Monsterpocalypse: The King of Plastic Monsters

In the deep depths of the ocean, a creature is awoken by humanities disregard for their own planet. Making his way to the surface, he wrecks a terrible vengeance on humanity, tearing through cities with an unstoppable wrath. Since the destruction of Tokyo at the claws of Godzilla, cardboard cities leveled by men in rubber suits have become something of a genre in and of themselves, sometimes attempting terror, while also simply being a lot of fun. That same fun is brought to the table with Monsterpocalypse, a miniatures game by Privateer Press that puts you in control of a 200 foot tall beast whose only goal is the destruction of another irradiated, overgrown agent of destruction.

Monsterpocalypse begins with a city. It's best not to name this city or grow too attached, as in a little while, it's going to mostly be rubble and flames. Two giant monsters have chosen this city as their battleground and by the time they're through, few of these towering structures will be spared. There's a great variety of sci-fi movie staples to choose from as well, including dinosaurs, apes, Japanese mecha, Cthulu, flying saucers from Mars, mole people, giant bugs, and of course robotic versions of these abominations. This is a game in which someone decided to take Cthulu, the unholy lord whose mere image drives men to insanity, and turn it into a giant robot.

Along with your monster, you'll also have an army of support troops. These little guys go out, secure the map, harass the opposing monster, and occassionally get picked up and used as makeshift projectiles. Each type of monster has their own set of units that help encourage a unique playstyle. The martians, for instance prefer to capture as many objectives as possible, while the dinosaurs are more prone to simply charging in and doing damage. Luckily, these guys are pretty expendable, as you can respawn destroyed units. The game's only over when either player's monster is down for good.

For a game about giant monster's smashing their way through the city, it's actually surprisingly tactical and deep. The core of the system are the white action dice, which are used both as a means of resolving attacks and as a currency. Need to spawn a unit? Pay a die. Moving it will cost you one more and if you want to attack, any dice you roll are gone as well. All the dice you spend on units are used to activate your monster and vice versa, though you can only take a turn with one or the other. At first, it's tempting to spend all your dice on either side, but over time, you learn the power of budgeting monster dice, allowing you to take two turns in a row with your monster to do some serious damage. Another interesting aspect of this is that you can roll less dice in an attack if you wish, allowing you to save dice by not taking huge swings and weak threats.

Of course, we haven't yet gotten to the best part, and that's that set of red dice above. Red dice are your reward for doing all the fun things a 20 story creature can do. When you level buildings, smash opposing units, or capture specific map objectives, you earn these red power dice, which you can use to launch your monster's power attacks. These create a huge number of options for your monster, whether its rampaging through anything blocking your way, flinging opposing units into one another, or grabbing your opponent and slamming him through a couple of buildings. You'll need these heavy hits too. You'll never win a straight up slugging match with your opponent, but dropping him into a blazing pile of rubble with put him down pretty quick.

Unfortunately, all these options make the game quite complicated and a reliance on icons and a unwieldy rulebook do little to help matters. I highly suggest, if you're interested in the game, that you download a reference, like these unbelievably well produced cards. There are also several cheat sheets available on the game's website. My other word of warning is that this game is currently sold as a blind purchase collectible game, and unfortunately, that makes getting what you want more difficult than it really should be. Fortunately, Privateer Press announced earlier today that this summer, they're dropping the collectible format and relaunching the game without the hassle of blind purchases. This announcement, along with the recently released two player starter boxes, makes it an absolutely fantastic time to give the game a shot. A world of devastation awaits!