This is the first time writing on the blog about something totally outside of the Warhammer & Warhammer 40,000 universe. But it feels close enough and I want to share my experience playing Monsterpocalypse for the first time.
Last week I was at Gen Con 2018. And I was able to play a ton of games and attend a ton of events. One of those events was a Monsterpocalypse tournament.
If you haven’t heard of Monsterpocalypse it’s a game by Privateer Press and it’s basically Pacific Rim the movie. There are giant robots and monsters fighting in a city throwing each other through buildings. They rereleased the game on Thursday at Gen Con where I picked up the minis and I was able to get some paint on my mini by the tournament Saturday morning.
Painting
Meet Defender X. He’s the robot on the good guys side. He’s not done but pretty good looking for the tournament.
I was inspired by Team America and Iron Patriot for this paint scheme. I painted and took pictures in stages if you’re curious on how I painted him.
Tournament
Friday I played one demo game at the Privateer Press booth and had a good time. So by Saturday morning I was really looking forward to it.
After seeing everyone’s monsters it was time to play.
Games
There were 5 games. You basically won or lost based on you killing the opponents monster. There were no ties and there was no other objective.
One of the things I like and dislike about the game is that units have a really hard time doing any damage. They’re primarily there to capture points on the board to give you more dice.
Ranges for shooting attacks are quite short. Only two of the four planes are actually in range.
One of the best parts of the game is playing cat and mouse with the other monsters. When you finally close the distance with them you want to make sure you have enough dice to throw them into a number of buildings to do maximum damage.
I won 2 out of my 5 games and had a blast.
I like the system. With 1 on 1 monster games it can be a bit monotonous. And there is a lot of cat and mouse. But I think with multiple monsters this will feel like an entirely different game.
One of the things I didn’t like is there was no points or rewards for painting. 5 of the 20 players had paint on their minis. That should absolutely count for something. Maybe have a prize for best painted. That can go a long way to bringing in hobby gamers instead of only competitive gamers.
Other Formats
While I enjoyed learning how to play and I especially liked having the game designer at the tournament answering rules questions I don’t think tournaments are for me.
I love gaming, sharing jokes with friends, and telling a story. So I’m hoping next year there will be another Monsterpocalypse event. But not one that’s competition focused.
Maybe a narrative campaign or a giant mega battle with 10 players a side. Something like could be a lot of fun.