by Faye Reppas
Some of you thought he was only a legend, that he was just an elaborate ruse. But no: Grizzi is Monsterpocalypse’s goodest boy. When a cell of Green Fury radicals got their hands on some of the Legion of Mutates’ new experimental mutagen, they could never have imagined the chain of events they were about to set in motion.
Before Grizzi was a gargantuan corgi, he was the cell’s beloved moral support. He spent his days chewing on explosives (while ignoring his copious squeaky toys). Then came the day when his destructive nature got him into all sorts of trouble. Grizzi, utilizing the innate mastery of chaos all corgis have, found some experimental vials only minutes after the Green Fury cell returned to their hideout. He ripped into the vials, each a different mixture of the exotic mutagen.
Drenched in what should have been a deadly concoction, Grizzi suddenly stopped moving. He blinked slowly as his fur began to change from browns and whites to shades of green. The next moment, the cell members heard a crashing sound, and when they hastily turned their attention to the chamber where Grizzi was kept, they discovered that room no longer existed. Instead, the doorway was filled with massive green fur.
As the human members of the Green Fury cell scattered, Grizzi took his first steps into the world as a massive bipedal corgi. In addition to amplifying his strength and chaotic nature, the mutagen gave him intelligence equal to that of a human. Although he might be a bit radioactive now, he yet remains the Green Fury’s goodest boy.
When I learned we’d be making a giant corgi monster, I took that concept and ran with it. Every rule on Grizzi’s card screams chaotic corgi to me, including its instinct to herd everything. Action: Herding was spoiled earlier when I was going over the changes to advancing. Many of you guessed that the action belonged to Grizzi as soon as he was shown, and you were right. Herding is a combination of screen clearing and unit movement. It can be a bit challenging to use it to clear screening units, as the unit won’t be placed until after the full advance is complete; however, that just means it will be a bit more expensive to clear them but not impossible.
Disruption and Tooth and Claw were the first rules that went onto his card. If you can believe it, I didn’t even know Grizzi was coming when I drafted the Tooth and Claw rule, but I can say there hasn’t been a better fit for an old rule in all of Monsterpocalypse. Despite his relatively low Boost Dice, Grizzi really gets the boost he needs from Tooth and Claw when he goes in for a tricky play.
Speaking of tricky plays, Retrieve is quite the tricky rule. Despite not having high mobility, Grizzi can get around—just give him something to retrieve, and he’ll find a way to get to it. It might not seem too useful in alpha, but it pulls his entire hyper together!
All the cute corgi pretense vanishes when Grizzi enters hyper mode. He drops Disruption and picks up Destructive Impulse as well as Thrash, and Destructive Impulse makes Retrieve truly shine. Throw a monster at a building with a power attack that causes you to become B2B with the target. Then, assuming you destroyed something with the throw, Destructive Impulse triggers and lets you make a brawl attack immediately afterward. The “immediately” tag means that you can’t use Destructive Impulse to clear screens (that’s what Grizzi has herding for!), but since Retrieve moves you during the power attack, you’ll be there in time to give the monster you just threw a solid punch to the face. When you do so, you even get a chance at super damage with Thrash!
That about covers this most unusual monster. We had originally planned Grizzi as a convention exclusive release at Lock & Load 2021, but with the game fest postponed this year, Grizzi will release exclusively online. I hope everyone has as much fun playing with this corgi as I did developing his rules. So, head over to our store and adopt Grizzi now. We should note: he’s not entirely housebroken…unless you want your house broken…