The mysterious Elemental Champions continue to amass their magical energies to fulfill their duty of protecting the earth during the Monsterpocalypse. In particular, Hurricanius employs the power of the sky in her battle against those that would destroy her world. In fact, she controls all aspects of the sky: air, storm, clouds, and lightning. Appropriately enough, fighting Hurricanius is said to be like bringing a bucket to contain a hurricane.
The new Elemental Champions models will be released in the new Protectors starter set in just a few months, along with an updated rulebook and two never-before-seen maps. Today, let’s take a look at Hurricanius, her new units, and one of the new maps.
The storm quickly builds to a shattering crescendo.
Hurricanius begins by channeling the power of the sky, using its natural strength to send units flying along razor-sharp air currents. Blitz and Fling are two sides of the same coin—one pushes a unit along its path while the other drives toward a much deadlier outcome. Air Superiority in particular sets Hurricanius apart from similar monsters. Not only does it strengthen her attacks against those who would be foolish enough to take to the sky, but it also punishes those who remain on the ground. Since the rule affects her as well, her 9 DEF is actually even higher much of the time.
Spawning Locus lets her spawn near her any unit with “Air” as part of its name. We were originally going to put this on each unit, but it felt better that the Locus itself have the rule. (If you are wondering if Incinerus will get updated to have Spawning Locus [Fire], the answer is most assuredly yes. He will gain the same ability the day this starter goes live.) You’ll want to remember that Hurricanius has Spawning Locus when we get to the Air Avatar later on…
In hyper, Hurricanius becomes part of the sky itself instead of merely channeling it. She keeps Air Superiority and Spawning Locus and picks up two brand-new rules. Tailwinds lets her pair well with another monster that lacks High Mobility—just when there are hazards all around, her entire force can be boosted through those without suffering so much as a blow. Tailwinds has the added bonus of speeding up most models that wouldn’t normally gain any benefit from it. So, instead of boosting a monster and units without High Mobility, you can instead field an air force that becomes all the faster.
Unrelenting Storm is one heck of a rule. It allows you to take one attack of each type all while becoming stronger with each successive attack. It’s important to note that these are not additional attacks—this rule replaces any attacks she would normally be able to perform with one of each attack instead. Another way to consider Unrelenting Storm is that each turn, Hurricanius gets to assign the values 4, 5, and 6 to the Boost Dice on each of her attacks. This allows her to confront any situation with exactly the tool she needs at the time.
Born from the hottest places on Earth, these next creatures are fire incarnate.
I’m sure no one will be too surprised by the rules on these cards, as they’re exactly what you would expect from a creature literally made of fire. One change that may jump out to people, however, is that Fire Proof got a little update. The words “…regardless of other special rules” were added to the end, so even if something is utilizing an ability like Grappler, these little guys are A-OK while walking right through hazards. Of course, Incinerus will be enjoying the new wording of Fire Proof as well! Beyond that, these guys are fast and have Ignite—you really can’t ask for more than that.
When air is twisted into a powerful monster, you get these guys.
Their stats are the best in the game on units: 7 SPD coupled with 3 DEF means they can entrench themselves almost anywhere, all while firing off blast attacks at anyone nearby. I just recently brought up Grappler, and the Air Avatar has the exact opposite rule: Lift. And Grappler will disable Lift. And the Turbulence ability may not seem like much…until you realize it affects all models, monsters included. Nothing can advance into a square these guys are currently occupying. Remember when I said to keep in mind that Hurricanius has Spawning Locus? Turbulence is the reason why. No matter where she is on the map, every unit turn you can spawn a friendly Air Avatar at Hurricanius’ feet!
The last spoiler today is the new map Downtown Beatdown.
You might be thinking that looks like a lot of foundations, and you would be right. Downtown Beatdown is the first map to have 24 foundations. So, both players can now play with all 12 buildings they are allowed to bring to the game. Those two extra foundations will make getting to where you want to go all the more difficult. This map is a dream landscape for any monster that works better the more debris tiles are in its path.
With that, you now know almost everything that will be coming to the Elemental Champions starter set. We already have more Elemental Champions planned for the future, but I should be careful how generous I am with the spoilers! I hope everyone checks out the two new Monsterpocalypse starter sets coming in just a few more months!
