Ahoy, kaiju fans! Welcome back to another Monsterpocalypse theme list Insider. In our last installment, we launched a new series that combined the Agenda Starter Boxes with some First Guardians and Ancient Ones monsters.  (You can find that first Insider here: https://home.privateerpress.com/2022/06/28/monsterpocalypse-thematics-in-mechanics/). I am going to build on this theme by combining the Agenda Starter Box monsters with some of the latest releases.

So, in today’s Insider, I am going to explore list-buildings in greater depth. List-building is one of the fundamentals of Monsterpocalypse. Because this Insider contains so much information, I’ve split it into two parts; the first part here features the Protectors Agenda, and the second part will feature the Destroyers Agenda. These lists are built assuming you have access to all models. If you don’t, that’s not a problem—we will link them for easy shopping access, especially with the Black Friday sale still going on now! I am also going to build these lists using the Crush Hour rules found below. Hopefully, this Insider will help you get ready to take your game to the next level!

https://home.privateerpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Crush-Hour-2022_v2.pdf

So, let’s dive into our Protectors list. Since we are using the Protectors Starter, we know we are going to be using Hurricanius as our base monster. Hurricanius is exceptionally strong and brings a lot of great tools to the table. Let’s take a look at her card.

In Alpha form, Hurrucanius has Blitz, which is one of her key features. Using Blitz, she can move a key unit into place to block her or an allied monster. Having units to block spaces around your monster is the key to preventing enemy monsters from attacking you for a power attack. She can also use Blitz offensively to move a unit that has a helpful ability like Sidekick or Death Sentence into place. (We will be sure to include units with those abilites in the list.) She also has Air Superiority, which helps her protect herself and her screening unit from attackers without Flight. She has great speed, good defensive stats, and some great tools to help her be very disruptive to her enemies’ plans.

In her Hyper form, she loses Blitz, but she picks up the abilities Tailwinds and Unrelenting Storm. Tailwinds is a nice ability: it gives all your other allied models High Mobility and grants additional speed to affected models with Flight. The key to understanding Tailwinds is that it specifies other allied models. This includes the other monster you brought in your list. Bringing another monster that does not have access to High Mobility in one or both of its forms is huge; there are so many pedestrian monsters whose kit is balanced around not having access to High Mobility.  However, there are also several monsters with Flight who are already very fast. I’ve noted previously about Hurricanius and the Master of Xolotl—giving a monster +1 Speed can push it into absurd levels of mobility, especially when used in combination in the building Industrial Complex or abilities like Motivator for yet more speed. In addition to this, Unrelenting Storm is an exceptional ability that allows Hurricanius to use her blast, brawl, and power attacks all in a single activation. It also gets more accurate the more attacks Hurricanius hits with. So, with a monster this powerful, it’s hard to imagine how to stop her. But Hurricanius has two major drawbacks: first, she is kind of squishy with only 10 health. She also greatly lacks accuracy. Because of this, she generally loves the ability to reroll and can be greedy with your Power Dice when she is in Hyper form. With all this in mind, we can find a good pairing for her. My first through was to grab the Draken Armada monster Rastaban. He is a high-speed flyer that can offer +1 speed with Motivator and generates a lot of power himself with Strafe and Power Swell. Being a Flyer, he also gains a speed boost from Tailwinds. However, I think we want a monster that’s a little heartier to make up for Hurricanius low HP. Perhaps the classic starter box monster Defender X? With Safeguard, he has great power generation, and with Command Matrix he can offer Action: Troubleshoot to Hurricanius, giving her access to a reroll. He also has Disruption, doubling down on abilities that punish your opponent’s Boost Dice. And with Resilience in Hyper, he can be quite the Tank. However, as I stated when discussing Tailwinds, she can pass out High Mobility to her partner, and Defender X already has High Mobility, and because he doesn’t have Flight, she doesn’t give him anything via Tailwinds. But there is another monster that comes to mind that fits the overall bill perfectly. I am talking about one the newest monsters to be released this year, Magma Khan.

Magma Khan released as half of the Megaton Mashup 2 Box. (You can check out more about Megaton Mashup 2 here in this earlier Insider: https://home.privateerpress.com/2022/06/13/monsterpocalypse-megaton-mashup-2-preview/.)

Magma Khan may not seem like it, but with 9 health and Fireproof he can make the most out of that health. (Just beware monsters that deal a lot of Super Damage!) He is also a pedestrian, so Hurricanius can offer him High Mobility with Tail Winds. Magma Khan is also deceptively mobile on his own. With Pounce, he can get into some places other pedestrians can’t, and with Fireproof, he can ignore one of the biggest penalties to being a pedestrian by dismissing hazard damage. One thing MK is not deceptive about is the amount of power he can generate. With Fury on his power attack and Go for the Throat on his brawl attack, Magma Khan can generate a megaton of Power Dice.

In his Hyper form, Magma Khan loses Pounce and Go for the Throat but picks up some hefty gains in return. Out of the gate, he gets Fury on all his attack stats, but if that were not enough, he also gains Omega Titan, which grants you a Power Die every time he is hit with an attack or hits with an attack. This means that Magma Khan is picking up 3 Power Dice of every unit he hits and 4 from every building he hits! This plays into his other abilities, Pyroclasm and Action: Power Blast. Pyroclasm is Magma Khan’s built-in boost that grants its abilities based on your Power Pool. With this much Power Dice generation, needing the right amount of Power Dice at the right time is the trick to unlocking this monster. Action: Power Blast gives Magma Khan some neat ways to interact with the map, even when most of the buildings or units are gone. Between Fury and Omega Titan, you are always getting back at least the 3 Power Dice required to pay for a Maximum Power Blast range. Again, having the right amount of Power Dice at the right time is the trick here. Action: Power Blast also plays well with his blast ability, Combo Strike. One of my favorite uses for the pair of abilities is to align with a monster I want to power attack. I then Power Blast a faraway building (ideally into the opponent’s power base) that triggers Combo Strike, which allows me to make a power attack with +3 Boost Dice, enabling a exceptionally safe power attack.

It seems like Magma Khan and Hurricanius are quite a dynamic duo. But what about the rest of the list? Glad you asked. Strap in because I am going to go over each model in the list and some of my favorite synergies with them. I have lovingly dubbed this list Fire Storm. I’ll post the list in its entirety first and then get into the details below.

Agenda: Protectors

Monsters: 2

• Hurricanius
• Magma Khan

Units: 20

• 1x Air Avatar
• 2x Fire Avatar
• 1x Fire Kami
• 1x Water Avatar
• 1x Bellower
• 1x Carnidon
• 1x Draken Berserker
• 1x Draken Mystic
• 1x Command Ape
• 1x Arbiter Monolith
• 1x Hummingbird Spirit
• 1x Temple Giant
• 1x Temple Monolith
• 1x Clicker
• 1x Hopper
• 1x Psi-Eel
• 1x Humusoid
• 1x Spore Pod
• 1x Whomping Nettle

Buildings: 12

On the Opponent’s Side

• 2x Cathedral
• 1x Media Company

Midfield      

• 2x Corporate Headquarters
• 1x Reclamation Facility
• 1x Mount Terra
• 1x Outreach Center

Back Line

• 1x Imperial State Building
• 1x Industrial Complex
•  1x G.U.A.R.D. Defense Base
• 1x World Clock

I have arranged the unit list by Faction. This will make it easier to talk about the units. Our first group of units comes from the Elemental Champions Faction.

Elemental Champions

The Air Avatar is a bit of a tech choice in this list, but I feel it is an important one. Hurricanius has the ability Spawning Locus [Air]. This allows you to spawn a unit with “Air” in its name adjacent to her during your spawn phase. The only units that fit the bill are the Air Kami and the Air Avatar. The Air Kami is great offensively but can be a big list investment. Its abilities require you to bring a grunt and an elite, and its specialization in blasting requires more of your list to focus on blasting. I chose the Air Avatar instead because its higher base DEF of 3 makes it harder to remove, especially when under the protection of Hurricanius’ ability Air Superiority. The Air Avatar also has some neat use cases I find to be worth its high cost of 2 points. Its base speed of 7 paired with Flight and High Mobility make it a fast attacker that can reach deep into enemy territory with its RNG 4 blast attack. And when Hurricanius is in Hyper, she also brings the Air Avatar up to Speed 8 by using Tailwinds!

Surprisingly (to virtually no one), the Fire Avatar has great synergy with Magma Khan. One of Magma Khan’s favorite pastimes is to Rampage power attack around the map, smashing buildings and generating Power Dice. All of that mass destruction tends to leave a lot of hazard tiles around the map. This helps trigger the Fire Avatar’s ability Feed the Flames, which gives it Penetrator on its attacks that target an enemy on or adjacent to a hazard tile.

Not every building leaves a hazard tile. But that’s where the Fire Kami fits in. This walking wall of flame can use Action: Ignite to flip rubble tiles to hazard tiles. Using Ignite is also a great way to sneak extra damage in on an unsuspecting monster that’s standing on a rubble tile.

The last Elemental Champions unit in the list but certainly not least is the Water Avatar. I cannot get enough of this unit; it has quickly become one of my favorite units, so I don’t leave home without these little blueberries. One of my favorite strategies when playing a list that generates so much Power Dice advantage is to undermine my opponent’s power base as much as possible. The Water Avatar’s Ability Power Tap removes power from your opponent’s power pool when you power up as long as it’s on a Power Zone or Negative Zone. Power Tap can be absolutely punishing if you can get the Water Avatar onto a Negative Zone, sapping them for 2 power each Power Up. Its ability Ripple helps make that happen by letting them glom onto a point you just attacked and gives the other units the ability to shuffle around into more strategic positions. Splash also plays nicely with the Fire Kami, allowing the Water Avatar to extinguish hazard tiles adjacent to their targets, thus opening the door for the Fire Avatar to swoop in with Action: Ignite again catching an unsuspecting monster’s feet on fire. Sneaky ways of doing damage like this can be make-or-break moments for close games.

Terrasaurs

Next up we have the Terrasaur units. The Bellower unit is another utility unit, offering a range 5 blast attack to the list. It also has the ability Disruption, which removes 1 Boost Die from attacks within two spaces of it. This can be great for protecting your units, securing buildings, or combining with Air Superiority to be a DEF 3 screening unit that is super tough to hit.

The other Terrasaur I brought along in this list is the Carnidon. This chonky dino has Flank, which reduces the DEF of enemy models within two spaces against brawl attacks. As mentioned earlier, both monsters have great triggers on their Alpha brawl attacks and would love to have a unit with Flank nearby. (There are also several units in the list that love to make brawl attacks as well.) Best of all, this is one of my favorite units to get for free with the Faction discount from securing a Mount Terra building.  I also sprang for the elite alt sculpt…but I may just use it as the one really nice-looking Carnidon in my list. I painted mine to match Magma Khan!

Draken Armada

Adding Draken Armada units to this list was an easy choice. The Draken Berserker is one of the Protectors premier attacking units, and I don’t take to the table without one. Tailwinds offering Draken Berserkers High Mobility can be so spicy.

Choosing the Draken Mystic was a much more tech choice for the list. If Magma Khan is the first monster the enemy takes out, you still need ways of generating Power Dice for Hurricanius in the end game. The Mystic’s Power Sink ability helps generate ambient Power Dice as your opponent spends it. It also has the ability Intensify, which grants a Boost Die to allied models making attacks within five spaces of it as long as the Mystic is on an objective space. Intensify offers some extra accuracy to monsters that have a low Boost Dice count on both sides of their card. It also adds yet another Def 3-point holder to this list, which can create a bit of a shell game as to which units your opponent should go after. Because of units like the Water Avatar and the Arbiter Monolith, an opponent may be willing to overlook a faraway Draken Mystic for juicer targets elsewhere.

Empire of the Apes

The Empire of the Apes reports in with exactly one unit. But it is one of the most important units in the entire list. Like Hurricanius, this unit has Action: Blitz. This is the perfect delivery tool to send a Draken Berserker screaming across the battlefield. Being able to cross the map and interact with your opponent’s power base is key to playing Monsterpocalypse. Games are won and lost on the back of this little ape. It also boasts Hit and Run on its brawl attack. With SPD 5 and High Mobility, you will see the Command Ape wade into the fight and take a Power Point when duty calls for it.

First Guardians

The First Guardians bring another handful of units to this list. In fact, I consider these four units to be the backbone of any Protectors list I make lately. The Arbiter Monolith can be a bit tricky to get the hang of at first, but once you do, it’s a powerful piece. Its ability Amplify allows you to gain two Power Dice when you power up if it’s occupying a Power Point. This plays nicely into Action: Ley Line, which allows it to teleport to a nearby Power Point or Negative Zone. This can be done on the unit or monster turns, which allows it to sneak in and offer its ability Death Sentence, granting Super Damage to one of your monster’s attacks. Sometimes Hurricanius can sneak the Arbiter close enough with Blitz to make use of Death Sentence, allowing for it to use Action: Ley Line to jump away to a useful spot after.

Hummingbird Spirits sneak into more and more of my lists lately. Their ability Transpose has a nearly endless list of uses. In this list, it’s a tool to help control points as well as to move units like the Whomping Nettle or its unsuspecting victims into place. Hummingbird Spirits can also do neat things like swap one of your flying or fireproof units sitting on a hazard tile with one of your opponent’s units not on a hazard tile, essentially dunking them to a fiery death. This can be a good way to get around a unit’s high DEF. The Hummingbird Spirit doesn’t generate any power, but then again, this list does not have any issues generating power.

Temple Giants are the cornerstone of every Protectors list. At cost 3, they are a heavy investment, but they have the stats and abilities to make it worth your while. At DEF 4, they are hard to remove, and they swing their mighty axe Judgment with 3 Boost Dice and the trigger Cleave. But the real reason you take them is their ability Quorum, which makes them count as two units when securing buildings.

The Temple Monolith brings up the caboose of this First Guardians train but remains a unit not to be overlooked. The Temple Monolith has three key abilities that bring much to this list. On its brawl attack is Urban Renewal, which allows you to swap a building out with the building it destroys with its attack. This little guy loves to gang up with his buddies and help clear out some of the junk your opponent’s put on your side of the map. Its Action: Repair gives us a second way to flip over hazard tiles so the Fire Kami can light it back on fire. Lastly, it has Intercede, which helps turn off the damage from hazards to your monsters when colliding with them. This can be exceptionally punishing when placed at the foundation of two buildings doubled up. Of course, this does nothing for Magma Khan, but it can be brutal if it shuts down a good throw or body slam lane your opponent was eyeballing for your other monster.

Legion of Mutates

This unit is one of my favorite utility pieces. With Speed 5, Flight, and Range 5, the Clicker can almost always reach out and touch someone in a most unpleasant way. Using its Heightened Senses, it can see through your opponent’s defenses and with Tag on its blast attack, it can help launch a nearby ally farther up field.

This super star unit is always useful; I’m constantly finding new lines of play for it every game. The Hopper’s ability Sidekick offers up a nice DEF reduction to enemy monsters against power attacks. With its ability Hop, it can move around on monster turns to get into the right position. But sometimes the best thing a Hopper can do is hop out of the way so you can step in and power attack a monster.

Tritons

Point for point, this psychic sushi is one of the best units in the game. The Psi-Eel is fast with high mobility and high Def. It has a solid attack to throw into a combined attack, and when dice won’t get it done, it can use its Action: Telekinesis to possibly place an enemy unit into a nearby hazard, roasting it like a monstrous hibachi.

Vegetyrants

This Vegetyrant trio brings a lot of utility in a small package. The Humusoid’s ability Aggressive really shines when combined with a Temple Giant’s Quorum ability. This natural pair allows you to secure a building during the spawn phase. If that building offers a unit cost discount for being secured, you can use that discount on a future spawn! Its second rule, Invasive Species, makes this unit a nuisance to remove because when it is destroyed, you can replace it with another Vegetyrant unit of the same cost from your reserves.

When it comes to fodder, there is none better in Protectors than the Spore Pod, especially when it’s placed as an Invasive Species trigger, which combines well with the Spore Pod’s Unstable rule. An enemy Berserker will have a bad day trying to hack through this briar. Like the Hopper, it has Action: Hop, which allows Spore Pods to leap into position to offer up its rule Fodder, which lets you reroll a missed attack roll by returning the Spore Pod to your reserves.

Last, but certainly not least, is the Whomping Nettle. This murderous mud vine is quite the attacking powerhouse with Reach and Fling on its attack. But the real magic is its rule Ambush Hunter. As stated earlier, there are so many tricks in this list such as Tag on the Clicker and Blitz on the Command Ape. These movement abilities allow you to position your Whomping Nettle ready to attack without using its Normal Movement so it can still benefit from Ambush Hunter. It also gives the list a third option for Invasive Species on the Humusoid. If the enemy doesn’t have an extra attack to kill your placed unit, you may want to place a Whomping Nettle instead of the Spore Pod to provide a unit already in place ready to whomp the enemy unit that reached into your back lines.

Buildings

We are almost done; we’re just about to summit this particular mountain. Because what Monsterpocalypse list would be complete without buildings? Buildings are some of the most important choices you can make in this game. From the building draft in the beginning to choosing the right special rules to accentuate your list, buildings are the foundation the rest of the game is built on. To me, it’s also one of the most interesting and unique aspects of Monsterpocalypse and why I feel it’s important we dive into some of the concepts surrounding them.

Opponent’s Side

I always make sure to bring some disruptive or “junk” buildings to place on my opponent’s side of the table. Because the building draft requires players to fill the green foundations before the yellow, players first populate the midfield. But after those buildings are placed, there is an interesting turn in decision making. Do I place buildings that are important to my plans or ones that will disrupt my opponent’s plans? Sometimes I base that decision on if I’m going first or second. If I am going first, I will have the opportunity to secure buildings and make the most use out of my turn lead; however, if I am going second, I tend to place disruptive buildings to undermine my opponent. Often when going second, I will skip securing my own buildings solely to focus on disrupting my opponent’s secured buildings.

Devotion to the Cathedral requires a player to use one additional unit to secure it. The best place for this building is on one of the foundations connected to another foundation. These foundations, or “doubles,” can usually be secured by three or fewer units. The Cathedral’s goal is to disrupt that setup. By requiring opponents to secure it with an additional unit, we’re taxing their resources and making it harder for them to use City Planning on the Imperial State Building.

I find the Media Company useful because you don’t need to secure it in order to get use out of its ability. Static grants a Power Die to the opponent of the player using the action that triggered Static. This can be exceptionally potent from the first player position because your opponent will want to make use of abilities like Blitz to cross the table. If I know my opponent’s goal is to shut me out of power, I want to build in some safeguards to make it difficult for them to do everything they want to do.

Midfield             

Midfield buildings are often the first buildings placed and some of the last to be interacted with. This is where I will put buildings that I may not need to use right away but will want to call upon their abilities when the time comes.

I can easily run three of these and in some of my Destroyer lists, I even run four. The Corporate Headquarters building is one of the most important “junk” buildings because of its ability Ivory Tower, another great ability you don’t need to secure to make use of. Ivory Tower offers a static -1 Def to units around the building. Scatter these near the opponent’s side of the table, ideally near their Power Points and Spawn Zones. One thing you will notice about Power Points: they are almost always next to a building.

This in another building I have brought up to two of in many of my Destroyer lists. The Reclamation Facility’s ability Recycle is basically a utility blast. If I need to eat one of my own high-cost units, I will do so if it means I will have the power needed to do what’s necessary. Otherwise, I like to sit them within five spaces of a juicy Power Point or Negative Zone so that it can clear off enemy units that stray its way. Because of this, I also like to have a Corporate Headquarters nearby to help lower the Def on the unit I want to eat.

As I mentioned before, I love the discount offered by Mount Terra to get a free Carnidon each unit turn. But the reason I bring this building is that it is a “get-out-of-jail-free” card. Often in Monsterpocalypse, a player will go in and attack a monster and use all their resources only to line themselves up with a “double” to avoid getting tossed into the buildings. It’s a good idea to use your unit turn to secure a Mount Terra and then Tectonic Shift your monster out of harm’s way.

The Outreach Center is a building I am always finding new uses for. While offering Reach is good, Action: Transform is one of the best building actions in the game. I have won and lost games on the back of this ability. Some games, I transform a two-cost unit into an Arbiter Monolith to offer super damage, a Psi-Eel for Hazardous, or sometimes a Hopper to Hop out of the way so my monster can get in and attack. No matter the situation, Action: Transform can add some spice to it.

Back Line

This building should be in every list. I The Imperial State Building’s Action: City Planning is exceptionally important for moving out buildings you don’t want, like your opponent’s “junk” buildings. It’s also useful for moving in buildings when you need to make the most out of their ability. The Imperial State Building is one everyone should bring.

Quite uniquely the strongest building in the game and the simplest building, the Industrial Complex grants +1 Speed to everything in your army. Monsters each save a step or reach in deeper while units all bumping up into the next speed category. It’s simple: bring an Industrial Complex and profit across the board. (It’s no so complex after all, is it?)

I like having a few incombustible buildings in my back line to make throwing me into my own buildings a less favorable option. Because of that, I love to have a G.U.A.R.D. base hanging around. There are some games I never use its Action: Command & Control’s reroll ability, but there are some games I have won or lost due to that reroll. Again, Hurricanius can be attack dependent, and this building gives you a second chance when the dice don’t go your way.

For many of the same reasons I like the G.U.A.R.D. Base, the World Clock fits that same bill. It has a built-in single die reroll ability Omen, which may not be worth as much on a monster but can be significant on a unit. It also offers Rise of Civilization, which allows my Temple Monolith to use Action: Repair to bring a building directly back from a hazard tile.

Well, that was quite an extensive rundown, I know! I hope this helps players get some fresh ideas for building lists of their own. Next up: Destroyers!