by Faye Reppas

This month is a little different than normal: it’s all buildings all the time!

Welcome to Monsterpocalypse Building Month, 2021. This Building Month has four new bases, one each for the Masters of the 8th Dimension, the Subterran Uprising, the Legion of Mutates, and the Tritons. Despite being Faction bases, I am confident all Monsterpocalypse players will find something interesting to play with in this selection of buildings.

Now, on to something completely strange…

You’ll note lots of weird going on with this building. Let’s start with Ephemeral—this building doesn’t entirely occupy the space it looks like it does. If you are willing to have your matter superimposed over the matter of this building, you can step right on through. In gameplay, this can open up pathways for monsters without high mobility and leave direct lines of attack for some of the most heavy-hitting units. Additionally, Ephemeral buildings are not replaced with a debris tile at all, allowing you to counter repair strategies.

Since the building isn’t replaced with a debris tile, it will usually cause a lot less damage than colliding with most other buildings. Perilous makes up for that and acts as a deterrent to monsters that like to rampage over the entire map. The rule also gets through Armored, because despite the damage being triggered from colliding with the building, it isn’t actually collision damage.

Finally, its action grants a lot of flexible movement options. Need to get a Juror into place to trigger Death Sentence? Now you can swap the position of any unit that can get there with one of your backline Jurors. Do note, however, that you can only swap the position of allied models and only Masters monsters, specifically. Some monsters proved to be a bit too strong with this type of movement (I’m looking at you, Grizzi), so we wanted to keep the monster movement Faction pure.

Plowing up to the surface next is the Smog Factory.

The Smog Factory plays two roles: defense and additional help for some of the slower units in the game. Obscure is a simplified version of Shadow Screen, simply granting the building and adjacent units +1 DEF. This makes removing models like Jurors and G-Tanks especially difficult unless you remove the building itself first. For that reason, the Smog Factory is only base DEF 6 and relies on activating Obscure to get back up to standard base DEF. Lower-DEF, high-priority models like Power Pods especially love the additional protection Obscure offers.

The other component of the Smog Factory is Action: Smokescreen. By forfeiting your full advance, you can place a model up to six spaces from its current position. This will help get monsters without high mobility and slower units into the fight. Because it is a place, it gets around things like grappler and will allow units with Aim to move fairly far while still qualifying for their Aim die.

A movement of the people needs an Outreach Center.

With the help of average citizens, the Legion of Mutates can act anywhere at anytime. Action: Transform is a hint at that. It allows you to turn any unit into another unit of the same cost anywhere on the map during either your monster or unit turn. Transform is great for getting placement-dependent units in just the right place at the right time. From swapping a Toxxo for a Squix for an extra damage from a power attack to getting Flank or Spotter in position for a flurry of blows, the Outreach Center has you covered.

Not only that, it also empowers your monsters’ brawl attacks by granting them reach. This is particularly powerful for brawlers like Zor-Raiden, Dynastavus, and Yasheth. That one extra space can sometimes mean the difference between a defensible position and being wide open for a counterattack.

Last up is not so much a building, but a giant crab.

The Ketos Crab really only has one thing going on, and truthfully you won’t get a ton of chances to use it, but when you do, oh my, it can be a really powerful play. Action: Annex will let the usually sedentary crab scuttle over the battlefield. It will smash down a building and perch atop its new throne, leaving only rubble behind in its wake.

Units can even hitch a ride with the mammoth crab, making it a massive transport. Sending the Ketos Crab careening forward can have units come spilling out of it, ready to make quick work of the surprised defenders. I haven’t gotten it to happen yet, but I really want to do this twice in one turn with a Statue of Liberty and replace my entire opponent’s backline with a sudden crab assault!

That brings this month’s new releases to a close. I hope everyone will find this selection of buildings adds something new and exciting to their games of Monsterpocalypse! And by the way, I feel fairly confident saying these are some of the best-looking building sculpts we have ever produced. So be sure to check them out at the end of this month!