. And thats what our hobby needs. And probably our world. BTW first time I've watched your channel.
Its funny. We made a similar podcast on my german kdm channel and we came to the same results. I really enjoyed your view on the things and i totally agree. Its the holy grail of boardgaming for me but i understand eveyone who cant engage as much into the game as we did, mainly because of the theme or the money and time invest this game provides. And its not the classic hero rushing crushing monster destroying game many people would search for. Keep going, and greetings :)
Damn! Now I'm glad that I cancelled my pledge when the second edition came out. Way too much randomness for my taste. I'll stick with Frostgrave and Rangers of Shadow deep instead 😁
Great video. When I play my copy of KDM, I have to make a mental flip in my mind that I am no longer meta'ing a game, that I am instead just along for an incredible story. It helps me deal with the difficulty of the game and the constant failure.
Honestly he's be able to stop selling it special order, and instead sell it in stores, if he offered a version that forwent the miniatures. Just use carboard standees. The minis, while awesome, don't ACTUALLY add anything to the game. This would increase his sales SIGNIFICANTLY. And the creator could just leave a link, or several, in the book to go buy the minis if they wanted, as well as expansions. It would be a smarter business decision, because for years I did not buy because of that cost being so prohibitive (it was on sale when I got it), and he's admitted the reason it CAN'T be in stores, and costs SO much, is those minis.
Don't know who you are, your pedigree, or your usual format. Stumbled onto this video randomly and LOVE IT! Thank you for this. Subscribed and will be checking out your catalog.
All fair points, except perhaps about the theme. Nudity, guts and gore I don't have an issue with, this is a game for grownups not children, which is a part of it appeal. One point you missed is the multiplayer aspect, you cannot play this game 4 people too many times one player will have to sit out. 2 player is good and 3 player is mostly good. This is mostly due to deaths during hunts which will leave players without anything to do for the entire evening. That is the primary thing I personally hate about the game I love. Death in the settlement phase is perfectly fine, and tells the story of a grim world.
Still - it does make it wrong for a lot of people and for a large group - I think that is fair even if I have had fun with the groups I have played with. :)
I would actually say the theme is for adolescents, not grownups - it's like 40k in that way, it tries extremely hard to appeal to the edgy teenage boy demographic with some of its theming. A lot of older people find it juvenile. Because, to be honest, some of it absolutely is, which is a shame. If the theming was more *actually* mature, it'd get a LOT more play than it does. And no, "cracks in the ground" will never be perfectly fine. It's probably the single poorest designed event in any game I've ever played and the only thing I've ever seen that made people quit a game outright on the spot :P
Great content! I've had the game for over 5 years now and never opened it because I have so many other games and it's also so intimidating to open and learn a new long and tedious mechanic. Also I would have to play solo and this video help me put things in a better perspective to actually open it up and play it. At the moment I am enjoying tainted grail so once I complete it or at least half then I'll take a peak at KDM. Thanks again for the content!
You talk about turning 30 like it's turning 90. Jeesh, making me feel old. :) I agree though that priorities do change throughout life. The stupid shit I wasted my money on in my youth.
Yeah, hah, I felt the same thing. I'm in my mid-40's and I'm playing more board games than I ever did before. It goes in circles though.. when my two sons were born, there was no time for anything else. Now they are older... I play games with them. (Can't wait to play KDM with them... some day... I tell them when they are 25 they might be ready :) )
@@tabletopgeeks I kind of see it like legos you can enjoy it no matter how old you are. And board games allow you to get away from the internet which I think it a huge plus for if the power ever goes out or your eyes are hurting from sitting staring at a screen all day.
A great video series. It has been the kind of game I like to watch gameplay of. A visual novel, I would never have the time, playgroup, money or paint tome. Beasts of war stopped their series. I have felt a bit lost without a new series. Looking forward to your KDM videos
Really interesting video. This game seems so cool but I can't get past the time commitment and getting a consistent play group. I appreciate the honesty in the conversation. Just recently getting into board games and trying to find some good ones for my collection.
I made this comment sort of poking fun midway through the video about your rule book, we had to replace our rulebook because it was falling apart, it fell off of laps, had a broken spine and had pages well used. I in no way wanted to diminish your use of time or hrs spent playing. When in all seriousness it truely does come down to TIME. Not that I saw you as old or young, it just wasnt in my mind. I will be 32 come September, and it was wholesome, funny and depressing when you talked about if you will be into this when you are 30. It's scary to think about this game and time....am I wasting it? How would this play out if I had kids, a spouse, if I wasnt where I was now due to my past relationship? Kingdom Death is all consuming, I have the core, expansions, the 3d terrain, the fan content from your coverage, my roommate and I are making fan content, i made a board game table, bought a massive display case, I mod and paint the models, all for KDM. I work semi full time/part time, so that supports the habit, but I find KDM taking away from other things I could be spending my time on. Our time is insanely valuable. A coworker was like why dont you do this, and I had to explain that it wasnt worth my time. Kdm is a glorious game if you have the time, your book and minis show that, I dont mean for that to be negative. The time you spend is creating glorious content, and I cant wait for more, cant wait to spend my valuable time watching them. I dont make it through all of your videos and sometimes they are on in the background, but the KDM content is what I'm here for. I cant stand to watch people just play or teach KDM, no one has truely captured it. I think if you kept things short and sweet and leaned into the story aspect, told us your unique character names and maybe played SOTF so they'd stay around longer you could make content on play by plays of those characters. I dont want to tell you how to create, I'm sure what you make KDM related will be awesome, and I'll watch it. (Sorry novel). Keep up the great work Jesse.
On the subject of randomness, what I’ve learned after 500+ hours into this game is that while the game is heavy RNG and the dice can just choose whether you win or lose sometimes, you can mitigate a lot of this by planning. By planning I mean by ordering your turns correctly in a fight, deciding who to bring on each hunt/nemesis encounter, what weapon proficiencies to prioritize, spreading gear well, and what innovations to get. And this may sound really basic but I mean your planning must start from the beginning of the game and payoff at the end of the game. I:E, always having someone master fist and tooth starting at the prologue by throwing a founding stone at the white lion at the start to get a guaranteed +1 strength, making sure the survivors in front of the white lion move to the sides and attack first so they don’t get grabbed on reaction. Another would be NOT taking your best survivors to phoenix but taking only your youngest ones so they don’t age out. Or storing your survivors who are gold smoke knight ready so they don’t die. Or do things like finding exploits in the game. (Infinite insanity from white lion + immortal = unkillable via damage, husk of destiny + slender man secret fighting art = untargetable infinite movement and extra strength roll, double dagger mastery = turn 1 kill) I could go on and on about how you could side things in your favor, but I will say that no new player/group would know this and would get creamed immediately. And a lot of the cool stuff is in the expansions, and a lot of the good stuff, base kdm is rough and the only way to beat gold smoke night would be stuff like red charm, crit builds, phoenix armor plus big strength stats and the like. Tho the worst part about this game is the settlement events like plague and cracks in the ground, if you get plague within 2-3 lantern years just restart, if not then rush bloodletting and ammonia so you make it through easy. But cracks in the ground is just stupid, same with murder, where you are pretty much guaranteed to lose a survivor. Tho I guess with murder you could age a useless guy with phoenix so he’s higher hunt exp than everyone and will just be the fall guy for that event.
Yeah! I think this format is fantastic. Especially when the subject of the topic is a game people love and/or have a personal love for it. I've never played KDM, only found out about it thru your channel (is it right for your video), and I seriously can see myself getting the game if I had people around me who would love to put some hours with it. After doing some research and watching your videos, I believe this game is a type of a game in which, you must commit not only time but, put an effort to get immersed within the game. I'm definitely happy that this game exists, I just hope @kingdomdeath would reply to your tweets sometime soon lol.
Yes - I would never do this format on a game that is already getting beet up or people don't care about. This is 100% one that takes over for a time :) and I love that about it! I also with they would talk to me.
Great set of videos. Look forward to more in this style. KD was my first board game love. First introduction into mini building, painting, and really board games in general. I play solo, and even enjoy the pen and paper accounting side of it. But the last time i played i got until the last few lantern years of the people of sun campaign and felt way too overwhelmed playing solo with over 50 pages of character sheets and memos around me. Kind of put me off playing for a bit, but a month has passed and I'm ready to jump back into the madness.
I feel the exact same way about the game. I love the vibe, and it has given me an amazing hobby, but the only reason anyone actually likes the game is because they are too monetarily invested to be objective about it. Warhammer has the same issues. I own the fact that I am never going to finish it, I will never see everything it has to offer, and that if I am going to enjoy the game, I basically have to write my own ruleset just to enjoy myself. But still, I don't regret a single second or cent spent with it. I need Poots to be more transparent and forthcoming about the future of the game before I will pre-order any more content. I will only buy product when it is available on the website, and only if it is actually relevant to the game. No more single figures.
Even as a backer on Kickstarter, who got in on the best deals they had in limited quantity on Frogdog level that included every single expansion, and add-on possible, backing the first and second campaign ran $1856, which does not include shipping for the large amount of stuff that has yet to actually ship. On top of that, picking up all one off add-ons he has released since 2014 through the KD web site ran an additional $1461, and that was not even close to all of them, since many of them sell out in minutes of the email announcing them go out. So it is essentially impossible to buy all the content for the game, since large amounts of it are sold in very limited quantities and are *POOF* gone before you can even get a chance to buy them even if you want to. Even "reprints" of figures and content sell out in minutes to hours, with the coolest miniatures that include game cards going so fast that unless you are specifically watching for them every single day you will miss them. So that is $3317.80 for the "bulk" of the game, at very high and no longer possible discounts. I cant even imagine how much trying to get all of that would cost now. I would imagine double to triple that price, if it is even possible to get it all.
I really liked this video concept. It really works for me. It's like an expanded right for you wrong for you, but also a deeper conversation. I would love to see one like this for Gloomhaven and other big-box higher-priced games (like the games of Vital Lacerda) or games with just a ton of additional content (like Arkham Horror the card game).
Love this format! You did convince me to not buy KDM but I was almost there anyway. Hearing about all the delays and the lack of communication from the company and the price tag to be honest made me hesitant. I am a Gloomhaven fan and I think that I will be kick happier starting with that. Waiting for Frosthaven got next year. I would over to see you do this with Gloomhaven, even though I like it I think you have some awesome opinions. Great job brother!
wonderful video, was having a tough time with deciding on this game and based on the time points you brought up, i believe i will wait a year or two before i try getting into this
"I haven't really spent a lot of time hunting the Phoenix on the board." I've played over 100 hours and hunted the Phoenix once. Why don't we feel like hunting it, I wonder.
The first time is pure terror. Fight it more often, you'll see it's not THAT overpowered. I've fought it at least 15 times, and everytime it's a good showdown.
Love KDM (only had since gencon 2019) but time is a major requirement. I definitely got too many games at once and feel like I need to play them before going back to KDM. KDM is definitely a game I'll continue to love long after the other games get old. Problem is more games keep coming. Love more KDM and think this series could be a good one.
All very valid points. Still love the game though. I tend to play with a couple of house rules that mitigate ridiculous brutality. I have no shame about altering the things that would otherwise keep me from getting it to the table. I may not get the bragging rights of beating the game on hard mode, but I get to experience the content and the rush of a win amongst so many brutal defeats.
Really enjoyed this format. Critiquing what we love is a really valuable discussion and it gives other people, who might not be as familiar with the topic, a rather unique insight.
A neighbor randomly gave me like 40 brand new pieces. Prior i had never heard of this game, nor had anyone i know as well. So i looked it up and stumbled on this gem of a video! Dude,thank you for informing me about this. And such an amazing video as well!
I had the same experiences, but i didnt go full in on the game as you did. I bought the 1.5 game as a Kickstarter backer and i started the game several times with different gaming groups and friends. Each one of these groups thought i was crazy for paying that much for this game but wanted to give it a try and actually they gave it 2-3 tries each bc they felt bad for my investment. But in the end all of them said "i'm out!" because this game is so relentless and unforgiving that all of them lost the interest in playing it. It makes you really feel depressed about all that happens. You might start good and kill Lions and get good ressources. But then you suddenly draw "Murder" two times in a row and loose all your experienced fighters, just a lantern year before the Butcher arrives... And this is not even close to encounters later on, but it was enough to demotivate experienced and grown up player groups. So after 1-2 years i sold the game because i didnt have anyone in my surroundings who would like to play this with me and playing it alone is possible but it just isnt the same when you laugh at each other for being unlucky with our rolls only to get headchomped by a head targeting attack from a monster. Thanks for the review and i hope you wont loose players faster then your settlers XD
Hey Quack! First of all in imho this is one of your best videos on this channel. Only a big love can provide big pain. And - honestly speaking, this video is full of pain. But I'm with you. Ervey word is totally true and could also be my words. But something more positive. I won, sry played, this game through 2 times and still love it more then all other games I own. Keep on track Quack, it wont make you happy but it's worth it playing through. Thanks for this Video. I'm exited which games provide enough soul to talk in this kind of format. Greetings from Austria.
You talking about being 27. I wanted this game at 24 in 2014. I still don’t have the game but I finally think I have funds to buy this game and have others build and paint the minis. So I want to get the core game and maybe gamblers chest. I’m 34 in a few days. I think worrying about age and playing games is unhealthy. That will make you spiral. Live life slow down and do what makes you happy.
More Root is always good! And @Quackalope... i would -love- an 8 player Twilight Imperium 4e game once the expansion hits w/ you, Jan, and BoardgameCo! It would be a Marathon, needed to be broken up in multiple vids but... oh my yes.
People seem to miss that this is also a hobby. For me, gathering friends especially in this climate is very difficult. I enjoy this game for the massive hobby value. I've learnt 3d printing, modeling, painting, magnetization. It's a great solo game to play, and for someone that loves organization and that accounting, this is my niche.
The game has the word “DEATH” in it’s title, so of course the whole concepts of the game will encompass mortality, with all it’s realistic gruesomeness. The start of the game give you most clearest idea of what it’s world is all about; Kill or be killed. You fight to survive within the world, but sometimes not all stories are mean’t to be, not everyone is an unbreakable “hero” and so survivors can die. Again, realism. The world of which the survivors exist in, is one of many horrors. Strangely, though people don’t like to admit, it’s within (most of) our human nature to explore our mortality and it’s morbidness. True KD:Monsters is not a game for the squeamish, but it’s lore and survivor driven storytelling is incredibly well written and fun to interact with. You slowly become a member of the survivors and grow to understand everything the game Kingdom Death: Monsters has to offer. That’s my personal opinion of KDM. Tl:dr Board-game with incredible storytelling, amazing figurines & fun gameplay. But ridiculously expensive! (BUT worth it!) 😄
Thousands of dollar in cost may be true but it is still cheaper than most war games. I have spent more on Fallout Wasteland Warfare and probably 10x more on 40k over the years.
I feel this game NEEDS a videogame version based around random battles with strangers, but focused on settlements(guild/clans) to play together with people across the world at leasure, and be like chess website that people can take individual turns across days if they want to update attacks when busy.
after gamblers chest the game is essentially $725. It adds so much I imagine future expansions will build upon, so it's more of a $325 update to a $400 game than an optional expansion
Honestly, what drives people I could have played with away is Theme. Theme is what makes people not even GET to Randomness. Randomness is what makes people that got past the theme drop out. It's a shame, with slightly better theming, I could have gotten so much more play out of that box, and then you could just houserule the bad randomness in the game. And yes, some of it is just plain bad. Cracks in the ground, for example, essentially means that you can't ever use heavy armor, and the 10 event means you can't ever bring noisy items along. The base game already has an incredibly tiny item pool (playing basegame only feels so *limited*, almost as if several expansions should always have been in there, and them being expansions hurts the game), and the randomness *cuts it down further*. From a design perspective, this kind of randomness just means either "event comes, and your campaign is over" or "this armor is forbidden in case the event comes up". It's bad. And this kind of stuff means that randomness ending your campaign makes you do the most boring part of the game over and over. I am at a point where I have a year 10 savegame of a settlement that I always use as a base to start from, just drawing a few random cards for the four main survivors and going from there. That and just ignoring the "you got item X, you dead" makes the game a LOT better and a LOT more replayable in my opinion. Still can't get over the theme barrier that way, but it made it a lot more playable with some of my friends that were okay with the theme. Yeah, the theme. Parts are great, others are just a bit embarassing, imo. Sunstalker's never going to hit my table. I'm sure a table of only dudes will have a good huh huh heh huh laugh at it, but I don't play with people like that.
What an interesting video series! I hope it does well and we get more really high profile games. For my part, your last point hits the hardest especially in the world we're living in. Who knows where we'll be a year down the line much less three or five!
I played this game for the first time yesterday and I had a miserable time. I really appreciate your videos on it, you went into a lot of detail and hit similar points that I felt both positive and negative. I think I would rather do literally anything else though rather than play this over complicated and just unfun game. I think it's unfun and hard for the sake of being unfun and hard. For the money I'd rather invest in WH40K, Magic the Gathering, or Gloomhaven and a stack of other board games. They're fun, complex, and don't make me wish I had hours of my life back after playing them (my wallet feels differently but that's here nor there)
Outside of a short moment of hype when the second Kickstarter launched, I'd written of KDM as anything I'd ever bother playing. Having watched the video, you really reaffirmed many of the things I wouldn't enjoy. In particular, the "dark accounting" makes me think that KDM was designed to be a video game where a system of that depth could be encapsulated down to providing the user with hit percentages and damage ranges. What initially had me skipping it was... - The theme. I love a dark theme, but KDM came across as juvenile horror. - The game length due to the amount of repetition and grind. - The inability to deliver timely. When I watched the campaign for the second Kickstarter, it was pretty apparent that the creator hadn't really learned anything from the ridiculously slow delivery of the first campaign. In the end, I looked at Cthulhu Wars for my boutique hobby game. It fits my gaming interests much better. And, while Petersen Games isn't exactly great at being on-time with delivery, they're nothing near as slow as the KDM campaigns.
There's a video series of some people playing one of the Tabletop Simulator mods for it (Tablelords Online, if you want to find it) where they get Plague and the result is....oof. Brutal.
This finally stopped hitting the table in my house because my roomie gave up on it. His primary complaint is that the actual game play is kind of repetitive. The "action" part of the game is always a single monster hunt in a largely empty room. There is really only one scenario (unless you bring in some of the expansions)
I agree with all your points. The only extra criticism I would give is that it can be somewhat boring for a full group of players....I’ve found that one or two people get really into the mechanics and the others just sit and wait to be told when to roll dice. There’s not a lot of player agency or choice. That being said it is also my holy grail of gaming, far and away my favorite board game and really shines with a couple dedicated players that want to get everything out of it.
I have not yet included any expansion (yet, I have played more than 100 hours or 150 I forgot) :-) And yet I have 5 that are, if I may say so, beautifully painted. I spent at least as much time (probably more) on painting the minis :-)
I honestly don't think I would have enjoyed KDM if my first experience was getting the core box. But because I first experienced a heavily scripted TTS mod, it handled so many things for me.
I’m retired and using my retirement to attend college part time. I will have to play this game as a soloist because my only playmate works. I know I have to build the miniatures, but right now I am painting my army of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar: Battleforce: Soulbright Graveyards: Venorian Court.
I'm 34 and have a core friend group that meets for three day weekends about 4 times a year. Years ago was at a crossroads between Gloomhaven and KDM. Chose Gloomhaven, based on this video it seems I made the right choice. With our silly schedule, we feel a lot of pressure to not fail scenarios for fear of retreading content on a time crunch. I'll also add that while playing with friends in person is an irreplaceable experience, games with deep mechanics like this often made us feel that a computer doing the "dark accounting" you're talking about would make the game go much faster and be more enjoyable. This turned out to be totally true in our experience, the PC version of Gloomhaven is excellent and much faster, for the tabletop we farmed out a lot of the calculation to an app called Gloomhaven Helper, which had similar effects. I wonder if KDM will ever be a videogame...I know that sidelines a lot of the hobbyist appeal though.
Okay, so post video comment :D Phenomenal, as always, but I have to agree, I've only played one game on TTS, and the game is so much work. I love hard games, I play Arkham, but one thing I love is getting attached to a character, pimping them out, doing cool stuff, and here, bad dice rolls and it's all over, regardless of what's happening. It just feels bad sometimes. I find the silence to be kinda strange, but not deal breaking. Maybe the thing that puts me off the most is the theme, Arkham is a bit out there, but it's always fairly tame for family to maybe see (ignoring any particularly sensitive family). I wouldn't even want people googling KDM let along seeing it. That on top of the setup time, actually building mini's instead of just opening a box of phenomenal mini's puts this in the TTS category for me. TTS is the perfect environment for me to play this in personally, but I miss out on that tabletop feel that I know you love. Too rambling but keep it up, you robot impersinator you :D
Post video Post comment, comment responce! I would agree it is a lot of work :) and you should not fall in love! Granted . . . I still do! However you should not! The game 100% feels bad . . . almost all the time! I also, understand the art style :P - It is not for most people! Beep. . . beep... boop.
For that price I don't expect to have to construct all the pieces myself. If I can't open it up and start playing with minimal time investment, then it's not for me.
Ive had my finger on the trigger with this game for months now.. You're one of the few reviewers that can hold my attention with this kind of in depth conversation! Very solid dude 🙂👍 thx for the video!
Enjoyed the format. I agree with all the points and still consider this one of my all time favorite games. My group played every week for 14 months and beat it the first time through. My only regret is purchasing the later expansions because I doubt they will ever get played. One of the things that has always confuses me is why I can enjoy kingdom death monster but am often repelled by other games with dark themes.
I'm one of those "insane people" that have gotten to the end and successfully beat the watcher multiple times. tl;dr, I agree with most of what you say. Randomness + Accounting are the biggest problems. I got very, very good at knowing the rules + juggling stuff around + being able to play the game very quickly, at least solo. The only thing i would say deserves a mention, which you did touch on briefly during the "randomness" section, is that KDM does have a lot of dominate strategy/balance issues. Assuming you follow the rules, there is only one optimal way to really play the game. For a game that gives you so many minis/expansions/options to play, it's a shame that optimal play isn't varied at all.
I'm sorry to say this (as an all in KD:M fan not fanboy) but the first thing I saw from you was your first interview with Adam and I thought "Oh no, not another fanboy with nothing but the same questions that any reviewer that never played KD:M would ask" but these two videos are just great. Kudos to you. Hell, I'm even giving a thums up for both. :) Keep doing these videos (even the criticals) you got a new subscriber here.
I feel like KDM is the 40k for boardgamers, large hobby portion & cost. That said its still my favourite game to get to the table, its a puzzle in risk mitigation. I fully agree the time commitment to progress is insane ive hit the end once in about 12 attempts average years take about an hour and a half for me. The flower knight is a great expansion and is like tuning the difficulty down a step if you are looking for that. Alternatively just removing the murder event while a houserule can also ease up some of the punishment and is personal preference.
Nice video. I was scared off from getting Gloomhaven because of the implied time commitment. That means I never felt the slightest temptation to buy KDM, but so many people seem to love it that I've always wondered at the attraction. For me the turn-offs are the dark theme, the cost, building & painting the minis, and the amount of time the game requires.
I don't care about the dark theme, but agree with the other turn-offs. An extra turn-off for me is the lack of a pdf rulebook. Not having the search function to quickly find a rule during play is kinda annoying. But the bigger problem is that whenever I think about buying a game, I prefer to go trough the rulebook beforehand, to then determine if the game is right for me. Not having the option to check on the specifics of gameplay, makes me extremely hesitant to buy any boardgame, combined with all the other barriers, I don't see me buying this game any time soon.
I think the biggest thing that keeps me from picking up kingdom death is when you move out of the core game you have large monsters with absurd amounts of giant male genitalia (sun stalker/forge god) and themes of rape and abuse (wet nurse). That's enough for me, even though I cringe a little bit about the culture of selling out naked thonged alternate sculpts for the survivors. I wouldn't buy zombicide if there was an expansion centered around rape and a line of naked female survivors. ---------- My experience though is only 3 hunts. it was good tactical combat. Boss one I punched off the (male genitalia) of a lion and it became an item you could eat. In between that and the second boss a player got a random event that killed him outright for rolling low...... and... I mean I think there are a lot of ways you can go with game design, but roll low and you die outside of gameplay without any player choice isn't a good one. so, my second reason would be : people don't like losing their characters, which makes this hard to get to the table. I've had people not want to retire characters in gloomhaven and try to sabotage their quest because they didn't want to change. The pressure to change "what happened" is palpable in these types of games. ------------ Third, yes the cost. You can buy Oathsworn with 23ish? bosses, and similar gameplay for $100. Aeon's end with 200+ hours of content, and more of a mix of kdm with story and exploration for $130. You still have $170 extra dollars... okay let's pick up Primal the Awakening, which is another KDM clone geared more towads a Monster Hunter vibe coming to kickstarter soon, and pay the shipping for all 3. That's more game then you ever need, in a bunch of themes, or you could pick one of them and keep the other 2-300.
I agree with most of what you have said - not the rape idea - KDM as a core experience has a pretty hard line around the display of sexual motifs and organs and sex itself. In the core game - sexual encounters to make children are 100% consenting - The wet nurse is monstrous mother figure - it is raising those who worship and are born in the holly lands. It is a twisted depiction of motherhood - not rape at all.
Love this format. Super interested in KDM so this was really helpful. Would love to see more vids like this especially of games you really like. Keep up the good work!
This is fantastic! But you won’t scare me away! Kingdom Death has already twisted my mind. I play on TTS for reasons already discussed in this vid lol I want the physical game for sure. Two games I would love to see you cover in this format are D&D and Kilforth. In the past two months I have put over 100 hours into Gloom of Kilforth and Shadows of Kilforth (both games combined together) And prior to those games I put almost 100 hours into KDM on TTS. I have only ever played KDM solo and have only gotten to the Phoenix. Wonderful job! Have you tried the Kilforth games or any games from Hall or Nothing Productions?
I like the video format and the reasons not to play are all spot on. One thing you said that is just overly dramatic is about the theme. I don’t walk away from the game or any other dark horror games feeling depressed about myself. I believe most people can immerse themselves in a game or movie and then walk away without emotional scars. It’s fantasy...
Thank you for this vid. #3 - investing so many hours just to lose over and over and over is the most frustrating, fun-hindering aspect of this awesome game for me. I believe the Community Edition updates can help mitigate those poor odds (I don't really think Campaign of Death's corrections will help make it easier, no sir).
this is my first video of yours i've watched and im subbing! You're so well spoken to do this in one take, and your critiques are sincere and clearly show how much you care about the medium. Looking forward to seeing your other videos ^^
Best way to enjoy KDM:
1) Find a guy that has it
2) Play it with them for free
Haha :) this works
@@Quackalope Would love to, but have none
It is not a game I want to own but would looove to play.
i'm that guy :P i have all the wave 1 expansions too
I just got my copy for free……
@@furretthefuzzynoodle3896 how did you get it for free?
Oh man, I've been excited for this format! We can finally unveil it!
Hahah - Quack!
I think the negatives to this game are really part of the reason I want to play it so badly. Especially the idea of cascading failure and playing repeatedly to truly figure the game out. It reminds me of FromSoft games, my favorite set of games in existence. There's some subconscious draw for me when a game beats me down that badly. I can't help but go back and try to do better, and the satisfaction of seeing something new has always been worth the frustration such a game throws at you. Sadly I haven't had the stability to pick it up yet, but it is a goal of mine and I look forward to the day I find this behemoth of gaming sitting on my doorstep.
One day :) - I am excited for you!
I really like KD: M, it's the crown of my gaming collection, but man, watching /months/ of game play vanish because of a single bad roll or unfortunate card draw is awful.
There is a difference because in FromSoft stuff, the point is that you fail, learn, get better and then prevail. In KD:M, you can do /everything/ right and still randomly fail.
It's exactly like a fromsoftware game interestingly enough this makes Elden Rings lore look like a happy setting in comparison 😂😂😂
He: Most money on this game then on your whole collection....
Me: You should see my Wh 40k collection painted .... Believe me, I am a crazy person
Haha
At least with KD:M, there is a theoretical cap to how much you can spend until you have everything...assuming Poots is able to put everything up on the store to begin with.
There are a lot of us crazy persons, GW made a $375 million business based on those crazy people. Imho enough room for more crazy people playing KDM. ;-) Also, ever went all in on a CMoN KS project, that can easily set you back $700+. KDM to date is about three of those projects for those of us who backed the intitial KS projects (or late pledge blackfriday deals). If you want it now, you're going to spend a lot more...
@@Cergorachdid you mention bloodborne the board game??? I could have sworn you mentioned bloodborne the board game.
After reading the Berserk manga, KDM allows me to come to terms with existentialism and unspeakable horror in a game format
00:00:00 - Hello, hello
00:01:10 - Why Confirmation Bias
00:02:50 - KDM Overview
00:04:03 - Cost
00:05:54 - Theme
00:07:50 - Randomness
00:10:47 - Time Investment
00:13:20 - Hobbyist Game
00:14:20 - Your Only Game
00:14:47 - Cascading Failure
00:17:26 - Dark Accounting
00:21:35 - Delays and Publisher Engagement
Quack.
thank you
I gotta say, you mention nightmare accounting like it’s a bad thing. As a career accountant and avid enthusiast of the macabre, this sounds right up my alley.
100%
Only 6 minutes in the video, but I can already say that this is an absolutely brilliant idea and fills an important hole within the boardgame youtubers.
Personally, when I try to decide if I want to get a boardgame or not, I can quickly identify the elements that appeal to me. It is usually much more complicated to figure out why said game would be a bad fit. (Actually that's true for anything, not just boardgames). I think analyzing flaws in a product and deciding if you can live with them is a very mature and intelligent way of shopping.
Knowing that you love KDM makes your Confirmation Bias video much more weight too, and it also gives you more credibility as a whole.
I will be using these videos in the future when I'm on the fence about a game.
Keep it up.
Knowing how much you like KDM and seeing how much of the content you still have in shrink wrap is a visceral feeling. I am trying to not glance at my hobby shelf with un-assembled sprues and half painted quarries....
Haha I am sorry for both of us
I like the concept of this video series.
I'd love to see Tainted Grail (I see it behind you all the time), and 7th Continent.
I also wouldn't mind recent thoughts on Oathsworn, as I'm on the fence about late pledging it.
Glad your digging the idea :) - Tainted Grail and 7th con require some more play! However, I would love to cover them this way! Oath - I need to play a lot before I could criticize it fairly.
tainted grail and 7th are super good picks
The point about hunting White Lions over and over again is a fair point - base game has two many nemesis and not much quarry monsters to stop it from feeling repeatable (saying as a person who plays KDM at least once a week during last 2.5 years), without expansions like Gorm it's ok for 1-2 first successfull campaigns. As for growing older and delays - same thing, cant agree more. Perfect requires time, not all however will make this far. Thank you for this honest review, it's what many gamers experience if they own at least the core box. Nevertheless I dont own other big board games so it is probably a per-life hobby game ;)
The expansions help for sure! I think KDM is my . . . hobby game! That and RPGS
Watching this video makes me want to play my base copy of KDM. The only reason I can't is that I am working on moving so I have been packing. Also I'm almost 50 and I still enjoy playing my games.
And you . . . are a true KDM fan :)
Im suprised someone your age plays this game I wont get it because the theme is a bit too much and if my 50 year old dad saw the content of the game he you flip out saying its demonic probably. And the price is just so much I might as well get a bunch of huge games for 100 dollars a piece like gloomhaven.
@@Urek968 Boardgames are for everyone if you enjoyed it :)
51 here and I have all of it. It’s amazing and Adam Poots always overdelivers, so I went big on his latest Kickstarter too. I also have lots and lots of resins. 😂😂
I appreciate you making a video that gives some tougher critiques to a game that you love. Many of the things you talked about were reasons why I won't consider getting into this game, but I still love seeing content you make about it!
Thanks so much :) I think if you really know and love something - you should be able to know its flaws and why it might not fit others! I don't want you to play and lord forbid by this game - if it is not for you! Or any game in that sense!
Gloomhaven, Middara, Oathsworn, Eitherfeilds... really anything that you may need to commit a year or two to play would be ripe choices to pick.
I love the content! Keep it up!
Hahah xD - I’ll have all of those ready . . . In about a year
Seconded.
I think I’m realizing some ‘bad’ choices when all the huge campaigns you mentioned I’ve backed or preordered. I really hope my son grows up to like boardgames so I can play with him.
@@gulnaga4386 my gaming group is joking that I'm set well into retirement age with all of the "big campaign" games I've backed. But with games like Monopoly, Life, Sorry... they just don't hold interest the way Kingdom Death does. This video inspired me to go prime my Dragon king so I can paint it and start my first People of the Stars campaign and take up my Fall gaming schedule.
@@crystulas2598 Yeah, I feel KDM will always be there. I need to finish assembling the expansion creatures and actually start painting them.
This is hands down one of the best formats on board games i've ever seen.
I started watching board game related videos about 10 years ago, but just after I watched this I realized how much I want more diverse oppinions on board games and in general.
And I think it helped a lot that you know the game so well and that you do love it, because thats why your critique is very in depth and on point.
I strongly believe that more diverse oppinions help our hobby to be more inclusive and mature. Changing perspectives even playing devil's advocate can help understanding oppinions that are not your own. And that is the dawn of empathy.
And thats what our hobby needs.
And probably our world.
BTW first time I've watched your channel.
Oh . . . well thank you
Its funny. We made a similar podcast on my german kdm channel and we came to the same results. I really enjoyed your view on the things and i totally agree. Its the holy grail of boardgaming for me but i understand eveyone who cant engage as much into the game as we did, mainly because of the theme or the money and time invest this game provides. And its not the classic hero rushing crushing monster destroying game many people would search for. Keep going, and greetings :)
Nice! I am glad we matched up - thank you and I will keep it up!
Damn! Now I'm glad that I cancelled my pledge when the second edition came out. Way too much randomness for my taste. I'll stick with Frostgrave and Rangers of Shadow deep instead 😁
Haha - I need to look them up! :)
Great video. When I play my copy of KDM, I have to make a mental flip in my mind that I am no longer meta'ing a game, that I am instead just along for an incredible story. It helps me deal with the difficulty of the game and the constant failure.
I think that is needed sometimes!
I wasn't aware that the pledge manager opened back up again periodically.
I realize that wasn't the intended takeaway from this.
Haha - it does every black friday! Quack!
Honestly he's be able to stop selling it special order, and instead sell it in stores, if he offered a version that forwent the miniatures. Just use carboard standees. The minis, while awesome, don't ACTUALLY add anything to the game. This would increase his sales SIGNIFICANTLY. And the creator could just leave a link, or several, in the book to go buy the minis if they wanted, as well as expansions. It would be a smarter business decision, because for years I did not buy because of that cost being so prohibitive (it was on sale when I got it), and he's admitted the reason it CAN'T be in stores, and costs SO much, is those minis.
My friend actually got the game so I"m super excited to sit down and play. Been looking into it and we can't wait!
I hope you have a blast!
Don't know who you are, your pedigree, or your usual format. Stumbled onto this video randomly and LOVE IT! Thank you for this. Subscribed and will be checking out your catalog.
Glad to have you :) more of this format will be coming soon!
All fair points, except perhaps about the theme. Nudity, guts and gore I don't have an issue with, this is a game for grownups not children, which is a part of it appeal.
One point you missed is the multiplayer aspect, you cannot play this game 4 people too many times one player will have to sit out. 2 player is good and 3 player is mostly good. This is mostly due to deaths during hunts which will leave players without anything to do for the entire evening. That is the primary thing I personally hate about the game I love.
Death in the settlement phase is perfectly fine, and tells the story of a grim world.
Still - it does make it wrong for a lot of people and for a large group - I think that is fair even if I have had fun with the groups I have played with. :)
I would actually say the theme is for adolescents, not grownups - it's like 40k in that way, it tries extremely hard to appeal to the edgy teenage boy demographic with some of its theming. A lot of older people find it juvenile. Because, to be honest, some of it absolutely is, which is a shame. If the theming was more *actually* mature, it'd get a LOT more play than it does.
And no, "cracks in the ground" will never be perfectly fine. It's probably the single poorest designed event in any game I've ever played and the only thing I've ever seen that made people quit a game outright on the spot :P
Great content! I've had the game for over 5 years now and never opened it because I have so many other games and it's also so intimidating to open and learn a new long and tedious mechanic. Also I would have to play solo and this video help me put things in a better perspective to actually open it up and play it. At the moment I am enjoying tainted grail so once I complete it or at least half then I'll take a peak at KDM. Thanks again for the content!
Did you end up ever playing it?
You talk about turning 30 like it's turning 90. Jeesh, making me feel old. :)
I agree though that priorities do change throughout life. The stupid shit I wasted my money on in my youth.
Hahah - yea is more . . . How much of my life has changed in just a few years. I hope I’m somewhere different by 30 :)
Yeah, hah, I felt the same thing. I'm in my mid-40's and I'm playing more board games than I ever did before. It goes in circles though.. when my two sons were born, there was no time for anything else. Now they are older... I play games with them. (Can't wait to play KDM with them... some day... I tell them when they are 25 they might be ready :) )
I'm almost 50 with 4 children, I'm never giving up gaming, the way I look at it, my kids get it all when I die. :)
@@tabletopgeeks I kind of see it like legos you can enjoy it no matter how old you are. And board games allow you to get away from the internet which I think it a huge plus for if the power ever goes out or your eyes are hurting from sitting staring at a screen all day.
I was on the fence about this game now I'm definitely getting it.
Thank you for finally putting my mind at ease with the continual challenge I have of wrestling with buying this game.
A great video series. It has been the kind of game I like to watch gameplay of. A visual novel, I would never have the time, playgroup, money or paint tome. Beasts of war stopped their series. I have felt a bit lost without a new series. Looking forward to your KDM videos
$700 AUD
someone stop me from buying KDM
I bought KDM and have all the expansions and extras and paitned so much of it, oh god
@@indeimaus how much eas everything?? I have to knoe
Love the format of this video, can’t wait to see the other side. Every point you made is valid and spot on... and yet the game is so worth it all !
Haha - I agree with you! Still worth it for sure!
Not one of these put me off, as a matter of fact it made my want to get it more. :)
Hahah xD - well - then I hope the other side of the conversation ruins it for you!
Just make sure to share it, my favorite thing about KDM are the crazy and emergent stories. Friends give them texture.
Oh - if you enjoy that GuL . . . Come check the free kdm episode on the Patreon.
same exactly for me, it's just not his game, not that it's a bad game
Same for me
Really interesting video. This game seems so cool but I can't get past the time commitment and getting a consistent play group. I appreciate the honesty in the conversation. Just recently getting into board games and trying to find some good ones for my collection.
Glad to have you in this hobby!
I agree with pretty much everything and still went all in during Black Friday 2018.
So did I :)
This was a really good video. I too am a die hard KDM fan but I whole heartedly agree with this review.
Thanks so much :) I am glad you checked it out!
"Havent made it to the end yet" ya that rulebook is way too pristine
Hahah - that rule book has about 100 hours in it :) - I am very protective.
I made this comment sort of poking fun midway through the video about your rule book, we had to replace our rulebook because it was falling apart, it fell off of laps, had a broken spine and had pages well used. I in no way wanted to diminish your use of time or hrs spent playing. When in all seriousness it truely does come down to TIME. Not that I saw you as old or young, it just wasnt in my mind. I will be 32 come September, and it was wholesome, funny and depressing when you talked about if you will be into this when you are 30. It's scary to think about this game and time....am I wasting it? How would this play out if I had kids, a spouse, if I wasnt where I was now due to my past relationship? Kingdom Death is all consuming, I have the core, expansions, the 3d terrain, the fan content from your coverage, my roommate and I are making fan content, i made a board game table, bought a massive display case, I mod and paint the models, all for KDM. I work semi full time/part time, so that supports the habit, but I find KDM taking away from other things I could be spending my time on. Our time is insanely valuable. A coworker was like why dont you do this, and I had to explain that it wasnt worth my time.
Kdm is a glorious game if you have the time, your book and minis show that, I dont mean for that to be negative. The time you spend is creating glorious content, and I cant wait for more, cant wait to spend my valuable time watching them. I dont make it through all of your videos and sometimes they are on in the background, but the KDM content is what I'm here for.
I cant stand to watch people just play or teach KDM, no one has truely captured it. I think if you kept things short and sweet and leaned into the story aspect, told us your unique character names and maybe played SOTF so they'd stay around longer you could make content on play by plays of those characters. I dont want to tell you how to create, I'm sure what you make KDM related will be awesome, and I'll watch it. (Sorry novel).
Keep up the great work Jesse.
On the subject of randomness, what I’ve learned after 500+ hours into this game is that while the game is heavy RNG and the dice can just choose whether you win or lose sometimes, you can mitigate a lot of this by planning. By planning I mean by ordering your turns correctly in a fight, deciding who to bring on each hunt/nemesis encounter, what weapon proficiencies to prioritize, spreading gear well, and what innovations to get. And this may sound really basic but I mean your planning must start from the beginning of the game and payoff at the end of the game. I:E, always having someone master fist and tooth starting at the prologue by throwing a founding stone at the white lion at the start to get a guaranteed +1 strength, making sure the survivors in front of the white lion move to the sides and attack first so they don’t get grabbed on reaction. Another would be NOT taking your best survivors to phoenix but taking only your youngest ones so they don’t age out. Or storing your survivors who are gold smoke knight ready so they don’t die. Or do things like finding exploits in the game. (Infinite insanity from white lion + immortal = unkillable via damage, husk of destiny + slender man secret fighting art = untargetable infinite movement and extra strength roll, double dagger mastery = turn 1 kill) I could go on and on about how you could side things in your favor, but I will say that no new player/group would know this and would get creamed immediately. And a lot of the cool stuff is in the expansions, and a lot of the good stuff, base kdm is rough and the only way to beat gold smoke night would be stuff like red charm, crit builds, phoenix armor plus big strength stats and the like. Tho the worst part about this game is the settlement events like plague and cracks in the ground, if you get plague within 2-3 lantern years just restart, if not then rush bloodletting and ammonia so you make it through easy. But cracks in the ground is just stupid, same with murder, where you are pretty much guaranteed to lose a survivor. Tho I guess with murder you could age a useless guy with phoenix so he’s higher hunt exp than everyone and will just be the fall guy for that event.
Yeah! I think this format is fantastic. Especially when the subject of the topic is a game people love and/or have a personal love for it. I've never played KDM, only found out about it thru your channel (is it right for your video), and I seriously can see myself getting the game if I had people around me who would love to put some hours with it.
After doing some research and watching your videos, I believe this game is a type of a game in which, you must commit not only time but, put an effort to get immersed within the game. I'm definitely happy that this game exists, I just hope @kingdomdeath would reply to your tweets sometime soon lol.
Yes - I would never do this format on a game that is already getting beet up or people don't care about.
This is 100% one that takes over for a time :) and I love that about it! I also with they would talk to me.
Nice shots of the Gigalion. I actually just ordered that and Echoes of Death 2 from Black Friday!
Great set of videos. Look forward to more in this style. KD was my first board game love. First introduction into mini building, painting, and really board games in general.
I play solo, and even enjoy the pen and paper accounting side of it. But the last time i played i got until the last few lantern years of the people of sun campaign and felt way too overwhelmed playing solo with over 50 pages of character sheets and memos around me. Kind of put me off playing for a bit, but a month has passed and I'm ready to jump back into the madness.
More are on the way! Quack!
I feel the exact same way about the game. I love the vibe, and it has given me an amazing hobby, but the only reason anyone actually likes the game is because they are too monetarily invested to be objective about it. Warhammer has the same issues. I own the fact that I am never going to finish it, I will never see everything it has to offer, and that if I am going to enjoy the game, I basically have to write my own ruleset just to enjoy myself. But still, I don't regret a single second or cent spent with it. I need Poots to be more transparent and forthcoming about the future of the game before I will pre-order any more content. I will only buy product when it is available on the website, and only if it is actually relevant to the game. No more single figures.
Yea I can understand that for sure! Still no regrets :)
@@Quackalope I am an all in sort of person
@@HeathAldrich So am I :) Quack!
Even as a backer on Kickstarter, who got in on the best deals they had in limited quantity on Frogdog level that included every single expansion, and add-on possible, backing the first and second campaign ran $1856, which does not include shipping for the large amount of stuff that has yet to actually ship.
On top of that, picking up all one off add-ons he has released since 2014 through the KD web site ran an additional $1461, and that was not even close to all of them, since many of them sell out in minutes of the email announcing them go out. So it is essentially impossible to buy all the content for the game, since large amounts of it are sold in very limited quantities and are *POOF* gone before you can even get a chance to buy them even if you want to. Even "reprints" of figures and content sell out in minutes to hours, with the coolest miniatures that include game cards going so fast that unless you are specifically watching for them every single day you will miss them.
So that is $3317.80 for the "bulk" of the game, at very high and no longer possible discounts. I cant even imagine how much trying to get all of that would cost now. I would imagine double to triple that price, if it is even possible to get it all.
I really liked this video concept. It really works for me. It's like an expanded right for you wrong for you, but also a deeper conversation. I would love to see one like this for Gloomhaven and other big-box higher-priced games (like the games of Vital Lacerda) or games with just a ton of additional content (like Arkham Horror the card game).
I hope I can keep it up :) - need to play them a lot! Quack!
Love this format! You did convince me to not buy KDM but I was almost there anyway. Hearing about all the delays and the lack of communication from the company and the price tag to be honest made me hesitant. I am a Gloomhaven fan and I think that I will be kick happier starting with that. Waiting for Frosthaven got next year. I would over to see you do this with Gloomhaven, even though I like it I think you have some awesome opinions. Great job brother!
Hey :) I am glad I could show it off - if you do ever get KDM . . . you should be confident and not cautious! Gloom would be a fun one to dive into!
wonderful video, was having a tough time with deciding on this game and based on the time points you brought up, i believe i will wait a year or two before i try getting into this
This is by far the best table top game i have ever played.
the price is absolutely insane, it's like they're trying to be Games Workshop
Yep, it's quite a bite :)
I really really appreciate this format! It is not only honest but also accurate. Keep going on ;)
Glad to hear it! Quack!
"I haven't really spent a lot of time hunting the Phoenix on the board."
I've played over 100 hours and hunted the Phoenix once. Why don't we feel like hunting it, I wonder.
Hahah the fight is amazing to experience . . . Just not with your settlement on the line!
In last campaign, I did hunt the Phoenix almost every year from 10 to 20 lantern year. I simply love the fight.
The first time is pure terror. Fight it more often, you'll see it's not THAT overpowered.
I've fought it at least 15 times, and everytime it's a good showdown.
Why? The Phoenix is there to beef your characters into godlike beings .... not for gear.
Tommy Rayburn Though the fear could use some tweaks
Great format indeed!
More to come!
Love KDM (only had since gencon 2019) but time is a major requirement. I definitely got too many games at once and feel like I need to play them before going back to KDM. KDM is definitely a game I'll continue to love long after the other games get old. Problem is more games keep coming. Love more KDM and think this series could be a good one.
All very valid points. Still love the game though. I tend to play with a couple of house rules that mitigate ridiculous brutality. I have no shame about altering the things that would otherwise keep me from getting it to the table. I may not get the bragging rights of beating the game on hard mode, but I get to experience the content and the rush of a win amongst so many brutal defeats.
Play the game how is it fun :)
My only main house rule is I never lose BOTH survivors if I fail an intimacy roll. It's just too brutal.
Really appreciate this channel, really like this format!
Thanks! Working on more of them now :)
Really enjoyed this format. Critiquing what we love is a really valuable discussion and it gives other people, who might not be as familiar with the topic, a rather unique insight.
Thanks! That is the hope :)
What an interesting concept. When I finish this video- I’ll respond to add to the conversation!
Hope you enjoy it!
Would love to see a Root version of this. Thinking about pre-ordering all of it together before it sells out again.
We have a full right for you / wrong for you that you may want to check out :) - Root is on the list though!
Shut Up and Sit down did a wonderful job as explaining the good and bad of Root!
A neighbor randomly gave me like 40 brand new pieces. Prior i had never heard of this game, nor had anyone i know as well. So i looked it up and stumbled on this gem of a video! Dude,thank you for informing me about this. And such an amazing video as well!
Damn it, if only you had made this video before I spent over five grand on KDM! :P
So close!!! If only I had made this video before I spent $ and 100s of hours playing so that I could make this video
LOL a Car or a Game, and you choice a game
@@Mandragoron Yea . . . still no regests.
@@Mandragoron no regrets either
@@Mandragoron The way some people drive, buying KDM might be the safer option (I don't drive, I have the hand-eye coordination of a brick).
I had the same experiences, but i didnt go full in on the game as you did. I bought the 1.5 game as a Kickstarter backer and i started the game several times with different gaming groups and friends. Each one of these groups thought i was crazy for paying that much for this game but wanted to give it a try and actually they gave it 2-3 tries each bc they felt bad for my investment. But in the end all of them said "i'm out!" because this game is so relentless and unforgiving that all of them lost the interest in playing it. It makes you really feel depressed about all that happens. You might start good and kill Lions and get good ressources. But then you suddenly draw "Murder" two times in a row and loose all your experienced fighters, just a lantern year before the Butcher arrives...
And this is not even close to encounters later on, but it was enough to demotivate experienced and grown up player groups.
So after 1-2 years i sold the game because i didnt have anyone in my surroundings who would like to play this with me and playing it alone is possible but it just isnt the same when you laugh at each other for being unlucky with our rolls only to get headchomped by a head targeting attack from a monster.
Thanks for the review and i hope you wont loose players faster then your settlers XD
Hey Quack! First of all in imho this is one of your best videos on this channel. Only a big love can provide big pain. And - honestly speaking, this video is full of pain. But I'm with you. Ervey word is totally true and could also be my words.
But something more positive. I won, sry played, this game through 2 times and still love it more then all other games I own. Keep on track Quack, it wont make you happy but it's worth it playing through.
Thanks for this Video. I'm exited which games provide enough soul to talk in this kind of format. Greetings from Austria.
Thanks so much :) your words are 100% true! Quack!
You talking about being 27. I wanted this game at 24 in 2014. I still don’t have the game but I finally think I have funds to buy this game and have others build and paint the minis. So I want to get the core game and maybe gamblers chest. I’m 34 in a few days. I think worrying about age and playing games is unhealthy. That will make you spiral. Live life slow down and do what makes you happy.
Haha, appreciate it :) I’m 31 now still playing!
Cool idea. Scythe, Root, and Twilight Imperium 4 would be good ones I think.
Oh! Two of those I can do . . . Like tomorrow :P
I would love to see one on twilight imperium, great suggestion!
Maybe Vast?
More Root is always good! And @Quackalope... i would -love- an 8 player Twilight Imperium 4e game once the expansion hits w/ you, Jan, and BoardgameCo! It would be a Marathon, needed to be broken up in multiple vids but... oh my yes.
I would love to do it - but gathering than many people and figuring out production would be the challenge - :)
People seem to miss that this is also a hobby. For me, gathering friends especially in this climate is very difficult.
I enjoy this game for the massive hobby value. I've learnt 3d printing, modeling, painting, magnetization.
It's a great solo game to play, and for someone that loves organization and that accounting, this is my niche.
The game has the word “DEATH” in it’s title, so of course the whole concepts of the game will encompass mortality, with all it’s realistic gruesomeness. The start of the game give you most clearest idea of what it’s world is all about; Kill or be killed. You fight to survive within the world, but sometimes not all stories are mean’t to be, not everyone is an unbreakable “hero” and so survivors can die. Again, realism. The world of which the survivors exist in, is one of many horrors. Strangely, though people don’t like to admit, it’s within (most of) our human nature to explore our mortality and it’s morbidness. True KD:Monsters is not a game for the squeamish, but it’s lore and survivor driven storytelling is incredibly well written and fun to interact with. You slowly become a member of the survivors and grow to understand everything the game Kingdom Death: Monsters has to offer.
That’s my personal opinion of KDM.
Tl:dr Board-game with incredible storytelling, amazing figurines & fun gameplay. But ridiculously expensive! (BUT worth it!) 😄
Thousands of dollar in cost may be true but it is still cheaper than most war games. I have spent more on Fallout Wasteland Warfare and probably 10x more on 40k over the years.
Haha - for sure! XD for a BG it is crazy - not the hobby market it leans into!
I feel this game NEEDS a videogame version based around random battles with strangers, but focused on settlements(guild/clans) to play together with people across the world at leasure, and be like chess website that people can take individual turns across days if they want to update attacks when busy.
after gamblers chest the game is essentially $725. It adds so much I imagine future expansions will build upon, so it's more of a $325 update to a $400 game than an optional expansion
You left out the main reason. It's not Aeon Trespass Odyssey.
No. :P
Aeon Trespass Odyssey has me curious. Not for the KDM aspect but... exploration. @BoardGameCo, you talked me into Aeon and Oathsworn w/ your videos.
Haha - I am intrigued by both of them - but no where near as hopeful as others.
Haha ... good joke. I like your sense of humor ... ;P Without KD:M there is no AT:O ... it's only a clone of KD:M with some (nice?) modifications.
Honestly, what drives people I could have played with away is Theme. Theme is what makes people not even GET to Randomness. Randomness is what makes people that got past the theme drop out. It's a shame, with slightly better theming, I could have gotten so much more play out of that box, and then you could just houserule the bad randomness in the game.
And yes, some of it is just plain bad. Cracks in the ground, for example, essentially means that you can't ever use heavy armor, and the 10 event means you can't ever bring noisy items along. The base game already has an incredibly tiny item pool (playing basegame only feels so *limited*, almost as if several expansions should always have been in there, and them being expansions hurts the game), and the randomness *cuts it down further*. From a design perspective, this kind of randomness just means either "event comes, and your campaign is over" or "this armor is forbidden in case the event comes up". It's bad.
And this kind of stuff means that randomness ending your campaign makes you do the most boring part of the game over and over. I am at a point where I have a year 10 savegame of a settlement that I always use as a base to start from, just drawing a few random cards for the four main survivors and going from there. That and just ignoring the "you got item X, you dead" makes the game a LOT better and a LOT more replayable in my opinion. Still can't get over the theme barrier that way, but it made it a lot more playable with some of my friends that were okay with the theme.
Yeah, the theme. Parts are great, others are just a bit embarassing, imo. Sunstalker's never going to hit my table. I'm sure a table of only dudes will have a good huh huh heh huh laugh at it, but I don't play with people like that.
What an interesting video series! I hope it does well and we get more really high profile games. For my part, your last point hits the hardest especially in the world we're living in. Who knows where we'll be a year down the line much less three or five!
Yea . . . I feel that. I have changed so much and my life has changed so much over the last few years - who knows when I am 30 :)
I played this game for the first time yesterday and I had a miserable time. I really appreciate your videos on it, you went into a lot of detail and hit similar points that I felt both positive and negative. I think I would rather do literally anything else though rather than play this over complicated and just unfun game. I think it's unfun and hard for the sake of being unfun and hard.
For the money I'd rather invest in WH40K, Magic the Gathering, or Gloomhaven and a stack of other board games. They're fun, complex, and don't make me wish I had hours of my life back after playing them (my wallet feels differently but that's here nor there)
Outside of a short moment of hype when the second Kickstarter launched, I'd written of KDM as anything I'd ever bother playing. Having watched the video, you really reaffirmed many of the things I wouldn't enjoy. In particular, the "dark accounting" makes me think that KDM was designed to be a video game where a system of that depth could be encapsulated down to providing the user with hit percentages and damage ranges.
What initially had me skipping it was...
- The theme. I love a dark theme, but KDM came across as juvenile horror.
- The game length due to the amount of repetition and grind.
- The inability to deliver timely. When I watched the campaign for the second Kickstarter, it was pretty apparent that the creator hadn't really learned anything from the ridiculously slow delivery of the first campaign.
In the end, I looked at Cthulhu Wars for my boutique hobby game. It fits my gaming interests much better. And, while Petersen Games isn't exactly great at being on-time with delivery, they're nothing near as slow as the KDM campaigns.
I have not tried Cthulhy Wars yet - to be honest it never caught my attention as much as KDM!
Ahh, the Plague. I drew that in my last game (Lantern Year 3) and I thought it was hilarious. We are doomed.
XD just start over haha
There's a video series of some people playing one of the Tabletop Simulator mods for it (Tablelords Online, if you want to find it) where they get Plague and the result is....oof. Brutal.
This finally stopped hitting the table in my house because my roomie gave up on it. His primary complaint is that the actual game play is kind of repetitive. The "action" part of the game is always a single monster hunt in a largely empty room. There is really only one scenario (unless you bring in some of the expansions)
I agree with all your points. The only extra criticism I would give is that it can be somewhat boring for a full group of players....I’ve found that one or two people get really into the mechanics and the others just sit and wait to be told when to roll dice. There’s not a lot of player agency or choice. That being said it is also my holy grail of gaming, far and away my favorite board game and really shines with a couple dedicated players that want to get everything out of it.
Yea - I have had a blast in my groups but I can see that for some players for sure!
Hears about the cost, gives a quick side eye to his collection of Warhammer miniatures….. deep shrug.
@@scottlarmore5038 This is accurate
I have not yet included any expansion (yet, I have played more than 100 hours or 150 I forgot) :-) And yet I have 5 that are, if I may say so, beautifully painted. I spent at least as much time (probably more) on painting the minis :-)
I took forever on my first few minis XD
I honestly don't think I would have enjoyed KDM if my first experience was getting the core box. But because I first experienced a heavily scripted TTS mod, it handled so many things for me.
Oh and don't forget King's Coin ;-)
Haha - see I would not have liked it if TTS was my first swing :) I just put up with TTS.
I’m retired and using my retirement to attend college part time. I will have to play this game as a soloist because my only playmate works. I know I have to build the miniatures, but right now I am painting my army of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar: Battleforce: Soulbright Graveyards: Venorian Court.
I'm 34 and have a core friend group that meets for three day weekends about 4 times a year. Years ago was at a crossroads between Gloomhaven and KDM. Chose Gloomhaven, based on this video it seems I made the right choice. With our silly schedule, we feel a lot of pressure to not fail scenarios for fear of retreading content on a time crunch.
I'll also add that while playing with friends in person is an irreplaceable experience, games with deep mechanics like this often made us feel that a computer doing the "dark accounting" you're talking about would make the game go much faster and be more enjoyable. This turned out to be totally true in our experience, the PC version of Gloomhaven is excellent and much faster, for the tabletop we farmed out a lot of the calculation to an app called Gloomhaven Helper, which had similar effects. I wonder if KDM will ever be a videogame...I know that sidelines a lot of the hobbyist appeal though.
Okay, so post video comment :D Phenomenal, as always, but I have to agree, I've only played one game on TTS, and the game is so much work. I love hard games, I play Arkham, but one thing I love is getting attached to a character, pimping them out, doing cool stuff, and here, bad dice rolls and it's all over, regardless of what's happening. It just feels bad sometimes. I find the silence to be kinda strange, but not deal breaking. Maybe the thing that puts me off the most is the theme, Arkham is a bit out there, but it's always fairly tame for family to maybe see (ignoring any particularly sensitive family). I wouldn't even want people googling KDM let along seeing it. That on top of the setup time, actually building mini's instead of just opening a box of phenomenal mini's puts this in the TTS category for me. TTS is the perfect environment for me to play this in personally, but I miss out on that tabletop feel that I know you love. Too rambling but keep it up, you robot impersinator you :D
Post video Post comment, comment responce!
I would agree it is a lot of work :) and you should not fall in love! Granted . . . I still do! However you should not!
The game 100% feels bad . . . almost all the time! I also, understand the art style :P - It is not for most people!
Beep. . . beep... boop.
Amazing video.
Tabletop Simulator has made the time and accounting point a little less painful for me. Going to check the other video now.
For that price I don't expect to have to construct all the pieces myself. If I can't open it up and start playing with minimal time investment, then it's not for me.
Ive had my finger on the trigger with this game for months now.. You're one of the few reviewers that can hold my attention with this kind of in depth conversation! Very solid dude 🙂👍 thx for the video!
But it, build it, dive deep into it
Thanks so much - hope we helped you get a feel for it :)
Enjoyed the format. I agree with all the points and still consider this one of my all time favorite games. My group played every week for 14 months and beat it the first time through. My only regret is purchasing the later expansions because I doubt they will ever get played. One of the things that has always confuses me is why I can enjoy kingdom death monster but am often repelled by other games with dark themes.
Haha - I can't help you with the them XD or why you enjoy it! I think the gameplay is very solid so that might help!
I'm one of those "insane people" that have gotten to the end and successfully beat the watcher multiple times.
tl;dr, I agree with most of what you say. Randomness + Accounting are the biggest problems. I got very, very good at knowing the rules + juggling stuff around + being able to play the game very quickly, at least solo. The only thing i would say deserves a mention, which you did touch on briefly during the "randomness" section, is that KDM does have a lot of dominate strategy/balance issues. Assuming you follow the rules, there is only one optimal way to really play the game. For a game that gives you so many minis/expansions/options to play, it's a shame that optimal play isn't varied at all.
I'm sorry to say this (as an all in KD:M fan not fanboy) but the first thing I saw from you was your first interview with Adam and I thought "Oh no, not another fanboy with nothing but the same questions that any reviewer that never played KD:M would ask" but these two videos are just great. Kudos to you. Hell, I'm even giving a thums up for both. :) Keep doing these videos (even the criticals) you got a new subscriber here.
Thanks so much :) I am really glad both have been top quality - for someone who is a KDM fan! I am right there with you
Thank u for your previus work! I d love to see this format for middara too! Great job man!
Excellent format idea, keep it going!
Glad you enjoyed it!
What a great video. Cant w8 for the next game in this format :-)
Haha have any ideas?
@@Quackalope Terraforming Mars, Cloudspire, Dominion, Massive Darkness 1, Tainted Grail, Eclipse
I feel like KDM is the 40k for boardgamers, large hobby portion & cost.
That said its still my favourite game to get to the table, its a puzzle in risk mitigation. I fully agree the time commitment to progress is insane ive hit the end once in about 12 attempts average years take about an hour and a half for me.
The flower knight is a great expansion and is like tuning the difficulty down a step if you are looking for that. Alternatively just removing the murder event while a houserule can also ease up some of the punishment and is personal preference.
I agree about 40k :P and doing some house rules can certainly save the day!
I wish I could have gotten this game. At least I've been able to play it on TTS
It is a great solution!
Another printing is available for pre-order for now
Really nice format! I'll leave a sub and am looking forward to your upcoming work.
Nice video. I was scared off from getting Gloomhaven because of the implied time commitment. That means I never felt the slightest temptation to buy KDM, but so many people seem to love it that I've always wondered at the attraction. For me the turn-offs are the dark theme, the cost, building & painting the minis, and the amount of time the game requires.
I think those are all reasonable!
I don't care about the dark theme, but agree with the other turn-offs.
An extra turn-off for me is the lack of a pdf rulebook. Not having the search function to quickly find a rule during play is kinda annoying. But the bigger problem is that whenever I think about buying a game, I prefer to go trough the rulebook beforehand, to then determine if the game is right for me.
Not having the option to check on the specifics of gameplay, makes me extremely hesitant to buy any boardgame, combined with all the other barriers, I don't see me buying this game any time soon.
I think the biggest thing that keeps me from picking up kingdom death is when you move out of the core game you have large monsters with absurd amounts of giant male genitalia (sun stalker/forge god) and themes of rape and abuse (wet nurse). That's enough for me, even though I cringe a little bit about the culture of selling out naked thonged alternate sculpts for the survivors.
I wouldn't buy zombicide if there was an expansion centered around rape and a line of naked female survivors.
----------
My experience though is only 3 hunts. it was good tactical combat. Boss one I punched off the (male genitalia) of a lion and it became an item you could eat. In between that and the second boss a player got a random event that killed him outright for rolling low...... and... I mean I think there are a lot of ways you can go with game design, but roll low and you die outside of gameplay without any player choice isn't a good one.
so, my second reason would be : people don't like losing their characters, which makes this hard to get to the table. I've had people not want to retire characters in gloomhaven and try to sabotage their quest because they didn't want to change. The pressure to change "what happened" is palpable in these types of games.
------------
Third, yes the cost. You can buy Oathsworn with 23ish? bosses, and similar gameplay for $100. Aeon's end with 200+ hours of content, and more of a mix of kdm with story and exploration for $130. You still have $170 extra dollars... okay let's pick up Primal the Awakening, which is another KDM clone geared more towads a Monster Hunter vibe coming to kickstarter soon, and pay the shipping for all 3.
That's more game then you ever need, in a bunch of themes, or you could pick one of them and keep the other 2-300.
I agree with most of what you have said - not the rape idea - KDM as a core experience has a pretty hard line around the display of sexual motifs and organs and sex itself. In the core game - sexual encounters to make children are 100% consenting - The wet nurse is monstrous mother figure - it is raising those who worship and are born in the holly lands. It is a twisted depiction of motherhood - not rape at all.
Outside of that point :) I think your reasons are 100% sound and I agree most of them!
Love this format. Super interested in KDM so this was really helpful. Would love to see more vids like this especially of games you really like. Keep up the good work!
That is the plan! Quack!
This is fantastic! But you won’t scare me away! Kingdom Death has already twisted my mind. I play on TTS for reasons already discussed in this vid lol I want the physical game for sure. Two games I would love to see you cover in this format are D&D and Kilforth. In the past two months I have put over 100 hours into Gloom of Kilforth and Shadows of Kilforth (both games combined together) And prior to those games I put almost 100 hours into KDM on TTS. I have only ever played KDM solo and have only gotten to the Phoenix. Wonderful job! Have you tried the Kilforth games or any games from Hall or Nothing Productions?
I have not tried them yet - but I am googling them now :)
I like the video format and the reasons not to play are all spot on. One thing you said that is just overly dramatic is about the theme. I don’t walk away from the game or any other dark horror games feeling depressed about myself. I believe most people can immerse themselves in a game or movie and then walk away without emotional scars. It’s fantasy...
I know the theme is a non-starter for a lot of people! I might have been overly dramatic though you are correct.
Agree theme can turn off many...especially the minis with phallic appendages
Thank you for this vid.
#3 - investing so many hours just to lose over and over and over is the most frustrating, fun-hindering aspect of this awesome game for me.
I believe the Community Edition updates can help mitigate those poor odds (I don't really think Campaign of Death's corrections will help make it easier, no sir).
I can totally understand that frustration! I think some game changes to mediate that can help people experience it!
this is my first video of yours i've watched and im subbing! You're so well spoken to do this in one take, and your critiques are sincere and clearly show how much you care about the medium. Looking forward to seeing your other videos ^^
Thank you so much!! Quack!
All these are valid points, but I enjoy KDM so much that I tend to disregard them
Haha :) I do as well!