PB& Games

0.7.40: new warlords come wrapped, Champions, and a last blow for every government

Version 0.7.40 24 min read

Four pictures in a two by two grid: the Pirate lying in her opened present on white tissue among torn wrapping paper, a giant crowned queen in gold rays holding a small figure on a cardboard board in the sky, a versus screen with The Undying God-Emperor facing The Commonwealth, and two imps and a horned devil over a black cauldron in the fire.

0.7.40 is out on Steam, the itch.io downloads, the browser version and the Android download. This post also covers 0.7.38 and 0.7.39, which went out without one. A new warlord now arrives as a wrapped present that you open with your own hands. The Act IV throne fight opens on a papercraft versus screen and ends with a last blow picked by the winner's government, a different one for each of the 27, and a new Champions table on the title screen sets your finished builds, and your friends', against each other. The Houndmaster's heads really bite now, Puptential's nine final forms are nine different creatures, and a warlord you have won with at Ascension 10 stands in a cardboard crown.

A new warlord comes wrapped

Unlocking a warlord used to mean tracing an outline out of the dark. Now the new warlord arrives as a present. The page rolls over in that warlord's own wrapping paper and tears open onto a lamp-lit walnut table, where a box sits wrapped in that same paper (each warlord has a print of their own; the Pirate's is anchors and ships' wheels), tied with a satin bow, the warlord's painted sign hanging off it on a tag. While it waits for you, it fidgets on the table.

You open it yourself. Pull a tail of the bow and the knot draws out, and the ribbon falls loose. Tear the paper off a strip at a time: each strip peels back toward your hand, sheds a few flecks of torn fibre, and flutters down to the table. Lift the lid (the box comes up with it, then drops back out), carry it off and throw it aside. Part the tissue, and your new warlord is lying inside. Paper confetti goes up out of the box and settles on the tissue and on the figure, and then the warlord dances, shaking it off a pose at a time. Continue is a crimson ribbon, and on the way out the page rolls back over the present in the same paper.

A wrapped box on a dark wooden table, its paper printed with anchors and ships' wheels and tied with a red bow and a name tag. The bow is pulled loose, the paper is torn off in strips that flutter down round the box, the lid is lifted off and thrown aside, and white tissue is parted to show the Pirate, a red-haired captain in a tricorn and eyepatch with a parrot on her shoulder, lying inside. Paper confetti falls over her and she dances, shaking it off
Two pictures side by side. On the left, the Pirate's present on a dark wooden table: a box wrapped in teal paper printed with anchors and ships' wheels, a red ribbon round it and a paper tag. On the right, the same box opened from above, torn paper and white scraps all over the table, the lid lying beside it, and the Pirate lying on white tissue inside with a scatter of confetti on her

Skip, or B on a controller, opens it by itself at speed, and every strip still tears.

The present is where you first see that every warlord now has a dance of their own: the King's royal wave, the Pirate's hornpipe, the Viking's war stamp and roar, the Ninja's shadow step, the Boxer's shuffle and uppercut, the Conductor's chug with two pulls of the whistle cord, the Cyborg's robot, the Dragon's wing beats, the Eternal's slow waltz, the Explorer's lookout, the Gunslinger's quick draw, the Mummy's shamble, the Spaceman's zero-gravity float and the Witch's cauldron stir. Choose Your Warlord shows a warlord's dance off first, the emote wheel's dance can roll it, and a warlord's achievement pop opens on it. The page after the present now has a single section for new warlords, with every warlord and every new look you have earned standing in their own world.

The throne fight opens on a versus screen

The Act IV throne fight, and every Champions fight, now opens on a versus screen in place of the mirror's arrival. Two halves of one sheet smash in from their own edges along a zig-zag cut, each printed in its side's land's ink with its government's crest, paper speed strips streaming along the seam. The V and the S lock together on the hit in a burst of card shards and gold foil. Each side's government nameplate is thrown in and each player's painted sign is slammed on, burning with cut-paper flames in that side's colour, and the halves grind against each other while the camera creeps in. Then they blow apart and every sign flies onto its own commander.

A sheet torn in two along a zig-zag. On the left half, in gold and brown, the Crusader Commons' crest over a burning name sign reading PAUL; on the right half, in teal, a ring of paper hands over the Concord of States' ribbon and a sign reading Sam in blue flames. A big card V and S slam together in the middle, the halves grind with speed lines streaming past, and then they blow apart onto a cardboard board

In a Champions fight with two a side, both players on a side stand together on their half.

The same versus screen for two against two: on the left, PAUL under the Crusader Commons and ANA under the Court of Fortune, each sign burning in orange flames; on the right, Sam under the Concord of States and KIM under the Commonwealth. The halves blow apart and fly off over a board with four commanders

When the field comes back, the packs' tapestries hang over it again, and each side now hangs its own: your packs on the left, in the order you drafted them from the middle out, the mirror's packs on the right. Both sides used to hang the mirror's. They go back up the moment the fight is decided, so the winner's last blow plays under an open sky.

The Act IV board, a long cardboard ring on teal and brown felt. Three painted pack tapestries hang over the top left and two over the top right. The King stands at the left end and the Witch at the right, saying "I won this war once already. I will win it again."

A last blow for every government

The throne fight now ends the way the winner's three vows say it should. Each of the 27 governments has its own finishing move, played by whichever side wins, so a loss shows you the mirror's. If the Undying God-Emperor wins, the winner swells to the size of the sky in a blaze of gold, picks up the loser and throws them off the edge of the board, and the camera follows all the way down, through the clouds, past the fields and villages, through the earth and the bones and the fire, into a cauldron where two imps are waiting with forks and a devil leans in for a look. Then the camera climbs back up.

A queen in a crown and blue robe stands in a burst of gold rays on a cardboard board floating in the sky and grows huge. She picks up a small man in a tunic and throws him off the board. The camera falls after him through pink clouds, past green hills with red-roofed houses, down through brown earth, grey rock with bones in it and red lava, and he lands in a black cauldron between two red imps with pitchforks while a horned red devil's face rises behind it

The Commonwealth wins with a hug. The winner walks over and holds the loser until there is nothing left to hold, and the loser comes apart into scraps of coloured paper that drift up and away.

On a sunlit cardboard board in the clouds, a queen in blue walks up to her mirror, another queen in blue, and hugs her. The mirror comes apart into a cloud of small yellow, green and blue paper scraps that rise and drift away, leaving her standing alone

The other 25 include tea while the loser takes root, a paper crane, a wind-up toy, a conjuror's cloth, a caber toss, a hound that carries the loser off, the Wheel of Fortune and a trapdoor, a puppet's strings, an eye in the sky, an iron statue, and a mob from the War Assembly who throw the loser off the board. Here is every one, at its moment:

Twenty-seven small pictures in a grid, one for each government's finishing blow on the throne fight's board in the clouds, named underneath: the Commonwealth's hug breaking into paper scraps, a lottery drum for the Lottery Republic, heaven's gates for the Covenant Republic, a ring of soldiers for the Watchful Senate, a shipping crate for the Merchant Republic, crows for the Republic of Omens, a shield wall for the Legion Republic, the loser falling past a village for the War Assembly, a catapult for the Crusader Commons, a tree for the Free Villages, a beam of light down the road for the League of Free Towns, a monk's cowl for the Cloister Lands, a scroll for the Concord of States, a wind-up key for the Guild Compact, a conjuror's cloth for the Veiled Order, the loser lifted overhead for the Clanholds, a black hound for the Wild Kingdoms, a great red book for the Congregation Militant, a cave for the Philosopher King, a spinning wheel for the Court of Fortune, sheep for the Shepherd Throne, a filing cabinet for the Panoptic Bureaucracy, a pot for the Princedom of Masks, a great eye in the sky for the All-Seeing Throne, an iron statue for the Iron Imperium, a war wheel for the Conqueror's Wheel, and the giant queen in gold for the Undying God-Emperor

A paper-doll lord (the Act IV mirror, or a Champions build) used to run over to the fallen warlord and stand staring at him until the fight gave up waiting. His strike now always lands.

The fourth act's ending

In the pop-up film that ends a won fourth act, the vows' banners now come over the act walls from behind on their strings. Each one waits behind its land's panel, swings up over the top, tips, falls down the front and slaps against it, printed on both sides so it reads as the vow while it comes over back first.

A pop-up book's row of painted panels at night, the lords who were beaten standing in front of them. A small banner on two strings swings up over the top of the first panel, tips over and slaps down its front, then a second banner comes over the next panel and a third over the next, while the beaten lords fold flat one by one and the warlord stands in her own flames

The fourth panel used to stand empty. Your government's nameplate now comes over it on a gold-rodded cloth as the caption reaches "And at the end of the road... yourself."

The same row of panels with three vow banners hanging on them. A fourth cloth on a gold rod, a gold sun over a stepped pyramid reading The Undying God-Emperor, swings up over the last panel and hangs, with the warlord standing in front of it

Pieces that rock where they stand in these films, crowds waving and hopping and bowing, now bump against card in their way instead of passing through it, so the Wild Kingdoms' warlord no longer stamps through the robber crag.

Your government's nameplate also stands opposite Uncle Jim on the coronation screen, thrown on the way the vow room throws it.

A dark screen headed THE CROWN IS YOURS on a cream ribbon. In the middle, the crowned warlord in a gold medallion; on the left, Uncle Jim in gold robes; on the right, a gold sun over a stepped pyramid on a ribbon reading The Undying God-Emperor

The recap after a march that swore all three vows carries the government's nameplate under your warlord's sign, on a win and on a loss. A march that took the fourth act stands in the crown's room dressed for its land, one room for each of the 27.

The victory page in the crown's room, dressed in gold: a cardboard crown on a drum at the left, a gold stepped pyramid at the right, gold confetti on the floor, a VICTORY ribbon with two rosettes, and the warlord with her troops; at the bottom, a gold sun nameplate under a QUEEN sign
A defeat page in a ruined cardboard room at dusk: the King and his troops on a shelf at the top, his KING sign, and under it a scroll on a blue ribbon reading The Covenant Republic, with three vow tags under it, The Assembly, Just War and Divine Right

Uncle Jim dresses for your government

Once your three vows are sworn, Uncle Jim wears that land's costume: on his card's pop-out, on his figure on the field, and on every body he musters. The Act IV mirror's Jim wears the costume of the mirror's own build. Here are all 27:

Twenty-seven paper cut-outs of Uncle Jim in a grid on a dark board, each in a different government's costume, with the government's name in gold under each, from the Commonwealth to the Undying God-Emperor

About one send-off in a hundred (never in your first game), he turns up dressed as one of the 27 at random. And he has a pun or two for each act boss you fell, plus three more lines for a felled boss; the one about the trees hearing what you did is retired.

The Houndmaster bites

The Houndmaster's three heads are cut as working jaws now: a neck, a collar, a skull, a hinged lower jaw and a face, with the inside of the mouth drawn between them at any angle. At a phase break no head comes out of the sky any more. His own near head lunges off his shoulders on its neck, swelling to the size of the blow as it comes, hangs over the spot with its jaw dropped wide, drives down and bites the ground, shakes it twice, and is hauled back home along its neck.

On a cardboard board, the Houndmaster, a three-headed black and tan dog, sits at the right end with soldiers in front of him. His near head stretches out on a long neck, grows huge and opens its jaws over the soldiers, bites down into the board, shakes, and pulls back to his shoulders, leaving the soldiers thrown back and rows of red tooth marks down the roads

In his entrance, each head rears back with its lips off its teeth and its own jaw dropping open on the gums and throat, whips down and forward, and the jaws slam shut, tug twice and let go. The paper teeth that used to snap in the air beside him are gone.

The Houndmaster's entrance page: a kennel yard at sunset with a log cabin and antlers over the door, his plate reading HOUNDMASTER on the lower left. In the spotlight, his three heads rear back one after another with their jaws wide open, showing gums and teeth, then snap shut and tug

Champions

Champions is a new table on the title screen. Every run that beats Act III is kept on your shelf with its final build, and builds can be set against each other on the Throne of Vows, the Act IV fight: one against one, or up to four a side (two a side on phones and in the browser). Tap a build in the drawer and choose Left or Right to stand it on a base; a build can stand on both sides and fight itself. Play puts you in the lead left seat; Auto plays both sides while you watch. Any build can also be chosen as your next Act IV boss.

The Champions table: a torn sheet with a sunny sky and clouds on the left and red flames on the right. On the left two warlords stand on bases with their signs over their heads, a skeleton and a knight with a shield; on the right the Mummy, and an empty base in shadow. Under them, Swap sides, a Play and Auto switch, a red Fight ribbon and Clear, and a drawer of build cards below with tabs for Yours, Ana, Sam and Add a friend's build

Choosing a build deals its slip into the drawer beside it, held down by the build's pins (hover one to read it), and a tap anywhere off the slip puts it away. Every control at the table is cut from card in its own way: arrow tags, tickets with punched notches, a luggage tag, a pennant, torn ends and folder tabs.

The Champions drawer with a cream slip dealt in between two build cards. On the slip, arrow tags reading Left and Right, a ticket reading Look, a luggage tag reading Send, a pennant reading Act IV boss and a torn strip reading Remove

Friends' builds come two ways. Playing co-op hands your partner your shelf, and Send posts a build for an eight-letter code like KRTW-PLMB, which a friend types in under Add a friend's build. Each friend's builds file behind a tab of their own. Offline, Send falls back to the long code it used to give.

A torn cream note over the Champions table reading Your build code, KRTW-PLMB, and under it "Copied. A friend types it in on their Champions shelf, under Add a friend's build.", with Copy and Done buttons
The Champions table with the Sam tab open in the drawer: three of Sam's builds, one marked Act IV boss on a red pennant. Three warlords stand on the bases, and the switch is set to Auto

Both sides play alike. The right-hand seats are played by the same planner as Auto-play, turned round: the same card choices, targets and discards, onto summoning spots of their own down the far end of each road, where they used to muster every summon in a clump. In an Auto fight both hands are on show, the turn ribbons name whose turn it is, End Turn or Space pauses the whole fight, and a coin toss decides who opens each round. Each build's roads run across to the builds opposite, so two against two is one field with crossing roads instead of two separate boards. The figures at the table are bigger, with their signs hung over their heads as in a fight, and one that fell in the fight stands back up in its own colours.

A Champions fight on a green felt mat: the board between two Pirates, PAUL on the left and SAM on the right, a red ribbon across the middle reading Sam's Turn, and Sam's hand of three cards fanned at the bottom
The same fight a moment later: Sam's hand at the bottom, the curse card Decay and the spell Love Letter lifted out of it, and a green aim line running from the cards to Sam's end of the board
The versus screen for four against four: PAUL, ANA, ROWAN and BJORN on the left half, each sign under its government's crest in orange flames; KIM, Sam, THEODORA and Mei on the right half in blue flames; a big card V and S between them

Versus plays a friend live. At the War Council, with exactly one other player seated, the host presses Versus in the tent's top corner: the friend plays the mirror's seat from the right, with a tray of their own for their hand, energy and roads, or you both watch the host's two builds fight. A friend who wins sees their own government's last blow.

Crowns for Ascension 10

Win a run at Ascension 10 with a warlord, and that warlord's stand is closed into a cardboard crown: corrugated board cut into seven points, painted in your colour, the feet standing in the cup. The crown goes everywhere the warlord stands: Choose Your Warlord (where it rises out of the table the first time), the draft, every fight, the War Council's seats, the warlord's page in the Compendium and the Daily briefing. A march that fell in Act IV after taking Act III's throne counts. Crowning all fourteen is a new achievement, A Crown for Every Head.

Five warlords standing in a row on a green background: the King, the Gunslinger, the Witch and the Pirate each stand in a blue-painted cardboard crown with seven points round their feet, and the Viking stands on a plain cardboard disc
Choose Your Warlord with seven warlords on the wheel, several of them standing in blue cardboard crowns. The Boxer is at the front, with his BOXER sign, his Championship Belt pin and three starter cards under him

Puptential's nine final forms

Puptential now evolves at 15 Exp instead of 20, and kills past the goal carry over onto the evolved form's bar. Its nine final forms used to be the pup's own body with one part swapped. Each is now a different creature, cut by hand, and five took new names to match:

  • Fire: Emberax, a winged dragon, breathes fire over a crowd at range. Scorchtail, a monkey with a Pyromancy flame for a head, burns what stands near it. Magmara, a volcano-backed magma beast, burns whatever strikes it.
  • Water: Tidewalker (was Tidehound), a being of water, holds the line and re-forms once. Brinejaw (was Brinecoat), a land shark, goes into a feeding frenzy. Broadshell (was Abyssel), a cannon turtle, fires a water shot that ricochets, charming everything it skips through.
  • Green: Bramblemaw (was Bramblehound), a thorn-mawed vine monster, reaches a root down its lane. Bloomwing (was Bloomshepherd), a bird of petals, flies in anywhere and mends. Vinelurk, a grass mantis, hides in the grass until it pounces.
Nine paper creatures in three rows on a dark board, each named in gold. Fire: Emberax, an orange winged dragon; Scorchtail, a monkey with a flame for a head; Magmara, a lumpy black beast with a smoking volcano on its back. Water: Tidewalker, a blue figure made of water; Brinejaw, a grinning shark on legs; Broadshell, a turtle with a cannon on its shell. Green: Bramblemaw, a vine monster with a thorny mouth; Bloomwing, a pink bird of petals; Vinelurk, a green mantis

Sharing a run

The end-of-run highlights no longer pop up over things when the pointer passes by. The summary shows one big player with a Share button and a strip of moments to pick from; a click or tap opens the big view. The strip now leads with The whole march: the run's best moments trimmed and joined into one GIF with their labels on, ending on the store card. On Android, recording is now on by default (it pauses while the phone is hot or saving battery), and Share opens the phone's share sheet with the clip's preview.

The end-of-run page: a row of run totals across the top, Moments of the March, a big picture of a fight on the left and a note reading The whole march, Victory in Act 1, Share your run on the right, and a strip of four smaller moments underneath

Smaller things in the fight

Act bosses' verdicts. The verdict on a beaten act boss's page is now an object out of his own fight: FELLED is a crosscut saw, QUENCHED a steaming slack tub, COLLARED a buckled collar and lead, and so on for every act boss. The hit buckles the lord and knocks his sign, and the plate hangs under it.

Two pictures side by side. On the left, the Magma Magnate in his crown under his stone sign, a plank reading QUENCHED hanging under it with steam rising behind it. On the right, Wally waving with his watering can under his sign, a leather collar reading COLLARED hanging under it

Phase breaks stop the fight again. Since 0.7.32 the smaller phase breaks played over a running fight. That was confusing, so every break once more holds the fight for its whole show: the banner, the stage turn, the blow and the cards. A press still hurries it at four times speed. The Brass Colossus's two small breaks, Pressure Release and Foundry Override, now play as a short beat, with no banner to click away and no trip for the camera; The Foundry Stands Up keeps the full show.

Calvin's last floe bobs on the sea instead of see-sawing. It leans a few pixels on a spring with a short wave under it, its near side shows the slab's thickness in layers of ice with the sea lapping at its foot, and the Bear Beneath rides a little of its bob instead of being lifted into the air. Ripples come only when an end goes in, and the cards, aim marks and slams laid over the ice ride with it.

A long floe of ice on a blue paper sea, the queen at the left end and a crowd of penguins in front of Calvin, the polar bear, at the right. The floe rocks gently, its ends dipping into the water and lifting out again with a little spray

The Battle of Vows board no longer trembles when one side is a little behind; it only moves when the balance does. Its angels fly in from above the top of the screen on their own side and glide down over three seconds, wings beating, instead of popping into place, and one sent away lifts off and climbs out.

The Act IV mat comes down already split between the two lands. The cloth used to come down as one land and jump to two the moment it landed.

Confirming an upgrade carries the card from its seat to the bench, and the rest of the step falls off the screen around it.

The fight's console slides in from the screen edge nearest each piece, tier by tier up from the floor: the piles out of the bottom corners, then the energy gem from the left and the speed row from the right, then the turn plate and the log. It used to drop in from a whole screen below, so all anyone saw was a little bounce.

Pins. The pins the bar has no room for sit on a fanned stack of their backing cards with the count on top, instead of a gradient diamond.

Warlord signs each dye one part in your seat's colour, the way the King's cloth does: the Boxer's apron, the Conductor's livery, the Viking crew's shields, the Witch's brew, the Spaceman's stripe and flag, and so on.

Every Drop's Blood Droplets rise on the commander that bled and march out down one of its own roads.

AI hands hold Big Bang until the turn's summons have landed, so the Stokers split too. This is every hand the game plays for somebody: Auto-play, co-op AI seats and the Act IV mirror.

Potions. A potion's hover wears a manila tag tied on with twine. With a full belt, every flask's tag hangs on the page where there is room, and on a phone a tap picks a flask up and a second tap pours it.

Vows. The vow chart shows an act's two stops on one row, and the other one leaves the chart once you swear at one. The vows note now ends "Vows decide your ending."

Balance

  • The Act IV mirror plays its hand with the same planner as Auto-play (and the Champions right seat): the same choices, order, summoning spots, targets and discards, read from its own side. Its speech, finisher and versus screen are as before.
  • Act IV pays more pack XP than stopping at Act III. A march into the fourth act banks its Act III win (10 floors plus 5) on top of the shorter fourth road, where it used to be paid for the fourth road alone.
  • The Brass Colossus: The Foundry Stands Up refills him to half his health, up from 35%.
  • Mum, the Word has 50 health, up from 25.
  • Puptential evolves at 15 Exp instead of 20, and its nine final forms were redesigned (above).

The browser version

The first load is split in two. The game's code downloads first and starts the engine, and the pictures and sounds come down while it compiles, under a page of Uncle Jim's how-to-play films, titled in your language, with a progress bar. In our tests over a 50 Mbit line, the title came up in 45 seconds where it took 53.

The felt mat keeps its plain roll in the browser. The cloth lay-outs from 0.7.37 froze Chrome for 16 to 20 seconds on the first fight while it built their shaders, so the 0.7.37 post's six ways of laying the mat are on the downloads and phones only. The government rooms behind a won fourth act's recap are left out of the browser too, which keeps the plain room.

Phones

  • A finger's tap never plays a card now. It reads a card or puts it down, and a tap off the open card puts it down.
  • Sliding along the hand only moves on to another card once your finger has rested on it for a second, so dragging a card up and across the fan no longer switches cards on the way.
  • Tinker's Workshop is laid out for a thumb: every button is cut at a thumb's size in a slot made for it, and each dial is a stepper.
  • Pass the Parcel's two ribbons and the potion toll's Cancel stay on their paper.
  • Your commander's sign on the pack picker is cut at reading size and hung just over the crown, and the run recap shows your warlord's sign at full size.
  • The Brass Colossus's new parts fly onto his joints in his refit, not far up and to the left of them.

Also in this update

  • The End Turn plate no longer shakes and flies off the screen. It did on a slow machine, and during a hurried phase break.
  • A tap on End Turn, or on any button drawn over the enemy lord, no longer makes him taunt you and swallows the press.
  • In the released builds, the entrance page showed a bare cloth behind the lord instead of his painted world. It shows his world now.
  • Haldric's shieldbearers come out of the castle for his great shield on every board, which fixes the known issue in the 0.7.37 post.
  • The Back buttons on Choose Your Warlord, the War Council and the draft are cream arrow tabs, and the body-type toggle on Choose Your Warlord is a cut ticket switch, the same as the Champions table's.

This post went out to players on Steam and itch.io on 27 October 2026, and is kept here. Comments and questions are read on either of those, in the Discord, or through the quill in game.