Monsterpocalypse

Matt took me through one of the worlds many collectible miniatures games last week; this one featuring Toho Cinema and anime inspired monsters duelling each other across a defenceless metropolis.

The game itself is from Privateer Press, and seems at least to have been well supported, though not perhaps the initial success they might have liked; despite this hollywood is apparently keen to make a film adaptation (and if they are prepared to make an adaptation of Battleship* into a film, who knows where they'll draw the line).

The models are in some cases very impressive, this was my Xaxor, an alien gribbly clocking in, according to its' stat card, at 30,000 tonnes!

In real life he's a few grams of prepainted transparent plastic.  Quality varies, I felt my models were nicely turned out, but Matt's robot monsters were much less polished.  The base uses a variety of stats and icons to detail the in game performance of the models.  Each side has one main monster and access to a variety of smaller units.

Game play revolves around the management of three sorts of dice to allow units to act.  White dice are used to summon units, move and fight, and when used by or for units are transferred to the main monster, who in turn can use them to move, fight and a few other special actions.  This means that usually you alternate rounds between small units and the big monster, but in some cases it can be possible to manage two successive turns with your monster.

Red dice are power-ups, and can only be used by the big monster to augment attacks, the can be earned in a variety of ways.  Lastly blue dice are bonuses that can only be used in attacks, each unit adds its' own values of these.

The terrain is interactive, and provides its' own bonuses and penalties; but my Xaxor quickly found they were a way to earn red dice, so managed to smash four of them in one attack.

Gain enough power and you can transform into an 'Ultra' form:

The stats improve, but it is basically an unpainted version of the standard model.  Incidentally the plastic is quite brittle, and several of the models were damaged in transit.  Superglue repairs them fine, but it is as well to be aware that product perfection cannot be guaranteed.

As battle continued I soon defeated Matt's alpha form, and it became a battle between our ultras.  Both units could use particular combo-attacks, and the small units could provide certain supports.

In the end I was able to coordinate more damage on his robot, and having defeated both its' forms I won the game.

For a collectible game there seemed to be a lot to learn up front, but once in play it was easy to pick up and quite entertaining.

I'd certainly give it another go, though of course I will always be wary of the dangers of the collectible format, and if it was me I'd want to repaint the bases as much as possible.