Playing with your Units

A staple of the kaiju movie genre are the civil defense forces, flying saucers, and various other little guys that get stomped and swatted by the monsters like tennis balls being hit by rich wives playing tennis with their instructors.

Monsterpocalypse addresses this portion of the genre head on and makes smaller elements a crucial part of the game. Depending on your monster’s faction, the theme of your units will vary greatly. Smaller dinosaurs and beasts from the earth surround the giant dinosaur Terra Khan. The giant robot Defender X is supported by civil defense forces that include tanks and helicopters.

You can use your units to secure buildings and occupy power zones, both of which yield your monster more power dice. You can attempt to keep your units off to the side, tucked behind cover, but they will do you no good. Units need to get onto the field to capture key locations and generate power dice. Of course, spreading them out around the map gives your opponent something to stomp and chew on, so you have to be careful where you place those guys.

Because all attacks do one point of damage (unmodified) and all monsters have about the same amount of health, with a few exceptions, Monsterpocalypse is about staying ahead of your opponent on the damage count. There are a few ways to turn this in your favor, one of which is playing your units defensively. Since monsters cannot move through units without addressing them, if you place your units so your opponent cannot get into position to slam you into a building, you can reduce your risk of suffering three or four point power attacks and maybe take only one damage point.

Now, units can do some damage on their own. Units can address one another with blast and brawl attacks rather easily. Further, two or more units can combine fire to do some damage to monsters. This creates great imagery of a line of tanks opening fire against a monstrous beast before it tears through the local oil refinery.

The game rewards spreading your units across the table. You gain nothing by hiding your units in the back corner of the map. Since your opponent has his forces scattered throughout the table as well because of the rewards for aggressively placing units, your monster will have plenty of stuff to smash and crush under his feet. Monsters love to smash little stuff, and ultimately that is why you are playing Monsterpocalypse!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites