“What! Privateer Press is making a prepainted minis game? It’s based on kaiju movies? It’s a collectible?” all these thoughts rushed through my head October 29th 2007, flash forward to nearly a year later and I finally have my hands on a preview of the game at PAX the Penny Arcade Expo.

The short of Monsterpocalypse is this, It delivers what the theme promises, and then gives you a little bit more. And with some trading your only out 51-64 bucks per player.

The long of Monsterpocalypse is after the jump

The game is set up on a square grid adorned with a number of buildings. while playing you take turns activating your monster or activating your units.

Monsters move and function exactly like they do in the movies, destroying things with them is ridiculously easy, they don’t have to worry about most terrain features even if their feat are stuck on the ground. If you want to get cinematic they have power attack options that let your beast shine but are also super effective ways of beating down the opposition and effecting the playing field.

Units are the little guys, the creatures that accompany the monster or the brave people who fight against them with little more then a tank wrapped around them. In the big picture they are not really that important, they have trouble doing the things monsters take for granted. however in a game that often ends with both players very close to wining these figures can make the difference between winning or losing.

Like I said earlier when it’s your turn you have the choice to take a unit turn or a monster turn, with monsters being more effective it’s in your best interest to take a monster turn. So what stops you from only taking monster turns? Thats when the deceptively clever dice pool mechanics kick in.

You have 10 action dice that start the game in your unit dice pool. These dice are spent during your unit turn to deploy new units, move units, and attack with units. when a dice are spent they are moved to your monster pool. This opens up the option to take a monster turn.

When taking a monster turn any dice spent are moved back into the unit pool. In addition to action dice you will also be earning power dice, both your monster and your units can earn power dice. These dice can be used by your monster to make power attacks, and when used correctly can let a player take turn after turn of monster rampaging goodness by allowing them to conserve their action dice and use power dice instead. Also available are boost dice, these dice are added to attacks by the ability of the figures making the attack, they are key to making efficient use of your dice pools

The key to the pool mechanics is all about efficiency, sure your monster could use 8 action dice and roll his full brawl attack of 8 to take down a low defense building but maybe if you only roll a few you could take another monster turn afterwards? While hardcore players will delve into strategies to use their dice to the fullest, these mechanics are easy to learn and should present no challenge to new players.

Lets talk about over all rules design. Privateer Press has two very large miniatures games under their belt and they have learned from their mistakes. So far the special rules and abilities used throughout Monsterpocalypse adhere to a very tight timing and vocabulary structure. While it may be a little confounding at first each figure’s special abilities are found in a row of symbols on the right side of it’s base, these symbols reference an ability card. The trick is they are compound symbols each one is made up of an outer black shape and an inner white shape, the black shape tells you the type of rule it is and the white shape tells you the effect. This means if you can identify the black shapes you will know how the rule works before you look up it’s effect.

As this is a collectible game you need to know how to get a playable set. The full game releases in October at that point I would recommend each player buy one starter and two to three unit boosters about $51-64 bucks. This will get you everything you need to get the feel of the full game. For just a taste of the game a starter works, however your unit turns will be severely reduced in effectiveness.

If your intent on playing with a map full of buildings you will need to purchase more unit boosters and I would suggest picking up the map pack because it has an exclusive building. Note that some monsters do MUCH better without a bunch of buildings to get in their way. Any monster that does not fly falls under this category.

Only buy more then one monster if your interested in collecting a few of them or you want to play huge two on two monster games. In that case you may consider picking up and extra starter or one of the accessory packs (honestly the extra starter is the better deal IMO)

This is a random purchase collectible so it’s HIGHLY suggested that you attend a few local events to trade with other players, due to the trading at pax I was able to collect a very nice two player set and only laid down about $113 bucks.

Rarity is something that defines if a publisher is out to hustle you out of your cash or if they have legitimate reasons to go with a collectible format. The monster boosters look good because each of the 12 monsters are even in rarity, depending on the final case distribution it could be very likely that getting a full set of monsters should be easy.

The unit boosters are a bit different in that units do have a rarity ranging from * to *** stars. In each unit booster you get two * star units and one each of ** star and *** star units. Judging from the preview set at PAX this distribution should give you a nice playable collection. Given that you will actually want more * star units in your team then *** star. given how *** star units tend to have leadership or support rolls. It’s also worth mentioning that you get a new biulding in each unit booster

Do I even need to mention how sweet this game looks on the table and how satisfying it is to watch a once tall city scape be reduced to rubble and flame? The visuals on this game are top notch and photos don’t do it justice. With paint jobs that compare to some of the best figure work coming out of japan and the personality behind each factions distinct look and play style, not to mention the best looking rule book for a collectible game i can remember. It’s a top notch experience.

This game delivers, if you have enjoyed collectible miniatures games but always wanted something more from them then this is a game for you. If you loved playing more traditional miniatures games but just dont have the time to keep up the whole hobby then Monsterpocalypse will not disappoint.

Well I could go on and on about Monsterpocalypse but then I would spoil all the neat tactics I have been working on.