This Insider is a big one.

Normally, we talk about a single monster or the concept behind a new way to play, but this time, we’re discussing the launch of a brand-new Faction to Monsterpocalypse.

Most of the Factions we’ve added to this edition so far have been based on existing ideas in the setting, but this summer, we decided to go big with some all-new ideas. Adding a completely new Faction to Monsterpocalypse begins with a discussion of what the theme of that Faction will be. We’ve touched on a lot of kaiju themes and ideas from related genres, so finding a new direction can sometimes be a challenge. This was not one of those times, however. As you may have heard me talk about in the past, there were planning documents from the last edition of the game that listed options for adding new models. As I was thinking about this summer’s releases, I looked that list over. I didn’t have to look very far, though, because at the top of the list were two of my favorite words: Space Dragons.

I was immediately sure this was the best idea for what to add to the game, and it wasn’t a struggle to get everyone else on board. The only quick conversation we had was which Agenda was right for them. Should they be a Destroyer Faction or fight alongside the Protectors? There are plenty of examples of both good and evil dragons in stories, so either would fit. The old notes mentioned them as a Protectors option, and I liked the idea that they could be ferociously powerful when necessary but fundamentally peaceful, so we made them a force for good.

While the old notes talked about a bit of theme and many mechanical rules options, it didn’t go very far, so we started a conversation about what this Faction should contain. Most of these discussions involved three monsters, three unit blisters, and a building. This doesn’t mean a Faction will stay that size forever, but it gives us a good amount of models to establish a solid feel for the Faction. More than half of the models in this Faction are launching this month, but we’ll be saving the third monster and blister for another Insider.

I’ve been a fan of dragons for a long time—I have the grade school notebooks full of bad drawings of them to prove it. I knew exactly what I wanted each of the three monsters to look like, and everyone else agreed.

The first monster we design for a new Faction sets the tone for their look more than anything else. For this first model, I wanted a very classic winged dragon, but it needed to be more sci-fi than the average dragon. We decided to go with bladed wings to crank up the sci-fi angle, and that gave me lots of inspiration for where to go with the rules. The first rule I wrote for this model, Rastaban, was Strafe on his blast attack. I wanted to give him a way to target multiple models but not in the same way as models with thematically explosive attacks do. A model with wings also obviously has High Mobility, too, but not necessarily Flight. I decided to give Rastaban Flight to reflect that he was exceptionally mobile. Having decided that he would be on the supporty side of the power curve for monsters, Flight would make him a bit more powerful. The last thematic element that needed to be represented was his leadership. He assumed command of the Draken Armada after Gallamaxus was lost fighting Planet Eaters, so he needed some rules to show that. Motivator is a great rule that shows the leadership potential of a model, and it was only on one other Protectors monster, so that was the first rule added. I still wanted a little bit more, though—perhaps some synergy with other Draken models—so we also created another new rule for this monster. Power Gorge is on numerous monsters, but only a Destroyer unit had that rule up to this point. It felt right for these space monsters to fight in a similar way to Planet Eaters, so we created Power Swell for Rastaban to give Power Gorge to all his smaller Draken Armada allies.

Determining how a monster changes when it goes hyper is always a fun task, and hinting at a bit of story is usually how these rules are written. With the establishment of Rastaban having a Power Dice theme in alpha, I wanted to lean into that with his hyper side. He loses his command rules in this state, but he becomes a raging inferno of power-absorbing might. We first added Power Gorge to all of his attacks, but I thought he needed a bit more. Power Sink first appeared on an UberCorp monster, and I really liked the idea that his wings could serve multiple purposes, so Rastaban gained that ability as well. Finally, I wanted a little bit more story on him, so we added Terrify. This is the bit that really shows how he is drawing power from everything nearby, even sapping the ability for units to effectively attack him.

For monster number 2, I wanted something completely different. I drew plenty of dragons as a kid that didn’t have wings, so I usually added other bits to compensate for that. For Zybanos, I wanted a grounded monster, but I wanted more than one head. And when you start adding heads, why not also add a few extra arms?

I had just added a two-headed monster to the Destroyers with the arrival of Blastikutter, so I didn’t want to hit the same kind of notes with this monster’s rules. The first thing I decided to add was two support rules to represent each head being good at a particular thing. Flank and Spotter have been in the game since near the beginning but never before on the same model. Next, I wanted to represent its four arms. A light way to do this is the Precision Strike he has on every attack. I didn’t want to make Zybanos never miss, of course, but I wanted to give him a little bump up. Since Spotter and Flank both apply to his own attacks, Precision Strike goes a little farther on this monster than it would on others. His rules were almost done, but I wanted to do a bit more. I first added Demolition to his brawl attack. This gives him a great way to disrupt an opponent’s power production and is a fun way to represent his four arms taking a building apart and catching everything near it with the debris.  Finally, I added Side Step. It’s an ability that doesn’t trigger that often on a Defense 8 monster, but it doubles down on taking advantage of an opponent’s bad roll in a way I really like for this monster.

When Zybanos goes hyper, all of his themes get cranked up. He loses his support abilities, but in place of guiding others in their brawl or blast attacks, he gains Ultimate Weapon. This is similar to the theme shown in Rastaban’s hyper form, which is when these monsters are careful and have a plan as the battle starts but then get very angry when things don’t go their way. I didn’t want to completely leave all of Zybanos’ carefulness behind in this mode, so we came up with the new ability Action: Troubleshoot. This gives him his own personal reroll for any attack that misses, further representing that not only are two heads better than one, but four arms are pretty handy as well. Finally, we swapped his alpha brawl trigger for Chain Reaction, showing that he can hit multiple units all the time, not just when smashing a building, and he traded his ability to move when missed for Reposition, an ability that will much more frequently ruin your opponent’s plans.

With the first two monsters sorted, it was time to start thinking about units. When we asked the question—What kind of little things would be helping out big giant dragons?—the obvious answer seemed to be, Lots of smaller dragons. It was at this point we finalized the Faction name and the complete theme. Not only were there a couple of massive dragons that had flown across the galaxy to fight the Planet Eaters, but there was an entire flotilla of spaceships accompanying them. This Draken Armada was staffed with smaller (but still big by human scale) dragon-people and their trained creatures of war.

Going along with the themes of the monsters, I wanted to show this race of aliens as a supremely technological society, and in the words of Arthur C. Clarke, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” That also lines up with the ideas in some sci-fi stories that aliens blend mystical energies with science in ways that our scientists can’t understand. Along these lines, I wanted to make this a very interesting Faction from strategic and tactical angles, and I started that exploration with their mainline fighter.

The first blister for this Faction shows how well they work together as an army. The Fusilier is a grunt with a Commander Elite with average stats. Where they excel is in working together. Taking inspiration from the Mastermind ability, we created Team Tactics. This ability improves the odds of hitting a target in a combined attack with Draken Armada units as long as one Fusilier is involved. For the specialist in this blister, I wanted to explore truly new ground. When we were discussing the basics of this Faction, I described them as having a unit that protected buildings. We tried a few different things on the Warder, and we ended up with Action: Shield Guard. This is the first action added to the game that can be taken on your opponent’s turn, and it allows the Warder to be hit by a blast attack that was just successful against an adjacent building or allied unit, making these heavily armored Drakens a great way to protect your most important buildings from enemy fire.

For the second blister, I wanted to better explore the tactical flexibility of the Faction and give them more interesting tools. The core of this blister is the Courser, the Draken version of a hunting hound. These fast all-terrain ground units have a higher defense than most things their speed, and they have the Pointer ability, allowing their friends to more easily shoot at the targets the Coursers flush out.

The companion to these more bestial members of the Faction is the Draken Berserker, a member of the same species as the Fusilier and Warder—but with a wilder side. I wanted this Faction to primarily include highly trained units that fought well together, but I also wanted to reflect the rage that’s part of the design for the hyper forms of the monsters. The Mollock Berserker was recently added to the Destroyers’ side of the game, so I also thought it would be fun to reflect some of what it did with this model. The Berserker and Lone Wolf rules were automatic, since we can’t have this model leading a combined attack that rolls a ton of dice and have it hurting a monster. But where the Mollock has a deep-seated inner rage and the ability to dig its way to a target, this model needed something different. We decided to go with Thick of It, a powerful ability, with the right setup, that allows the Berserker to roll an amazing amount of dice in the perfect situation. The final thing you’ll notice with a lot of these units is they all have a brawl and a blast attack, meaning they can always help each other out when they really need to.

We’re nearing the finale of this Insider now, as we come to the building themed to go with this Faction.

As with almost everything in this Faction, it wasn’t difficult to come up with what this model should look like. Dragons and castles go together quite naturally, so a spaceship that could land and become a kind of sci-fi castle was perfect for them. Of course, it has the Draken Armada Base rule, just like any other Faction’s building. To lean into the military tactics theme of the Faction and to give everyone access to a great ability that was only on a single Protectors monster before, we put Action: Tactical Shift on it. This allows you to clear a path for your monster when one of your units is in the way, but it also speeds up a unit during one of your unit turns, meaning it will be a great addition to everyone’s toolbox of buildings.

And there it is.

Exploring what the words “Space Dragons” could mean in the game of Monsterpocalypse has been a lot of fun, and I hope you have just as much fun with these models when you get them into your hands, (some available now and others in the coming weeks). Stay tuned for a future Insider where we talk about monster number 3 and the third blister of units…