What Makes CMGs so Awesome! – Part 1: History and Reflection on the Games played by Dad, Grandpa, Great Grandpa, Great Great Grandpa…

This week I have spent some time thinking about what makes CMGs so awesome. I can honestly say that between Star Wars, GI Joe, Spawn and countless other intellectual properties (including those in the hobby game market) I have spent more on toy soldiers than I have spent on anything else, short of food and shelter. Going back to my childhood, my friends and I would play with GI Joes and Star Wars action figures. We would form some force of figures and then engage those figures in small-scale skirmishes until the inevitable dispute between “I hit you” and “No, you didn’t” would arise. When I was 16, I discovered hobby gaming and tabletop miniatures games, and I have played miniatures games since then. My love of minis games is obviously shared by many people and generations, going all the way back to the beginning – of time.

Since the dawn of civilization adults and children have played with toy soldiers; archeologists have discovered toy soldiers in Egyptian tombs. Metal toy soldiers appear in various German states in the 18th century, and as time went on metal miniatures continued on to their pinnacle [PP link]. If you think back to movies like Braveheart, where “strategic planning” was done, toy soldiers make an appearance (they even had cool little wooden boats). The Patriot featured toy soldiers being turned into lead bullets to fire at the British. I am sure that even little caveman children would play with toy soldiers made of sticks and mud to recreate great battles between their insurance-selling fathers and gigantic woolly mammoths.

Thus our love of these little figurines is engrained. We can project onto them all we wish we could be. We channel our imaginations through these props and tell the stories of our heroes. The visual dimensions of the figure allow us to relate to it more than a two-dimensional piece of paper. As most of our childhood games like Tag or Hide-and-Go-Seek are about techniques for survival, maybe our desire to play with toy soldiers contains some of those instincts as well. While it is good to play and imagine as children, the problem of “I hit you”, “No, you didn’t” still exists.

In 1913, H.G. Wells, author of such classics as The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds wrote a book that created a great “mediator” for childhood play called Little Wars: a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys’ games and books. (Really, that is the entire title of the book. Obviously gender-based marketing did not concern Wells overmuch). Little Wars is the first set of rules using toy soldiers written and published for the public and came from Wells and his friend shooting match sticks at toy soldiers to knock them over. He added rules that gave advantages and disadvantages to cavalry, artillery, and line soldiers. All in all, the game was pretty simple and even provided a platform for Wells to share some opinions on the subject of war (from what I have heard – I do not own a copy).

Check out the tangent:

When Little Wars is considered along with The War of the Worlds, you can see that H.G. Wells actually has dual influence on Monsterpocalypse. Matt Wilson drew a lot of inspiration from The War of the Worlds when developing the Martian Menace faction, including the large saucers and tripod walkers that feature in the science fiction classic.

Now back to the topic at hand.

As a kid, my friends and I would line up our GI Joes and Star Wars action figures and take turns shooting rubber bands at them (and incidentally at each other as well – ouch). In some ways we had developed a system for resolving combat in much the same way that Wells had. Great mind think alike!

Many other historical miniatures games followed Wells’ offering. The hobby that we share today grew out of hobbyists like you and me painting up armies for Alexander the Great or Stonewall Jackson and leading those armies into battle on the weekend. If we choose instead to play games featuring the likes of Aragorn or a 60-meter tall giant lizard rampaging through a city, it is only because we have the opportunity. In the early part of the century, our forerunners did not have the joys of movies, cartoons, and comic books in the same way that we have them today. While they had comic books, movies, and later television, these were all emerging mediums and their storytelling had a ways to go. Further, the concept of expanding an intellectual property beyond its debut medium had not developed its fullest potential. Real men like George Washington or Hannibal, their stories blown into mythological proportions, filled the heroic roles today played by the likes of Iron Man or Luke Skywalker. When a modern movie launches, it launches alongside lunch boxes, cartoons, comics, games, and toy soldiers.

Then Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren took their love of historical miniatures gaming, combined it with their love of all things fantasy, like The Lord of the Rings and classic mythology, and gave us Chainmail, which really spawned the entire hobby gaming industry. At this point people began to dream of their own heroes and merge them with their games.

Then the rest happened to get us where we are now (you know the games, who made them, and what they are made of).

The advent of pre-painted plastic miniatures drew a lot of attention and praise from those players that wanted to play minis games but did not want to put in the “heavy lifting” of painting their miniatures. Players would no longer have to endure the disgrace of unpainted or merely primed miniatures on the battlefield. Figures became more specialized and individualized with their stats and rules printed either on a card made just for them or on their actual base, but I think this really came out of another genre, one that kept the lights on in the Yaple home for many years. That genre is the CCG/TCG genre.

The story of CCGs cannot be told without the story of Magic: The Gathering. This fresh take on card games released to the public in August of 1993. A lot of minis players instantly took to the new Collectible Card Game genre because it shared a fundamental core element with the minis game: you got to select your force before the game even started. For a similar reason role-playing games were hugely popular at the time – but RPGs do not feed your competitive hunger. There are a good number of people who want to express creativity in their hobbies. Designing a deck, making a character, or building an army feeds this need. While Wizards could have just printed flat numbers on their Magic cards, the addition of rules that affected the game in a unique way set the game apart from anything else we had seen before.

MTG arose from games like Cosmic Encounter, which had elements that pushed the mechanical limits of the game. Once the CCG phenomenon had settled, other games started playing with the concepts that CCGs had introduced. Collectible card games made players hungry for effects that could “combo” well with one another and effects that could drastically shift a game’s course. Tabletop miniatures games began publishing elements with more dynamic rules. Every soldier of the battlefield brought some sort of rule that set them apart from the other soldiers on the table. Generally speaking, older miniatures games had more standardized rules for units. Usually just a stat bar conveyed their differences, and only special elements received individualized rules. Now you rarely see a unit/hero/monster without a unique special effect tied to it.

This all boils into where we are today. Hobby games like HORDES and WARMACHINE are unlike yesteryears’ games. Collectible miniatures games like Monsterpocalypse push that concept even farther.

A few games have taken on the kaiju genre over the years, but none of them have featured minis of this quality. I will bet dollars to nickels that our game plays much more dynamically, elegantly, and challengingly. The pre-painted figures prevent the unholy sight of unpainted miniatures on the battlefield. While making a great game is never easy, it is made a little easier when you look back at the rich history of games that have come before you and learn the lessons that they have to teach.

Minis games provide a way to share stories with one another. Every time you back away from the table and look, you can see a scene from a movie. The closer you move in, the more detailed that movie becomes. Miniatures games allow all of the players to participate in the storytelling, and the rules act as a fair mediator between the participants to make sure all the actors get the screen time they deserve. While the army/hero/monster you may be rooting for does not always win, if the rules were dynamic and engaging, you had fun telling the story, and ultimately that is what it is all about. And unless you are playing that type of game where you smash the figure with a hammer when it is destroyed, your army/hero/monster will always return to fight again.

Part 2 will probably be a bit shorter and delve into what I dig about actually playing the game.

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Talkin’ Units Here: The Interceptor

While a monster-centric game, Monsterpocalypse’s units play a vital roll as well. Units to gain Power Dice, whether from securing buildings, holding Power Zones, or just destroying other units, and they can cost your opponent Power Dice by holding Negative Zones. Often these activities prove just as profitable as destroying your opponent’s units, so don’t judge a unit solely on its combat potential. With that in mind, I bring you the following unit: the Shadow Sun Syndicate’s “Interceptor”.

In combat terms, the Interceptor doesn’t offer much; its Blast 1 can be useful in combined attacks but not for much else. The Interceptor’s real advantage lies in its Speed 7, the highest among all the units in the first set. In addition, the Interceptor’s Hover ability allows it to move easily over rough terrain. This combination means the Interceptor can spawn and then move super quick to the middle of the battle map and hold valuable Power Zones or help other units secure buildings.

The Interceptor’s high Speed and Hover ability also make it a prime unit for screening your monster. As I mentioned in previous posts, just placing a few units between your monster and your opponent’s monster forces your opponent to address those units or find a way around them. Either way, he has to deal with them, and this can save your monster from some pretty devastating Power Attacks.

The Interceptor also has the Transport ability. This allows it to use an action to place “Shadow Gates” on the map. Slow-moving units, Shadow Gates can, as an action, teleport other friendly units on the map to spaces adjacent to the Shadow Gate. This gives the Shadow Sun Syndicate incredible mobility and makes it easy for them to deny their opponents Power Zones (because the Interceptors and Teleported units beat the other guys to it) or Secure Buildings (because you cannot secure a building with an enemy unit adjacent to the building).

With the ability to Teleport freshly spawned Interceptors to points halfway across the map, and then advance those Interceptors, the Shadow Sun Syndicate not only has real potential for taking and holding Power Zones and securing buildings but also some real harassment potential in denying their opponents those resources as well.

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New York, New York. Its a Kaiju Town.

A lot of people would say that New York is the heart of America. Some have even called it the center of the known universe. Whether you feel that way or not, there is no denying that New York gets a lot of attention in fiction.

It seems that whenever American filmmakers produce a new monster movie, the monster rampages through New York City. Godzilla (the Ferris Bueller version), King Kong (like every version), Cloverfield (the only version) and even Ghostbusters all have their monsters rampaging through New York City (including the Statue of Liberty in the second Ghostbusters film). Cloverfield got me thinking as to why American monsters take to New York. I came up with four points.

1) New York City has a great skyline with lots of famous buildings to knock down, giving the audience an easy attachment to what’s getting destroyed. The dense population adds to the terror factor as all those people run screaming!

2) Many filmmakers and screenwriters make New York their home. You write what you know. Faulkner wrote about the South and James Joyce wrote about Ireland. When you live in a place or you grow up there, you tend to think of that place as the center of the universe because, essentially, it is the center of your universe.

3) The Kong Factor. There is a deep-seated love between filmmakers and King Kong. Jon Peters was looking for a scene in Superman Returns that paid homage to King Kong’s reveal, and you only need watch the credits of Peter Jackson’s King Kong to see how much he loved the original. King Kong is known for rampaging through New York City as the original Gojira is known for tearing up Tokyo. When filmmakers set a monster movie in New York, they are paying those respects to King Kong whether they intend to or not.

4) Techno-guilt. This phrase sort of sums up how people feel nowadays. New York City arguably represents a pinnacle of human technology and civilization, not only in America but also in the world. When monsters attack New York, it is as if they are striking at the heart of humanity and avenging humanity’s use of nuclear technology, pollution, and other side effects of our culture. Thus, the juxtaposition of something so untamed and terrible as a giant monster attacking a towering achievement of mankind (New York City) creates the most desirable and dramatic contrast any storyteller could hope for. This is a similar approach to some of the criticism of Gojira; some say that Gojira is analogy for the use of nuclear weapons, or that he represents the backlash from the use of those nuclear weapons.

Much as I enjoy seeing monster stomp New York, it does not satisfy my desire to see other famous buildings and skylines crushed under the foot of a 20-story space invader. Chicago has a great skyline and the tallest building in the United States with the Sears Tower. Los Angeles has a respectable skyline, and watching monsters duke it out in the coliseum would be the best action the coliseum has seen since the Raiders made it their home! San Francisco has the Golden Gate Bridge, and that Transamerica Pyramid is made for maximum monster damage. That new American Gladiators commercial even recognized that. Even Seattle, with its skyline made famous by the show Frazier, would be a great candidate for smashing. We need the monster movie directors to let go of the past and venture out into new cities for their tales of destruction and human perseverance.

One of the refreshing things about Monsterpocalypse is that the story takes place all over world. The monsters in the story represent a global threat that is answered with a global response. The forthcoming comic from Across the Pond Studios will have action that moves around the planet. With the variety of maps and buildings in the first set, you can imagine the monsters rampaging through any city you choose. That said…watch out New York!

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The Planet Eaters

Currently my favorite faction to play in Monsterpocalypse is the Planet Eaters. I have developed a play style that maybe suits a couple of the other factions better, but I find myself the most happy when I’m playing the Planet Eaters.

The Planet Eaters came to Earth in a comet that split and crashed in six locations around the globe. One hit actually destroyed some of Chicago and altered the outline of Lake Michigan. Since then, these creatures have been “hoggin’ down” on the unlimited buffet that is Earth. (Comic fans: if you happen to be at San Diego Comic Con this year, Privateer will be handing out an exclusive copy of the Monsterpocalypse Issue Zero that chronicles this very event!)

The Planet Eaters have no problems with humanity or with the Earth itself; they just hunger. A lot. I had a boss that was the same way back in the day; as the clock approached the 12 o’clock hour, you stayed out of his way lest your hand be mistaken for a sandwich. For the Planet Eaters, Earth just happens to be the salad bar and humanity the crumbled bacon.

Occasionally these forces of destruction break from their consumption, dig into the Earth, and take a nap, sort of like after a big Thanksgiving dinner when you go in the living room and snooze for a while. Then, just like my uncle, they arise from that nap hungrier than ever and begin feeding again!

It would be easy to label the Planet Eaters as evil or demons, but they really are no more evil than a domesticated animal that turns on its trainer or a wild animal that attacks a hiker. It’s just their nature. I’m sure they would be fine with a live and let live policy, as long as you could live in their tummy.

Game-wise Gorghadra and Rogzor play very well together and apart. Gorghadra has a low defense, making him easy to hit, but he has more wounds than any other monster, which keeps him rampagin’ and stompin’. Rogzor is the king of the blast attack. He can smash enemy monsters into buildings with his Blast Attack and his built-in Hit and Run ability keeps him moving after every attack. This allows him to put units between himself and his target and remain at a distance. Both monsters are excellent at wreaking havoc and laying waste to their enemies – and the towns around them.

Their units include the Explodohawk. This flying brawler cannot combine attacks with other units but is more than capable of delivering damage to monsters on its own and is also a great unit for taking out your opponent’s secured buildings. Blast-based units like the Belcher really shine when teamed up with Rogzor as he grants them extra Boost Dice when they attack. The Destructomite is a quick little devil capable of running out and taking key points on the map, while retaining some brawl stat to fight back.

My play style is still developing but this week I won more than I lost - I am turning a corner people! Lately I have taken to securing some buildings and holding Power Zones, then moving my monster out to destroy my opponent’s buildings and his units holding Power Zones. By shutting down his Power Dice production, I keep the game in my favor. The Planet Eaters work well for getting a monster out to start destroying buildings and rampaging around the city. Gorghadra actually gets extra Power Dice from his Rampages, and Rogzor’s blast ability also has the Explosion rule, which is great for taking out groups of units that securing buildings.

There is something else great about the Planet Eaters. While still being terrifying monsters to behold, their appearance has something likeable in it. Visually they have a really low center of gravity and the most adorable potbellies. This goes back to the visuals of the classic kaiju movies. Of all of the monsters in Monsterpocalypse, I think that Gorghadra would be the most likely candidate to find his way into a battle with the kaiju greats. That little potbelly would be the perfect visual for the celebratory bounce the monsters take after throwing another monster through a building or over a mountain.

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