So I have been an avid gamer for some time now, and until the creation and launch of world of Warcraft Minis, I never really enjoyed tabletop gaming. I played around with Warhammer and 40K, enjoyed painting, but never got much into the games themselves. At one point I was actually painting for cash, but then I graduated college and got a real job.
Then last week, in the midst of making it to my local gaming store early, I had an urge. I wanted to play something new, and so did my friend with me. We both said we had wanted to look at Monsterpocalypse for some time now, and with the recent introduction of the newest expansion, Monsterpocalypse Now, we figured why not now?
There are certain things in life that immediately hook us. The reach into our souls and touch a place that even our subconscious doesn't know exists. It hits a home run and scores in a flash... for example, when I was 4, the first movie I saw in a theater that I can remember, was Star Wars. Hooked, from the moment the words started scrolling, even though I couldn't read half of them... and then that giant ship came into view... yup, I was a lifer.
This same thing happened with MonPoc. I bought a starter, and said, "Oh wow, they have giant Apes!" as i looked over the box. I immediately said, "That would rock if I got an Ape." Guess what I got?
Yup, Gakura! This dude is a giant Ape, hairy, angry, and is wielding a train. A TRAIN! Not often do I get to sit down, play as an Ape, a train wielding ape at that, and get to be told, "Yes, you can throw me into a building."
This game rules so far and as such, I made this place for me to chat about my experiences in learning to play it from scratch.
Perhaps my favorite thing, is all the models are very detailed and superbly painted for pre-painted minis. Major props to Privateer Press on this aspect.
As such, tonight was my first full game. My buddy, Daniel, who bought the game with me, came over and we decided to sit down and destroy some buildings. I went out and bought a Unit Booster as well as the Privateer Press building with the All Your Base Map Pack, and we decided to play on Highway to Hellvue as our map.
This was an interesting thing, as we don't have a ton of buildings, but we had enough to cover the green foundations. A few apartment buildings, a few newspaper buildings, a constructions crane, and a privateer press building later, and it was on to clobbering time.
Me with my Gakura, and him with his Krakenoctus, the Invader Triton monster. We both had very few units to speak of, let alone matching ones, but I was able to secure a few more apes, so we decided to pay without faction cost penalties and speed things up.
I really enjoy how the dice are your resource in this game. In short, you start with 10 Action Dice (A-Dice) in your Unit Pool. When you spawn, move or attack, you use one or more A-dice to do so. Those used, are then shifted to your Monster Pool. As the game progresses, you can choose to use your Units or Monsters, and the dice in each one's respective pool is at their disposal.
The thing I think I like is there are so many options. The pivitol turning point in our game came when Krakenoctus used a Power Attack with 6 Red Power Dice (P-Dice), 1 Blue Boost Dice (B-Dice) and 7 A-Dice to hit Gakura with a Power Attack: Throw, sending me flying 6 city blocks backwards, and hitting a Newspaper building. This did 1 damage for the hit, 1 damage for the collision with the building, and 1 damage because said building turns into a towering inferno when destroyed! 3 damage! This may not seem like much to the average gamer, but when you only have 6 life and no current owned way of healing... it hurts!
In the end, Gakura fell to the power of Krakenoctus, but not without turning the entire cityscape, except for the indestructible Privateer Press building, to rubble and or fire!
So I'm 0-1, and yet, left wanting more... more apes that is!
