In her persistent nightmares, she relives the moment. Flinging the shard of rock, her breath searing in her chest. A desperate play to stop the monster before it fell upon her friends. In the lengthening horror of the moment, the monster caught the stone as if their struggle was just a game of catch. In an instant, it is upon her and she wakes wondering if the monster was smiling. Drenched in cold sweat, her scars ache. Always with the image of the brutal weapon she would craft in her shame.

1x Zaniyah hard plastic miniature + Flat Plastic Base

1x Stone Macuahuitl seed pattern card

1x Stone Macuahuitl seed pattern gear card

1x Heroic living glossary card

1x Seed Pattern rules card

1x Large matte art print of Zaniyah

These releases are the ones that I think I enjoy the most as they provide content that is essentially “evergreen” as long as you are playing with Seed Patterns, you will have the Stone Macuahuitl as one of your potential draws and adding to the generic portion of Seed Patterns helps keep the deck feeling fresh one campaign after the next. I would prefer if these boxed sets provided one generic seed pattern and either a monster specific Seed Pattern, Character Card or Disorder as well, that's the level of game content I think would be fairer for the price asked. That's why generally I think the more expensive 4x miniature boxes offer better value for money overall, as you get more game content in addition to the miniatures. The simple fact about these survivor miniatures is honestly we get magnitudes more than we need in game. The absolute crazy maximum number of survivors that would be on the board (ignoring retinues) is 7 (6 players + scout), but most of the time you do not need more than 4 or 5. I've reached the point where I tend only to paint 2 miniatures from an armor set because it is very rare that I field more than 1 of a given armor set.

That's why I think the game content in these boxes is so very important, there's diminishing returns on both elements for sure, but game content has a far, far higher threshold because it both takes up less room and is competing with less other options.

The Miniature

Zaniyah comes with two weapon variations, the first of these is the Stone Macuahuitl and the second comes from the Black Knight as it is smaller version of the Iron Hand from the Black Knight expansion. It's just something that will probably be used to represent a generic sword like the Steel Sword and I imagine it is going to be used less than the Stone Macuahuitl. However it does give us the option to transplant the Stone Macuahuitl onto a different survivor and have Zaniyah hold this one instead. We had this also occur with Ingama, where she had both a normal Zanbato and her Feral Zanbato as well.

Zaniyah's miniature is nice enough to look at. I think she's maybe wearing some variation on rawhide armor as it has a number of features that match that like the boots and headband, but it could also be some upcoming armor set, and it wouldn't be the first time future designs have been placed on releases as that has happened elsewhere.

The Gameplay

Crafting Cost: 1x Endeavor, 1x Founding Stone, 1x Hide, 1x Skull

Crafting Requirements: Heat

Is anyone else feeling the extreme pressure on their small amounts of Founding Stones and Cloth? This is another gear card that's using one of those resources; it's not as bad as the Cloth situation because we can at least occasionally find more Founding Stones on the hunt, but this is still a weapon that puts pressure onto that particular resource, a lot of pressure if you want to use this weapon to its full potential.

The macuahuitl (translation: hand-wood) is a traditional Mesoamerican weapon which is a constructed from a wooden sword/paddle and obsidian blades embedded into the sides that was used in combat with a goal for disabling in order to ensure live capture for sacrifice. This isn't the first time that Mesoamerican influences have been seen in Kingdom Death, famously N19, N20, O19 and O20 on the showdown board have an Aztec inspired face on them.

The original Aztec weapons are very rare because of their wood component, and that in addition for the obsidian blades having tendency to chip or break during battle means most of what we know about them comes from the colonial records and illustrations from the invading Spanish Conquistadors. There is one known surviving macuahuitl displayed in Mexico City with possibly more in storage. There was that was also one in Spain which at one time was mistakenly thought to be of Japanese origin. That macuahuitl was lost in a fire in 1849.

The macuahuitl functions almost like a sword of hardwood, with prismatic obsidian or flint blades worked into its sides, as such it's not really a club, nor is it a sword, it is kind of between these two and has been described as 'a kind of saw sword' with functionality similar to broadswords (swinging/chopping but no thrusting moves). Obsidian is a very sharp material, so these weapons were capable of great harm, being sharp enough to dismember or decapitate invading soldiers or even according to one account, horses. If you want to see more details about this weapon and see it used against various materials I found this video to be quite informative. (Warning there is the usual weapon vs. meat and ballistic gel dummy demonstrations you'll find in these kind of videos and as it's experimental archeology the creator of the weapon acknowledges flaws in the recreation of the design).

The involvement of the Founding Stone in this Era I crafting recipe is one of the few times where we might get to understand the material the stone faces are made from. Given that they can be used to create the sharp blades on the side of the macuahuitl we can surmise that the ground in the plain of stone faces is obsidian, chet, flint or similar knappable material with those kind of properties.

Before we get into the weapon breakdown I think it's worth pointing out that the design of this Stone Macuahuitl is based on the versions that you see from replica stores based on illustrations rather than an attempt to replicate what the cutting weapon actually would have been according to the physical versions we've seen. This is a fantasy game, so that's not a huge deal, but the weapon in this illustrated design would be a lot less effective than the real historical version. Or maybe it is more effective because Nightmare Bark doesn't exist in our world, who knows.

Our in game weapon leans into the sharp, flesh shredding nature of the macuahuitl via its attack profile and abilities. The crossroads affinity design and no affinity demands from the weapon itself make this a very flexible gear card that can support many other affinity loving gear cards. The weapon keywords are sword and club, multi-weapon keyword weapons are always great because of how they offer more potential combinations or power beyond the norm. We've got a reasonable (3/7+/4/Heroic/Savage) attack profile (Heroic allows you to reroll the first 1s you roll when attacking, raising the weapons overall accuracy in a way that isn't immediately obvious) and if on departure from the settlement you archive a Founding Stone to replace the blades you get an eye watering Deadly 3 to combo with any luck and that innate savage. It's expensive to do this, but a settlement with a good stock of Founding Stones will really find that this can carry showdowns against monsters who are not the Butcher. I do think this "archive a founding stone" is a better version of what the Vespertine Foil was trying to do in the Flower Knight expansion. Here that weapon is for comparison, it's always fun to look back and see how much Team Death have grown in both their understanding of their own game and how we the players utilise the tools they give us. You can see a proto Stone Macuahuitl right there in this card below.

Without access to spare founding stones, this is still a very solid weapon for the early portion of the campaign. 4 Strength can keep a weapon viable into the teen lantern years, especially when it has this many affinities. Even if you end up in the situation where this weapon no longer has sufficient strength, a chance discovery of a Founding Stone can get this weapon out of storage for a guest spot in a high node/level showdown.

Final Thoughts

After looking into the historical weapon itself, I think physical design aesthetics quibble aside, this is a solid interpretation of a weapon that would be incredibly effective against many of the fleshy monsters that are present in Kingdom Death. I would have liked this release to include more cards, and the long-form spear-like or short-form dagger-like versions of the macuahuitl would have been excellent complements to this release by both supporting the theme and providing more value for money.

As is often the case, this isn't essential content, but if you have exhausted your seed pattern deck a few times having more tools to play around with that are present no matter what quarry monsters you pick and have this early crafting cost combined with a potential long term lifespan makes it interesting even if I do think some of the aspects here could have been tightened up further.

I think overall this is a solid B+ box set.