Monsterpocalypse Monday: December Preview

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by Faye Reppas

This month comes with five all-new releases for Monsterpocalypse, expanding on the core Factions from our original starter sets: new monsters for G.U.A.R.D. and Planet Eaters, new units for Elemental Champions and Savage Swarm, and then a new Vegetyrant monster! So, without any further ado, let’s get you all the new rules coming this month.

Legionnaire screams tank commander. Have you ever wanted to put ten tanks on the table? Then Legionnaire is the monster for you. Ground Control and Targeting Satellites are primary mechanisms for supporting his force. Essentially, Legionnaire is acting as command and control networking and regulating the information from all over the battlefield. A small note: the Spotter rule on Legionnaire is technically redundant since he grants himself Spotter through his rule Targeting Satellites; however, I decided it would simply be easier to parse this way.

Legionnaire sports some awesome tech as well—a massive triple-barreled railgun and a shield that increases in power the more force it is exposed to. His railgun ties with Phobos-7 for having the farthest range in the game on a monster. He is all about setting up perfect synchronized attacks, not only to increase his accuracy but also to do additional damage to the target. When everything works together, he can send a super damage RNG 6 attack that subtracts 2 DEF from the target.

Finally, his shield becomes more powerful if the attack includes Power Dice. Basically, the first and fifth Power Dice of every roll against Legionnaire only add a tiny benefit to the attacker’s odds of hitting.

In hyper, Legionnaire focuses even more on bringing down his targets with combined fire. Action: Blitz replaces Reactive Shield, allowing him to mobilize one unit to facilitate Targeting Satellites, Huntmaster, and/or Synchronized Attacks.

His blast attack becomes even more damaging with the Huntmaster rule. Currently, the only model in the game that can trigger Huntermaster is the MR Tank, but it requires an allied unit, so if the rule is added to another Protectors unit down the line, that will also trigger this ability. Since it causes an additional damage point and not super damage, it stacks with Synchronized Attacks—meaning an MR Tank within 2 spaces of the target of Legionnaire’s railgun will fulfill the requirements for Spotter, Huntmaster, and half of Synchronized Attacks all with just a single model.

For any Destroyers who are jealous that Legionnaire has cool synergy mechanics, never fear: Zorog is the brawl- and power-attack version of Legionnaire. It just so happened that both monsters this month were unit commanders that looked back at older models. Gang and Pincer Attack are Zorog’s backbone, pulling together his entire suite of abilities. Granting Destructomite’s Sidekick makes what appears to be an only slightly above-average power attack something to be truly scared of. Being able to make a power attack at –2 DEF should be especially frightening to all those monsters that rely on high DEF and/or Boost Dice-reducing special rules.

Uncanny Maneuver gives Zorog a baseline way to advance his units during the Monster Phase. This is the first time an ability has a set of choices like this. Most often, you’ll likely be using the second option: advancing two units three spaces so you can facilitate both Zorog’s attack and your other monster’s attack. However, there will be times when the two extra spaces or moving all your units will be required. The primary downside to this ability is that it focuses him on using quite a few Planet Eaters units.

Finally, he can utilize all this hit-fixing ability to its maximum benefit with Shred. Beating someone’s DEF by 3 or more isn’t terribly easy, but it becomes much easier with Flank and Gang!

In hyper, Zorog keeps his main three rules, allowing him and his allied monster to be notably accurate. Instead of Shred, however, he picks up some unit-clearing abilities. Swift Strike is a new rule that gives either a blast or brawl attack, both of which have great special rules attached. His gem activates while in hyper, sending powerful lasers sweeping across the battlefield. His brawl might be simple, but the ability to clear a screen and pick up an extra Power Die is quite a boon.

Just a quick note: in the future, Swift Strike is likely to replace both Rapid Fire and Lightning Attack with a unit version, allowing either attack to replace their unit versions. There really isn’t much reason to have two versions when 95% of the time it doesn’t matter.

Floruina has a strong focus on pollinating in order to see her kind flourish. And while the name of the rule Subsidize might not be quite as on point as it is for Robo Kondo, the rule itself truly fits her style. Being able to get Stomatavor elites and Imperial Blooms on the cheap is a significant boon for her force, as both units bring Power Dice manipulation to her kit. Obviously, as the Vegetyrant unit choices continue to expand, her suite of abilities will only become that much better.

Multi-Fire on a monster is nothing new, but combining it with Proliferate can do some pretty nasty things…like killing all three units, securing a building, and replacing them with your own so you can immediately gain control of that building. It can create some complex and strong plays with buildings like Bastion Lander and Reclamation Facility.

Finally, Hivemind ties her kit together. With all those free or reduced-cost units running around, she can make some pretty stellar attacks without much in the way of Power Dice support.

In hyper, Floruina loses Subsidize, so be careful not to overload your unit pool with 2-cost units! In exchange, she picks up Puncture and Solar Powered. Puncture will give your Stomatavors some serious hitting power, although the unit she really wants this on, the flowering sprayer, isn’t quite out yet (but is well on its way).

Solar Powered can make either her brawl or blast attack deal super damage by just spending one Power Die. It is important to note that only one of her attacks with Multi-Fire can benefit from Solar Powered; however, doing super damage to an enemy monster while also destroying two enemy units and putting out three new Vegetyrant units is quite powerful enough without it all being super damage.

This little ball of fire is pretty straightforward. Fire-Proof and All-Terrain let it get to pretty much any space that isn’t water. Feed the Flames can grant Penetrator, and Fury gets an extra Power Die from hitting, making this model an amazing leader of combined attacks. Being fast and only costing 1, the Fire Avatar will let you set up some pretty awesome complex attacks.

Flight, High Mobility, and a blast attack—nothing there is particularly remarkable, but what is important on the Air Kami is Gathering Storm. Each turn, this rule allows one Air Kami grunt that makes an attack with exactly three Action Dice to upgrade to an elite and immediately make another attack with those same three Action Dice.

The keyword to pay attention to here is Participate. The Air Kami grunt and the second potential attack granted from Gathering Storm only need to involve the Air Kami. This means other models can “channel” an Air Kami’s first or second attack to add additional rules to them. Do note that the second Gathering Storm attack is restricted to just using the set-aside Action Dice; you can’t add more than three models into the combined attack after the fact.

The elite Air Kami doesn’t have Gathering Storm, because…well, that would be an infinite loop, and those seem bad. Instead, it picks up Momentum, making it great at utilizing all three Action Dice from Gathering Storm. A Fire Avatar and Air Kami grunt spend 3 Action Dice to make an attack with Penetrator, two Boost Dice, and Fury. If it hits, they get to do it again, but this time with 3 Action Dice, 5 Boost Dice, Penetrator, and Fury. With those dice, you have about a 43% chance of hitting a DEF 8 monster. Add in a Rocket Chopper for Spotter and an extra Boost Die and it goes to over 75%! And all for the low, low cost of a Fire Avatar, an Air Kami grunt, a Rocket Chopper, and 3 Action Dice.

The Savage Swarm model releases this month fill in some missing pieces in the Destroyer Agenda. Razor Beetles are amazing at holding territory, much like the Steel Shell Crab of the Tritons. Where the Crab sometimes gains additional DEF and the ability to walk on water spaces, the Razor Beetle penalizes units and monsters for brawling or rampaging them. The beetles shine brightest when an enemy monster can only use a brawl attack to clear a screen. Getting in that free damage point can be quite the game changer!

Sidekick and Hop are important tools in an arsenal, and we didn’t want the Protectors to have them while the Destroyers didn’t. Although a little different from the Hoppers of the Legion of Mutates, these mutated grasshoppers perform the same function. With Power Gorge and an extra DEF, Cliff Hoppers can fight a little better than their rabbit counterparts on the front line.

And that’s it for this month’s releases—with a bit of luck, everyone can find something to love in this festive wave of new models. I hope everyone has a happy holiday season, and be sure to check in next month for the first in the line of the First Guardian and Ancient Ones Factions!

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