The New Buildings and Hazards in ‘Monsterpocalypse Now’

Like Monsterpocalypse: Rise, Monsterpocalypse Now introduces nine new buildings to add to your city. Among these new buildings are some new abilities, two new hazards, and the new green abilities.

First let me explain the green abilities again, in case you missed the previous posts. Green abilities are placed exclusively on buildings. They can be any ability from Monsterpocalypse that works with units, monsters, or both—they are just printed in green. When a building has a green ability, the building itself does not have the power described in the ability; if you are securing the building, though, all the figures in your force—regardless of agenda or faction!—gain that power. Basically, this allows us to make abilities like Radar Network (which grants Radar to your units) without making a whole new ability. In fact, in the future you may see a building with green Radar instead of Radar Network.

Every self-respecting city has an outlet of state-controlled media through which it can inform its population that “there is nothing to worry about.” With the release of Series 4, the Newspaper Office is available for your Monsterpocalypse cities. Although newspapers may not be turning a profit these days, they are tapped into the wire services and have many reporters on the ground to scoop the story of the day from their competition. Thus, this 4 Defense, 3 Energy building features the new ability Intel along with Blazing Inferno (after all, it’s filled with stacks of paper).

INTEL—If you are securing this building, adjacent allied units can advance without spending A-Dice.

Not every city is powered with clean, safe nuclear energy. Due to fears of nuclear meltdowns and misunderstandings regarding the incident at Three Mile Island, most cities run their power grids with giant electrical turbines powered by burning oil, coal, and other fuels. Thus we bring you the Electrical Power Plant—and all the rolling brownouts that accompany it. This new 4 Defense, 5 Energy building allows us to bring back the Industrial and Power Amplifier abilities, along with a new reaction: Live Wire.

LIVE WIRE—When this building is destroyed, monsters on or adjacent to its foundation suffer 1 damage.

The idea for the Posh Apartments came to me while humming the theme from Diff’rent Strokes. To which you may say, “What’choo talkin’ ’bout, Erik?” Well, I am talking about a 5 Defense, 3 Energy building with Discount, High Occupancy, and Defenseless. But because it is posh, it features a nice point at the top of the building. This pointed top grants the building Spire, but the figure has no other hazard.

No trip to the big city would be complete without an overnight stay at a fancy hotel downtown. This 4 Defense, 3 Energy tower of leisure and pleasure comes with High Occupancy and Spire, just like the Posh Apartments. Inspired by all the underground loading bays I have seen at hotels (having worked many a convention and traveled into the bowels of many hotels), I gave the hotel Underground Network.

Within the last seven years I have lived in three different states, in three different metropolitan areas. It seems that on one level or another, every city has some form of publishing business within their city limits (and I am not just talking about game publishing). Despite great advancements in electronic technology, it seems that people still like to entertain themselves with tangible items, such as a book or a collectible miniatures game. So when brainstorming new buildings for Monsterpocalypse Now, one of the first on my list was the Publishing House. Since books are the keepers of history, I used this as a chance to bring Media Hub back to the game. Further, being that most publishers are pretty benign people, the building has Defenseless. I also reasoned that if publishers were really doing their job, people would have a bunch of books in their hands rather than guns—thus the inclusion of green Disarm. Finally, because every press check I have gone on has assaulted my nose with the foul smell of chemicals, I gave this building the new Chemical Spill ability, which creates a chemical hazard.

CHEMICAL SPILL—If this building is hit or destroyed, replace it with a chemical hazard. Figures moving onto that hazard take 1 damage. Mechanical monsters at full health do not suffer this damage.

Anyone who grew up in the late 80s to early 90s will remember a time when heavy metal music was a threat to the development of children. Tipper Gore (Al Gore’s wife) led a campaign against musicians and their producers to bring about sanctions on this music. The TV preachers of the time were up in arms, proclaiming the music “satanic.” The Music Producer in Monsterpocalypse Now is based on those times. While this 3 Defense, 2 Energy building is rather simple, it may prove to be one of the more valuable buildings to include in your city. The building features green Distract (because everyone is yelling, “Turn that thing down!”). Of course, any Lords of Cthul player will tell you that having a few units with Distract around the map is a great tool for peeling multiple boost dice off the combined attacks (up to –1 boost die for each unit in that attack, possibly) and can put a dent in a monster’s attempt to take multiple back-to-back monster activations, if they have to make up the lost boost die with an action die. Because that rock music is so “evil,” this building also debuts the arrival of the Hellfont ability and its hazard, which should get some players to dig out some of their Lords of Cthul, no matter what faction they currently play.

HELLFONT—If this building is hit or destroyed, replace it with a hellfont hazard. Once each unit activation, the active player can use 1 unoccupied space of the hellfont hazard to spawn an Occult unit.

When I think about some of the great cities I have been to, one of the first things that comes to mind are the huge churches. In a way, the churches of a city reflect its cultural heritage. The Cathedral was one of the first buildings I put on the list of new buildings. It seems that most of the great churches in the world have one thing in common: a big, pointy top. Thus, this 4 Defense, 1 Energy building was given Spire, although it has no additional hazard. To reinforce its spiritual theme, I gave it green Super Strength; because of its hearty construction, it got Super Structure. I also wanted this building to stick in the craw of the Lord of Cthul but still be generally useful against most monsters. So I addressed one of the Lords of Cthul’s main strategies, regaining health, and created the Holy Ground skill.

HOLY GROUND—Monsters within 2 spaces of this building cannot restore health.

Every day on the way to work, I pass construction sites in Bellevue. Every day I see giant cranes affixed to the sides of incomplete buildings, making minimal progress. I have been making that trip to work for nearly two years now. The Empire State building was built in 410 days, so I am not sure what is taking these guys so long. These never-ending projects of progress are a part of every city around the world, so we bring you the Construction Site. This 3 Defense, 1 Energy industrial site features the second appearance of Chemical Spill, along with two new abilities. The first of these, Hoist, is an action that allows you to move units from one side of the figure to the other—in this case using a giant crane to move the little guys. Having worked on a few of my uncles’ construction sites, I can tell you that they are usually littered with all sorts of tools and raw materials that could be used as a weapon by a 60-meter-tall monster—so we also gave this location Fortified.

HOIST—Choose 1 unit within 2 spaces of this figure and place that unit in another space it could legally occupy within 2 spaces of this figure.

FORTIFIED—If you are securing this building, allied units within 2 spaces of it gain +1 brawl B-Die.

If there is one thing that brings a city together, it is the city’s sports teams. What would New York be without the Yankees, Denver without the Broncos, Boston without the Red Sox, or Los Angeles without the Raiders and Rams (zing!) . . . or the Lakers? Because the Sports Arena is a place where masses of people gather, it seemed proper to put High Occupancy on this 6 Defense, 4 Energy building. Inspired by the soccer mobs of England, I also gave it green Energy Drain on the brawl and Fortified, which will both really help with the brawl attacks around this building.

Choosing the right set of buildings is critical in Monsterpocalypse. As many of you have learned, including a variety of buildings to counter tactics you might come across can really pay off, when compared to loading up on just three buildings en masse. The main trick will be to get build a city with 9–12 buildings with only a few duplicates of those key buildings that make your forces sing. So get out there, build a new city, and then tear it all down.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites