Monsterpocolypse

Stephen Avery wrote:

I'm going to start nosing around for a cheap set of these. I have some games I'm selling off and surely there is someone who wants to unload some in trade.

Steve"GameVulture"Avery

Shouldn't be that hard, there looks to be a decent secondary market for the game and I've seen MonPoc stuff up for trade on TOS and a couple of other CCG/CMG trading sites.

heya, If you see any particuliarly juicy deals shoot me some mail. I don;t even know what I'm shopping for yet...

Steve"need more plastic"Avery

Stephen Avery wrote:

heya, If you see any particuliarly juicy deals shoot me some mail. I don;t even know what I'm shopping for yet...

Steve"need more plastic"Avery

Okay. I decided to focus on the GUARD, SSS, and Terrasaurs factions myself (but it took me like 2 weeks to narrow it down to just that half of the factions.

Kerry

I played it the other day. Anyone who thought Race for the Galaxy had too many symbols should stay away. Apart from that, it's a good, enjoyable game. If it wasn't collectable I'd probably be buying (though given the rip-off prices in England, finding a good deal could be a chore).

Notahandle wrote:

I played it the other day. Anyone who thought Race for the Galaxy had too many symbols should stay away.

DEFINITELY print out UniversalHead's stat cards on TOS. Makes the game much, much better. I can't believe they didn't think stat cards were the way to go...

dragonstout wrote:
"DEFINITELY print out UniversalHead's stat cards on TOS. Makes the game much, much better. I can't believe they didn't think stat cards were the way to go..."
I should have guessed that UniversalHead's on the ball as usual! We were passing the booklet back and forth all the time, so stat cards should be a big help. Unfortunately I don't know whether I'll get to play it again because it was brought to demo, and I was the only one interested. I'll mention the stat cards to him though, I'm sure he'd appreciate them.

I picked up two starter sets cheap and have played three games so far.

The game pretty much rocks. I was skepical of the dice pool system initially and thought it might be cumbersome but it turns out to be fluid and well implemented. It also makes you make some difficult choices on whether to maximize your turn by using the whole pool or reserving some to give you more flexibilty.

Occupying vs. destroying buildings is also a difficult choice. Destroying them gives a quick boost whereas occupying provides a more steady payoff.

Lastly there is a huge variety of powers and attacks. Ultimately it boils down to lots of choices which will keep the games interesting and provide the players with a wide variety of stratgies at their disposal.

The downside is: there are a lot of choices. On top of that, most of the information is in symbols. It is bewildering for a beginner and pretty much overwhelming. Even during the third time I played, we both were forgetting powers and buffs available to us. I think this is the kind of game that you're going to need to play a few times to really be on top of whats going on. Not only that, but you probably want to play a very small game with limited unit types. You'll still have your hands full keeping track of things which leads to my only real criticism of the game. The iconography could have been better organized. Many traits are keyed to spefic types of monsters. Knowing whats important to your monster is huge and its a pain to search around all the little symbols looking for it. The last game played we strated out, pointing out our main powers and what objectives were keyed to our monsters. That way we were able to concentrate more on tactics and less on searching for waht our opponent might consider valuable.

Being a 2 player CMG means that its going to be very difficult to get more plays in here in ATL. The groups tend to be largish and I'm really the only one who likes this sort of thing. Not only that, but I'm one of the few who aren't bothered by the minutia of a billion special rules ( thus my love of heroclix and old 80's games.) But i'll definately be on the prowl to play it more. The game has a neat combat system, some clever ideas and best of all...REALLY REALLY GREAT BITS!

Steve"Monsterpocalyspian"Avery

Stephen Avery wrote:

Even during the third time I played, we both were forgetting powers and buffs available to us. I think this is the kind of game that you're going to need to play a few times to really be on top of whats going on. Not only that, but you probably want to play a very small game with limited unit types.

You don't need to play a small game, so much as you need to play a mono-faction game. It's a lot easier to remember the powers when they all come from one faction, as there's really basically only about 4-5 different kinds of units per faction and they share a lot of abilities.

I'll tell you what Avery, when the Voltron edition comes out, I'll give it a chance. Provided I can cut a robot in half with a flaming sword.

It's a great game - yes the icons are a little overwhelming at first but become reasonably intuitive after a few games.

It should appeal to both A-T'ers and miniature wargamers/Privateer Press fan boys.

I found it plays true to the PP philosophy of rewarding agressive play.

The collectible aspect can be overcome by a good on-line secondary market where you can buy exactly what you want for pretty much the retail cost of the contents of the sealed packs.

I think it is a fun. I've only gotten it to the table once though. I *want* to play it more but am having trouble convincing my main gaming homie to give it another chance. He had iconoverload

vandemonium wrote:

I think it is a fun. I've only gotten it to the table once though. I *want* to play it more but am having trouble convincing my main gaming homie to give it another chance. He had iconoverload

Seriously, just print out UniversalHead's cards and stick to a single faction for each player (trade to do so). You won't have to worry about learning icons, you won't have too many powers to learn, and you subliminally learn the icons after just a couple games. I've had great success teaching it to non-gamers.