Kingdom Death: Percival

The Black Knight towers over Percival.

After being in the works for years, nearly all of the Kingdom Death Kickstarter releases have been produced, and Adam Poots is working towards introducing new things to the game. For one thing, he has started to produce plastic versions of some of the older, limited resin kits.  While many of these are seedy pin-ups, one that stood out to me was a fully armored female knight, reminiscent to the Black Knight that I assembled earlier this year.  Along with being in plastic for the first time, this knight, Percival, came with a few cards to use her in Kingdom Death: Monster.  With these things in mind, I decided to purchase the model and put it together and wanted to let you all know what I think of her!

As I mentioned above, what really stands out about Percival is that she is not styled as a pin-up.  Instead, she is wearing a full suit of plate mail, without the nonsensical fantasy trope of making the breastplate “form-fitting.”  The only aspect of the model that suggests her sex is her face, something I find very refreshing in the miniature wargaming hobby.  She has a very simple but effective pose, planting a longsword in the ground and holding her helmet.  Both the helmet and the sword mirror that of the earlier Black Knight model.

The contents of the Percival box for Kingdom Death. 

Percival comes on a single plastic sprue.

The model comes in a small white box, containing the model on a single sprue, composed of many small parts, like many Malifaux models.  In addition to the model, the box contains a large color print of the artwork that the model was based upon.  More importantly, the box also has two cards such that the model can be used in games of Kingdom Death: Monster.  The first is a Secret Fighting Art called Black Guard Style, allowing survivors to learn the skills from the enigmatic Black Knight.  The second card is a Basic Hunt Event called Dead Warrior, which provides a way to learn/obtain the Secret Fighting Art.  Although it might seem like a small thing, and admittedly the possibility of you learning the new fighting art in a game is quite low, the inclusion of these cards is a big step for Kingdom Death.  It suggests that in the future we might see more and more releases get materials such that they can supplement the game.  And to me, more content to expand the Kingdom Death world is exciting, as that is the game's primary strength.

The model required very little green stuff to complete, I only really needing it on the helmet.

Percival's armor is awesome, with ornate plates, and quilted robes.

The model assembly was quite straightforward.  The pieces are all cut well and easily fit together properly, though you can force things together incorrectly.  The most challenging part of the assembly was attaching the shoulder pads and the neck guard.  This is primarily due to the lack of any adequate reference pictures.  The only picture of the assembled model is on the front of the box, and it is clearly not assembled properly.  There are huge gaps between the shoulder pads and the breastplate, and the neck armor is obviously off-centered (and upside down).  Thankfully the sprue was cut sharply enough that with a little dry fitting you can pretty easily assemble it without the aforementioned issues.  It amazes me that someone like Adam Poots, who seems to be something of a perfectionist, let this get by unnoticed.  It is particularly bad because there are no instructions to assemble the model, or even other images for reference.

Notice the egregious assembly errors on the official box photo of the model (red arrows), compared to my assembly.

Overall, I am pretty impressed with the Percival release.  It is a great design, one that builds upon other imagery in the Kingdom Death range, without resorting to objectification.  The detail is crisp and it goes together well, aside of the flawed reference image.  Best of all perhaps, is the inclusion of some card to allow the model to be used in Kingdom Death: Monster.  I hope that the release is a glimpse of things to come for Kingdom Death, one that builds upon its strengths and minimizes some of the more questionable elements of the brand.

- Eric Wier