Trashdome - Monsterpocalypse VS Dreamblade

WELCOME TO TRASHDOME!

This is part of a series of bloody matches to the death. Show support for your favorite game so it will do better in the fight. You can support it by writing why you think its the better game and more importantly by betting on it. End your first post in this thread with the title of the game you're placing a bet on (i.e. voting for) so its clear to me when reading it later. You have until Friday when I tally the bets and declare the winner. Counting expansions or not is entirely up to you just as playing with them or not is. I will reserve my bet for any tie-breakers.

Although you should be familiar with both games, there is no rule that says you have to have played both of them. The only rule in Trashdome is this;

Two games enter! One game leaves!

DREAMBLADE

But that's partly because I'm more of a Magic guy than a miniatures guy. Dreamblade feels kinda like a Magic board game, whereas Monsterpocalypse feels much, much more like a miniatures game. Monsterpocalypse is still really cool, but also doesn't play as well in a sealed-deck environment as Dreamblade does. You really have to have armies constructed around a theme.

I'm almost tempted to vote for Monsterpocalypse just because it doesn't get nearly as much talk around here as it should. The power moves are awesome, as is the feel of powering up your monster with red dice to set up for just going on a multi-turn rampage with it. Despite the theme it's a very thoughtful game, though, which may rub some people the wrong way.

dragonstout wrote:

Dreamblade feels kinda like a Magic board game, whereas Monsterpocalypse feels much, much more like a miniatures game.

Agreed. Monsterpocalypse is a miniatures game that happens to use a gridded map for movement. Dreamblade is an area control boardgame that happens to use miniatures.

Around these parts, few ATers have played both. I have though and I'm voting

MONPOC

Steve"SMASH"Avery

Vote: Dreamblade.
only one i have played.

Haven't played either. Although that upcoming Voltron MonPoc set sounds awesome.

Monpoc has great minis and is an okay game, but Dreamblade is one of the best games I've played, be it minis or boardgame. Since these are both CMGs, it bears mentioning that you need a huge collection to make Monpoc shine. Dreamblade on the other hand gives a good amount of play without needing new figs all the time. I guess Monpoc might be the better hobby, but Dreamblade is the better game.

VOTE: DREAMBLADE

Vote: Monpoc


Stormcow wrote:

Since these are both CMGs, it bears mentioning that you need a huge collection to make Monpoc shine. game.

Not necessarily. Buy a starter pack.

Bypass the whole collectible aspect by using the etailers that sell single models. You will need about another 8 buildings and 10 or so units.

I've been trying to "genericize" mine a bit by using hirst mold pieces for buildings and removing some of the faction spedific nonsense they put in to make you buy more,More.MORE!

Steve"GiantTanktopMonster"Avery

But the game is much more difficult to learn without faction-specific armies; it's hard enough to remember all the icons from a single faction (which often have a lot of overlap), when you mix factions it's impossible to keep everything straight.

No, you don't need a huge collection to play MonPoc, you just don't want to use boosters and starters to begin your collection, I think. You want to buy premade faction armies.

By the way...heh...does anyone want any of my premade faction armies for sale?

No I was referring to some of the extra powers that require 'X'

Or some of the buildings that have powers that only work for a particuliar player. The game has a lot of cogs that are designed to spur collectability without adding significantly to the base game. Its easy enough to discount them and simplify some of the many icons that riddle the pieces.

Steve"simpleton"Avery

The only thing I've done w/ MonPoc so far is make proxies for Dreamblade's Serrated Dawn.

I do want to try out MonPoc some day though, it looks like it would be fun.

Vote: Dreamblade

~telengard

Stephen Avery wrote:

No I was referring to some of the extra powers that require 'X'

Or some of the buildings that have powers that only work for a particuliar player. The game has a lot of cogs that are designed to spur collectability without adding significantly to the base game. Its easy enough to discount them and simplify some of the many icons that riddle the pieces.

Steve"simpleton"Avery

A lot of that stuff is important to the design of the game, though: it may seem annoying that some buildings only give extra power dice to the Planet-Eater faction when smashed, or only give extra power dice to the Protectors when secured, but this faction-specificity is (part of) what encourages the different playstyles for the factions, as, in the above examples, this encourages the Planet-Eaters to eat buildings and the Protectors to protect buildings.

Agreed but there is quite a bit of stuff designed purely for collectiblity. And frankly you just don't need all of it for good game design. Unless you play a lot there is no way you're going be able to reference 20+ icons and still enjoy the game.
I've geared mine to a more casual format that will get played a couple times a year (if I'm lucky) and can go with a cold start.

Steve"minis famine"Avery

Vote: Monsterpocalypse
MonPoc is a fantastic game that is slowly being killed by the collectible aspect. If it was a stand-alone minis game with collectivity it would be one of the highest rated ones out there, up there with Blood Bowl and Space Hulk.