Trashdome - Monsterpocalypse VS Dreamblade

vote: Monsterpocalypse

Never played either, but Monsterpocalypse looks awesome. Like they went for Heroscape's "every kind of cool fighter dude thrown into one game" mindset and applied it to the Godzilla destroys Tokyo scale. Plus, there's an "All Your Base" reference in one of the sets, and I can stand behind that.

Vote: Dreamblade

I figured this would be an unpopular trashdome...not as many people here have played MonPoc as should be the case, inexplicably.

Man this one is a snoozer. Neither of you are making me interested in trying either game. At. All.

Ancient_of_MuMu wrote:

MonPoc is a fantastic game that is slowly being killed by the collectible aspect.

You think so? There isn't a MonPoc scene here in London so I don't know where its popularity stands overall, but it seems like right now it's easier than ever to get into the game.

I agree that the collectible release model was a bad idea and it turned a lot of people off of the game immediately.

Monsterpocalypse's most obvious draw is the kaiju-wrasslin' theme. This is well-executed in both look and feel:

1) The miniatures look awesome - I'd go so far as to say that the Planet Eaters and Terrasaurs are some of the best pre-painted models I've ever seen - and a unified force adds to the game's already striking visuals.

2) Apart from Dune, I haven't seen another game whose mechanics are so deftly knit with its subject matter. Here we have monsters that come in normal, foundation-shaking Alpha forms which can be powered up into their corresponding superduper badass Hyper forms, their distinct unit detachments, and a variety of different buildings with which to construct your metropolis, all with a bevy of unique skills and abilities that give each faction its own 'feel'. There are rules for how to build a city (your map), for colliding with buildings and hazards such as roaring flames and nuclear waste, and for gaining 'power dice' by destroying your opponent's units and leveling the city's infrastructure (and occasionally by securing buildings and other areas of key tactical importance) which you then spend for your monster to perform WWF-style 'power attacks' like body-slamming another monster into the flaming foundation of a skyscraper, head-butts, throwing your opponent halfway across the map, swatting flying units out of the sky and into ground-pounding targets, or simply rampaging through everything in your path, leaving a wake of wreckage and upturned asphalt. There are specialty dice with explosions on them. It is awesome.

Now, the type of folks who would gravitate towards a game like this for the theme (which is most people, I think) are going to want to run faction-pure forces because it looks cooler when everything matches. Anybody attracted by Privateer Press' reputation for producing tactically complex titles will also want to go faction-pure, since those lists perform better under most circumstances (as units' abilities within a faction are designed to complement one another and it's cheaper to bring in-faction units into play than it is out-of-faction units.) So what did Privateer Press do? They made it all but fucking impossible to put together a faction-specific force because you had to buy everything in blind boosters.

(To their credit, however, the case distribution is awesome. If you buy a case of Monster boosters, you are guaranteed to get one of each monster in the Series, no repeats. If you buy a unit case, you are guaranteed to get at least one of each unit in the Series.)

That said, it wasn't long before the online singles market started to pick up momentum. Unit and monster singles were crazy expensive at first, but the prices had dropped dramatically by the release of Series 3, and with the release of Series 4 - which introduced six new factions - the prices of Series 1-3 models dropped even more. I ran some numbers of Monsterpocalypse singles about a month ago to compare the prices for Rise (Series 1) figures to Now (Series 4) figures. The "monster price" is the average price of all the monsters in the Series. The "faction price" takes a cue from TeamCovenant's ‘Monsterpocalypse Now’ Faction Packs, which offer a fully playable force in the form of one of each rare, two of each uncommon, and three of each common unit in a faction of your choosing. The value listed is the average price for a so-called "Faction Pack" in that Series. (All prices from the same online retailer.)

Avg. Now monster price: $10.15

Avg. Now faction price: $31.36

The Savage Swarm just edges out Ubercorp as the cheapest faction for units. Unurprisingly, Empire of the Apes is the most expensive.

Avg. Rise monster price: $7.32

Avg. Rise faction price: $17.05

That Rise faction price is also overstated since it includes the single most expensive unit in the game, the Lords of Cthul's "Meat Slave", which at $12.99 costs more than any of the monsters. If you're playing any Rise faction other than Lords of Cthul, the average faction price is $15.87.

Incidentally, the Rise buildings average $3.17 each as compared to $4.65 for Now buildings.

Buying singles online is also only one way to get into Monsterpocalypse. TeamCovenant, as I mentioned, is rocking a sweet deal where you can purchase a Series 4 starter for twenty bucks (five dollars less than retail) and for five dollars extra, they’ll replace the monster in the starter with whatever monster you want. On top of that, they’re selling "faction packs" for each force which, for between $30 and $40, will net you a completely kitted-out, faction-pure force. (For the record, it’s one of each rare unit, one more random rare, two of each uncommon unit, and three of each common unit to total thirteen units plus an extra building. And no, the most competitive armies aren’t all rares. Rare units serve a niche / utility role and barring two specific cases you won’t ever need more than one or two them.) For about $50, that nets you a monster of your choosing, thirteen units, three buildings, dice, a health tracker, and a map. Two of those and you're set to go - there's really no reason to buy random boosters anymore.

Additionally, some random geek’s recent Toy Fair photos reveal that Privateer Press will soon be offering their own two-player starter box (“A complete game for two players including two full forces!”, the box says.) If this is anything like the two-player bundle they offered at Christmas, it’ll run about $50 and include two starters and four unit boosters-worth of stuff, which nets you two monsters, twenty-four units, six buildings, two health trackers, two sets of dice, and maps. The monster and unit selection will probably be random, of course, but it's also half the price of going the TeamCovenant faction pack route. I can attest that playing with a motley assortment of units is every bit as fun, so I wouldn't worry about that too much.

Things to consider.

SleightOfHand12 wrote:

Ancient_of_MuMu wrote:

MonPoc is a fantastic game that is slowly being killed by the collectible aspect.

You think so? There isn't a MonPoc scene here in London so I don't know where its popularity stands overall, but it seems like right now it's easier than ever to get into the game.

In Melbourne things were going great (weekly tournaments with 8-12 attending with 20-30 people playing regularly) until the release of Series 2, when there was a gradual decline in interest until it died completely on the release of series 3. Many players stopped playing because they felt they weren't competitive without buying all the new units and monsters (plus they were only just starting to get a handle on what they had already), and then the rest stopped playing because they were sick of only playing the same 4 people each weak.

I love the game and think it is one of the best tactical minis games out there, but with no-one to play against any more my collection has been sitting in a cupboard collecting dust for 6 months and is now on the market.

Yeah, I can understand that kind of thing happening to a collectible game. Fortunately for Monpoc they're going to make non-collectible box sets, so we'll see how much better it will do in that format. Sounds like a great move to me.

www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion...ender-of-the-univers

My only concern here is that it might be dumbed down - it appears that there aren't any buildings.

Edit: Sleight, that sounds pretty good. Which online retailer are you looking at? I'd appreciate a link.

TeamCovenant does the Faction Packs, and I go through CoolStuffInc for most of my singles. If you can believe it, Troll & Toad has great prices on a bunch of singles too. Between those two sites you ought to be able to pick up anything for a reasonable amount. (Except for promos, obviously, where you're still better off hitting eBay.)

With reference to the stand-alone Voltron box set, Stormcow wrote:

My only concern here is that it might be dumbed down - it appears that there aren't any buildings.

Is that a bad thing?

1) Newbies are scared of rules. Many people are drawn to Monsterpocalypse for the 'big monsters dukin' it out' theme and come into the game expecting a beer'n'pretzels throw-down. While the mechanics portray theme every bit as well as you'd hope, the game is a hell of a lot deeper than you'd expect.

A lot of the complexity arises from the monsters, the units, and the buildings each having their own unique set of abilities. Probably the most common complaint I hear from first-timers is 'Holy shit! Too many little icons! I have no idea what does what!'.

2) Newbies are scared of collectibility (I mean, rightly so.) They want to plunk down a wad of cash and be ready to go.

By taking buildings out of the mix, I'd say that PP address both issues with the Voltron set - easing the rules load for newbies who are interested in picking up a stand-alone set to test the waters of MonPoc.

Nice job, Sleight! Now who can tell us why Dreamblade is so awesome?

metalface13 wrote:

Now who can tell us why Dreamblade is so awesome?

Anybody?

Barnes will do it.

Dreamblade = 5
dragonstout
Mr Skeletor
Stormcrow
telengard
Rliyen

Monsterpocalypse = 4
Stephen "lickshisminis" Avery
The Expanding Man
Ancient_of_MuMu
Aarontu


I couldn't find SleightOfHand12's vote, which assuming it was for MonPoc would have made it a tie. I've never played either game, but I don't like that when I looked at Dreamblade's peices they mostly looked to be variations of typical fantasy monsters. I thought the game would have brought out its theme better with more abstract looking shit like the scissors peice. So I'd give my vote to Monsterpocalypse because it looks cooler.

Ahh shit, I forgot to actually Vote: Monsterpocalypse.

Mad Dog wrote:

Dreamblade = 5
dragonstout
Mr Skeletor
Stormcrow
telengard
Rliyen

Monsterpocalypse = 4
Stephen "lickshisminis" Avery
The Expanding Man
Ancient_of_MuMu
Aarontu


I couldn't find SleightOfHand12's vote, which assuming it was for MonPoc would have made it a tie. I've never played either game, but I don't like that when I looked at Dreamblade's peices they mostly looked to be variations of typical fantasy monsters. I thought the game would have brought out its theme better with more abstract looking shit like the scissors peice. So I'd give my vote to Monsterpocalypse because it looks cooler.

Yep, Dreamblade does have a lot of fantasy type monsters but there are some very unique/humorous ones too, some of my favorites:

Doomball
Chaos Puppeteer
Hammerhead
Infernal Gothic
Mirrorman (love that Have a Nice Day button, nice touch)
Genteel Husk
Zombie Enforcer
Slaughter Boots
Battleweaver
Buzzkill Clown
Illuminati Pyramid
Baba Yaga's Hut
Lord Slobber
Fireman
Lion Rampant
Falling Man
Unwishing Well
Malefic Steamroller
Stained Glass Angel
Nevret Flamer

I also like a lot of the monpoc minis too. The sculpts and paint jobs are great.

~telengard