Marshlight Reviews: The Halloween Twilight Knight (Patreon)

For several years now Adam Poots Games (APG) has released the Halloween Twilight Knight  (HTK) model, a resin cast of Allison in halloween atire. Last Halloween marked a change to this pattern, with a release of the original gender swapped character in plastic (yeah Allison is a gender swap of the original Twilight Knight character and she took over).

This change in the contents has made the model immediately more accessible for players and painters alike. Resin in the 32mm scale is an awful medium to work with (resin is just best used for 54mm and larger) and that has meant that for years the HTK has been a sub-par product.

Now that we've seen a switch to HIPS plastic (which is the best medium for small models alongside Photoresin) I thought it was worth taking the time to pick it up and review it. Just to get it in the bank ahead of next Halloween's release. So if you don't already have it, now you can decide if it's worth getting.

Spoilers: It's not. Not unless you want to paint the model.

The Model

There have been several changes to the model in her transition from resin to plastic, originally she had two options for her left arm, one with the Twilight Sword and one without. In the plastic version she always has her sword, no choice for you.

Despite that loss, there are several improvements. She is now scaled up to the new size with a fuller, weightier feel to her frame. As mentioned previously elsewhere, the new frame/scale for the Kingdom Death models - a hefty 35mm as opposed to the previous 32mm does a lot for this range, both in giving them character and making them better pieces to use on the table (if you want to play with them). She looks good, the base looks good and being plastic means that she is easier to part paint then assemble (allowing for a higher quality paint job). 

In addition, the model now comes with a separate copy of the gear card 'Jack O' Lantern' so you can add this one to a survivor or fix it to a base/mount it/add a magnetic hand to it.  I've stated several times previously that it is always a bonus to get the actual gear represented on promo cards as a separate piece and this is no exception.

The Gear

That brings us onto the lone piece of in game content that is included in this box, the Jack O' Lantern. To load this up front, it's not the best piece of gear, far from it, but it does have a moderately useful function in the game.

So to craft this one you need the Memento Mori innovation and 1x Skull, 1x Scrap, 1x Organ. The only hard part of this is the need for Memento Mori, an innovation that doesn't do very much unless you happen to chance upon the hunt events that require it. 

What you get for that is this:

A consumable lantern (both useful keywords) with an absolutely terrible ability. It's irreplaceable (so if you're carrying it and die, you lose it) and it has an ability that triggers only if you are insane and another survivor dies during the showdown - and even then you get +10 survival. To reiterate a very important point, if you are going to have an ability that triggers when another survivor dies -  it needs to be very strong.  +10 survival is solid, but not strong enough, you need something like Last Man Standing level to really be worth the death. Still that much survival can allow a single survivor to surge, dash and dodge their way to victory in tight situations. 

If this lantern had some affinities, so it would do more than just its keywords when no-one was in danger of dying, it would be a great little promo item. To match the theme of the Pumpkin I would go as far as suggesting it had 1 green up and then the rest of the directions could be red (orange). That would make the gear very useful and desirable for builds that need affinities (weapons in particular love red affinities). 

So this gear is a little short of what it could be, but a lesson to learn here is - you can make marginal abilities that only trigger on rare or awful circumstances if you support that with the item doing something the rest of the time.

The Summary

Nice model and the addition of a second pumpkin is a great move, however the in game impact of this box is virtually nothing (apart from a fun thematic craft). Ultimately I consider this one to be a hard pass for all except miniature painters and the die hard fan(atics).