by Emanuel Class

Hello, fellow monster fans! Today we are going to explore the First Guardians and Ancient Ones, the March releases for Monsterpocalypse! I’ll bring you up to speed about their lore, design, and interesting interactions.

So, this second wave of monsters for these Factions ushers in the next era of the god war, the fallout from the clash between the King of Camazotz and the Master of Xolotl. Their battles led the Queen of Ixmiqui’s people to imbue her with the power of a god—that of the sun and the wind—and fashioned for her a spear that wields the power of lightning. As her ascension to godhood began, the King of Camazotz was making some allies of his own. The Lord of Mictal, an embodied aspect of death, was drawn to the death cults springing up in the Ancient Ones forces. But it was when Ixmiqui finally ascended to godhood that the Lord of Mictal ultimately chose sides: he made a death pact with Camazotz, offering him the freedom to come and go in the underworld, even if a mortal blow ended his existence. In exchange, the Lord of Mictal wanted Ixmiqui’s heart. Camazotz accepted the deal, fully aware it was better to have death on your side than against you. Together, the pair returned to the land of Xolotl and marched on the city of Ixmiqui.

Painted by Erik Swinson

Queen of Ixmiqui

I really enjoyed working on the Queen, both in concept and on the table. Her concept is influenced a bit by Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec god of the sun. In the story, I wanted her spirit and drive to be strong. I also wanted her to represent the people of the First Guardians and their role in the god war. They were not going to be subject to the whims of gods and spirits, so they banded together to pour all of their power into Ixmiqui.

On the table, she needed to embody the stylings of a hummingbird: fast, precise, and aggressive. Hummingbirds are very territorial and are known for jousting against one another for superiority. In alpha, the Queen has some really cool tech. Queen’s Gambit is a double entendre—it’s both a nod to her title and to the hummingbirds as her pawns, as well as its chess reference. Being able to use a lesser unit to bait an opponent’s position is a key fundamental in chess, and this ability seemed like the perfect place to make that reference. Queen’s Gambit grants Hummingbird Spirits the Disruption ability while within 5 spaces of her. That’s a massive bubble on the table. This plays right into her other abilities. Her brawl attack has Follow Through and Scent of Flowers, the latter allowing her to place a Hummingbird Spirt into play after she hits something whereas Follow Through allows her to move three spaces then make a blast attack. With this combo, the Queen can be exceptionally disruptive and can generate a decent amount of power while doing so. She can finish things off by using her Action: Flicker to swap the position of two units. This can do some really sneaky things to your opponent’s power base when you swap one of their securing units for a Hummingbird. Further, this offers some fun combinations with the Master of Xolotl. His Action: Reshape loves abilities that put units into play during your monster turn. When the Queen uses Scent of Flowers, she can choose to place an elite Hummingbird with that ability. Then, the Master of Xolotl can Reshape the cost 2 Elite unit into an Arbiter Monolith, which can sneak in some super damage early in the game with the Arbiter Monolith’s ability Death Sentence.

When the Queen of Ixmiqui goes hyper, LOOK OUT! She can be exceptionally deadly with her Ultimate Weapon ability, which grants her an extra brawl and blast attack in addition to any other attacks she makes that turn. Each of her attacks has the Fury trigger, giving her the ability to generate lots of power. Both abilities combine well with her ability Wind Rush, which allows her to make a one-space advance after each attack. This allows for some solid action economy, saving her steps in between attacks as she repositions for the best angle of attack. Combine that with speed 8, and there is nowhere on the board safe from the Queen. She also has the ability Return Fire. And with her at Def 9, opponents will think twice before trying to chip away her health with blast attacks. Fluff, rules, model—there is nothing I don’t love about the Queen of Ixmiqui.

Hummingbird Spirits

These spirits were inspired by a legend that when a warrior dies in battle, their spirits become hummingbirds; in Central America, they were believed to be aspects or messengers of the sun. This is reflected in the game through their Action: Transpose, which allows them to swap the position of two units within two spaces of them. They can also choose themselves as the target and use this ability to hop around the board; this can be exceptionally potent when combined with the Queen’s Gambit ability on Ixmiqui. One of the more aggressive acts they can make is to swap the position of a flying unit on a hazard tile with a non-flying unit, effectively dunking the non-flyer into the fire. This is one of the reasons the Hummingbird Spirits have the Hover rule instead of Flight. We didn’t want them to have the ability to move onto a hazard tile themselves and then drag an enemy to a fiery death. This way, the positioning requires at least one additional flying unit.

Temple Giant

Pound for pound, this is the best Protector securing unit in the game. The Temple Giant is boasting a mighty Def 4. This massive gemstone-covered giant has the Quorum ability, which counts as 2 units while securing a building. Combo that with its Thick Skin and All Terrain abilities, and this giant can get into some of the best places to secure buildings. But that’s not all the Temple Giant is packing. Its axe Judgment is a massive blade with the Cleave ability, allowing it to cut down multiple units at once. With a 3/3 stat on the Giant’s brawl, it is going to hit most things it swings at. While its cost 3 and speed 4 ensures Temple Giants won’t be charging all over the map, a key transpose from a Hummingbird Spirit can help this Giant get in some good blows.

Painted by Erik Swinson

Lord of Mictal

This aspect of death was perhaps one of the easiest in concept to draw from mythology and one of the most fun to make. The Aztecan Mictēcacihuātl, the Lady of the Dead, is absolutely terrifying, and we wanted to make sure that from tabletop to model, this model captured that feel. Andrea Uderzo killed the concept art, Doug Hamilton nailed the sculpt, and Erik Swinson did a jaw-dropping paint job on our titan of terror.

In the rules, I wanted this monster to feel sinister when you played against it. Action: Pounce in alpha is pretty frightening itself, allowing the Lord of Mictal to place himself in truly scary positions. With the touch of death, any building the Lord of Mictal brawls or blasts is instantly Disintegrated. On his brawl in alpha, the Lord of Mictal packs an amazing tool for power generation and disruption with his ability Wrath. This brawl trigger allows the Lord of Mictal to make an extra stomp, ram, or swat power attack that turn. And that’s not the only disruptive tool this evil skeleton has in his ancient tool kit—on his Disintegrating death blast attack, he has Intimidate as a trigger, allowing him to scare a unit away. One of my favorite uses for this in the early game is to Disintegrate a key building the opponent has secured then intimidate their unit to cover their own spawn zone. Forcing a bump spawn on your opponent can really mess with their Action Die economy. Here is the really spooky part of that ability: Intimidate does not require you to successfully hit the target with the attack to trigger Intimidate on a unit!

Enough with the spooky stuff—let’s move on to the absolutely horrifying side of the Lord of Death! In hyper, Mictal only has 4 Health, but he has a powerhouse kit to make every one of those Health points count. He jumps up to Speed 7 and picks up a host of new abilities, including Demolisher to make every building that is destroyed in the end game count. With Action: Scatter, he can scare away the enemy screening units to get up close and personal for a salvo of attacks. He loses his death ray in hyper but trades it all in for aggression. On Mictal’s brawl attack he has 4 triggers: he keeps Disintegrate, which is great because the less fire there is for him to step into or be thrown into, the better, given his small Health pool. Next up is an oldy but a goody, Combo Strike. When in combination with Scatter, Mictal can clear an enemy screen without an attack and go straight for the throat. Combo Strike allows the attacker to make a power attack after the attack is complete, and the power attack also receives +3 Boost Dice to hit. But to sweeten the deal on this risky brawl attack, Mictal also gained Shred, allowing him the chance to do an additional point of damage if he exceeds the target’s defense by three or more. Those stakes are pretty high, but they play into his last attacking ability, God Eater. Aptly named, this ability allows the Lord of Mictal some unparalleled levels of Action Dice economy. If an attack with God Eater hits, you get to move one Action Die for every two Power Dice thrown in the attack from your Unit Pool back to your Monster Pool. Thanks to Demolisher, you should have some in the bank. This means if you have the Power Dice to spare, you can throw a really accurate attack that will likely trigger Shred and then get Action Dice back for the power attack that will gain extra Boost Dice from Combo Strike, allowing you to hit more accurately without the need for a ton of Power Dice! (You might have to read that one twice!) In a perfect world, the Lord of Mictal is the best monster at chaining monster turns when backed into a corner. So, if you’re fighting against him, you want to finish him off fast or risk suffering the wrath of Death itself.

Lake Serpents

Anyone here afraid of snakes? You might be after playing against these little nightmares. Their ability Aggressive allows them to get a free bump spawn. This does a few different neat things for this unit—the first is that it allows you to secure buildings in your Spawn Phase more easily. If you can secure a building at that stage, you can get an extra discount on your spawns. One of my favorite combos is to use the Juror from the Masters of the 8th Dimension unit pack and its ability Quorum, which allows it to count as two units when securing a building. Combine this with your aggressive unit and boom! Instant secure building. Aggressive also allows the Serpents to get a little farther upfield to help facilitate a Skull Keeper’s Shadows ability. With Hit and Run on their blast attacks, they can strike out at enemies who get too close to your power base then slither back into building-securing position, or they can attack a target on a power point close to a Skull Bat in order to give the Lake Serpent Scout. Then, the Serpent can use Hit and Run to take the power point back form the enemy.

Lake Witch

This is one of the trickiest units in the Ancient Ones lineup. She has two key abilities, Black Spot and Dark Ritual. Black Spot allows an allied Faction unit within 5 spaces to gain 2 Boost Dice on their attack. But if it does, you must destroy that unit after the attack is resolved. The Witch can also use Black Spot on herself, allowing her to use her range for a boosted gun to crack open high-def targets like Crawlers. If the cost of a unit seems like too high a price to pay, don’t worry; that’s where Dark Ritual comes in. This ability allows you to spend a Power Die when a unit is destroyed and place them adjacent to the Lake Witch. If you want to get really crazy, you can bring two Lake Witches so they can save each other from Black Spot!

Well that’s all for this Insider. But I’ll be back soon with another to discuss the last wave on the Ancient Ones and First Guardians monsters!