Welcome to today’s journal excerpt, hunters!
If you’re new here, we’ve found the journal of a skilled hunter and are flipping through its pages for anything that might help us take down the monsters roaming this frozen land.
Today’s monster is infamous for being ultra aggressive and difficult to fight. Veteran and rookie hunters alike have fallen afoul of its rage.
Psst. If you’re not following the Kickstarter to get notified when we launch on May 18, go do that now!
Facing Rajang in Tabletop Combat
from the journal of lead designer, Jamie Perkins
So far, we’ve encountered three of the core box monsters: Banbaro, Beotodus, and Barioth.
All three are formidable monsters. You’ll need to hunt them more than once to get the loot you need to craft the weapons you want. And they get progressively harder with every hunt.
Yes, each core box monster has a one, two, and three star difficulty level for you to chew through… except one. Furious king of the core box, Rajang has four.
That’s right. The final challenge of the Hoarfrost Reach core box (or is it..?), 4-star Rajang stands between you and victory in your first campaign.
In earlier journals, we talked about how deep snow is best avoided. Something else to avoid — and perhaps far more dangerous — is standing before Rajang while it's rearing up for a monstrous thunder punch.
Learn all you can, fellow hunters. This is a monster you’ll need to know about before taking it on.
Rajang Physiology
Being the ‘boss monster’ of the Hoarfrost Reach core set, Rajang has a 4-star difficulty level you’ll need to beat to win your campaign.
But we won’t pit you against that monstrous beast just yet. Instead, we’re facing 1-star Rajang:
At 80 health, even the lowest level Rajang is going to push you to your limits. One of the biggest challenges you’ll face is that each time you attack Rajang without dealing break damage, you’ll just make it more angry.
And when there’s enough rage tokens stacked up (that’s 4 for 1-star Rajang), Rajang’s thunder behaviours become harder for you to dodge. (For a reminder on enraged monsters, check out this journal.)
If that’s not enough, enraged Rajang won’t let you get as many hits in before he attacks again, limiting the number of attacks you can make.
Oh and, before you ask, yes. Rajang has a lot of thunder behaviours.
Thunder Punches is one of Rajang’s enraged behaviours. That means you’ll only see it once Rajang has been through its entire regular behaviour deck OR if you’ve (somehow) managed to reduce it to half health.
When it does roll around, you’d better watch out. Thunder Punches hits SO hard that even if you’ve got thunder elemental resistance of 3, it’s still going to one-shot your hunter.
On the plus side, it’s “only” dodge 4 before you factor in the rage tokens. So, it’s realistically avoidable, if you’ve managed to keep Rajang’s anger in check.
Speaking of anger management, did you catch the break rule on Rajang’s tail back on the physiology card? If you manage to break Rajang’s tail, all current rage tokens will be removed. Helpful!
And that’s not a one-time deal, either. The break tokens are then also removed from the tail, so you can keep breaking it to keep clearing rage tokens. It’s like catharsis and therapy rolled into one.
Don’t get too comfortable, though. There’s something else new to the Iceborne board game, that we’ve touched on briefly before. But you’re ready now, hunters. Next, we face our first turf war!
~ Journal Ends ~
Don’t miss the launch, hunter. Follow the Kickstarter now!
